Nov. 1: Oh, I just remembered I have to change all the calendars / well my day is suddenly packed.
Meanwhile, my darling wife is outside running a woodchipper – filling up bins made from pallets – processing all the branches etc she collects at her job sites, making into chips which will then go over cardboard then goat poop compost to reclaim land into garden #keitruck
Time for oxygen mask and watch the rest of this hockey game I have on pause.
Really nothing to the usual days except for the brilliance of usual days, appros of really nothing, i annotate for amusement. Carry on in a disinter-mediated manner:
new kamidana house shrine for ancestors – made in Tottori from a slab of gingko wood
Okayama memo: The thing I really like most about is its very “usualness” {aside from being famous for the Momotaro peach boy story and being a “place you pass through to get to other places”} is also almost always sunny but not today (this Cascadian doesn’t mind the rain though).
My 1st era in Japan in the early 90s, was in Tottori (remote w/ kei-truck), later hiding out near Miasa, Nagano. When came back few years ago, found Okayama was just right / Not a hectic sensory overload city but has big hospital, Immigration etc.
Yes, we “lean heavily” into Momotaro folktale here and the image of a peach is scattered all over from statues to utility pole covers and gosh, peaches with a boy coming out of them can look really funny! And apparently it’s the sunniest prefecture in Japan.
By post: Three pack of organic oatmeal arrived. {always mean to scribble down “tasting notes“ with all the different kinds but never do and never remember which ones were “great“ but all are, you know, good enough} ~ Eat each morning with variety of nuts, berries and sometimes yogurt.
Today by post: hori hori garden tool (this one is artisan made, previously ordered for wife and mother-in-law from off-the-shelf made-in-Japan company) / this one needs sharpened up and it didn’t come with a case/holster :( feels good in the hand though.
can dig, cut, scoop and thwack and wathever else in the garden with this tool
Day in the life:
ate salad with smoked salmon for lunch
loaded our new tiny dishwasher
sent a telegram, really
attempting to remove chewing gum from a pocket of a favorite shirt with ice packs #pending
now a rest before finishing laundry
Next day: One oatmeal, three coffees, two baskets of laundry, two hockey games… Now switching to loungewear and some tax paperwork. Then maybe repair a wicker stool after lunch.
Update: some arcane tax documents prepared, stamped, notarized, faxed, ready to mail in Duplicate etc. Indian curry and smoked salmon/avocado/lettuce salad lunch with darling. Next (going to try) to put a new seat on this wicker stool with hemp cloth and upholstery thumbtacks.
It’s not a masterpiece but it’s decent. Sturdy Polish hemp cloth, rugged long tacks & see how it goes. Hooray for hexagons!
Hockey Lounge 4:20 24/7, immortalized at Olympic Plaza in SLC, Utah, 2002Preamble: for years, mostly living in Olympia, Washington and later Vancouver, BC I wrangled a website called HockeyNW tracking historic and contemporary hockey culture around Cascadia including teams: Tacoma SaberCats, Seattle Thunderbirds, Spokane Chiefs, flashing back to Seattle Metropolitans, bits of Portland and of course Vancouver, as well the in-line hockey teams i coached through a YMCA league in Olympia.
During this time my brother Dan and i (something) hosted the “Hockey Lounge” in Olympia, Washington – a speak / toke easy” to spread hockey culture (and provide occasional crash space for rock n roll bands – another story).
Some of the artifacts are shared in this archive, others might be eventually.
Anyhow… what I’m saying is: all of this was anticipating the arrival of another NHL franchise in the Northwest which eventually became the Seattle Kraken. Took a while and now I live far away but, recently shared a bit of an “hockey primer” with a friend who lives in Washington State who is a soccer/football supporter to share a little bit of culture and basics about the sport.
I don’t really write about hockey anymore and my “consumption experience” is generally solo, with coffee in the cottage in Japan, regardless, sharing here for posterity:
June 11, 2021 Hello [redacted],
Been meaning to tell you a few things about hockey and now it’s a really good time for you to start paying attention because it’s almost into the third round of the Stanley Cup playoffs, I’m currently listening to Seattle’s “expansion cousins” Vegas Golden Knights game six against the Colorado Avalanche (who used to be the Quebec Nordiques) yes it’s a little bit confusing especially when you consider the winner of the series will play the Montréal Canadiens, who are from Quebec – Canada sorta / of course but the French-centric part and who shocked the hockey world by running over their long time rival Toronto (a.k.a. the centre of the universe) Maple Leafs and then swept aside the Winnipeg Jets (who used to be the Atlanta Thrashers) it’s things like this that require a good primer.
The good thing about Seattle Kraken is now Vancouver has a natural geographical rival. In the past, the other teams would all match-up with natural dance-partners and Van was sort of stranded in their own little glorious West Coast anomaly. As we’ve seen with MLS, having teams in Portland, Seattle and Vancouver makes for good times for supporters/fans/whatever.
ergo: “New podcast now UP from my talk last week with Dave Olson about his career as a social media visionary for Hoostsuite in Vancouver, and his current projects with house remodel and designing scrapbook style postcards to create social connections during Covid. Look forward to a future chat (when it’s not rainy) more on his house remodel project + look forward to a future chat with his arborist partner about her interesting passion for trees.”
Pulled out a lot of stories that I’ve kept it hidden for sometime. Thanks for the space to riff out the long jams. Topics around building a holistic life in Japan, i.e. our generational house project, story making as a biz, living cheap and cheerful, possibly fermenting, and yeah my arborist/jazz singer wife Ryoko and my exceptionally adorable almost 1-year-old Ichiro Stanley.
Even a pitch for my DaveOShop at Buy Me a Coffee and mentions of loads of other creative output you’ll find in this very archive.
I was guest on JJ Walsh’s live video streaming show (which transmits via YT, FB and several other channels using Happs.tv) from Hiroshima. Noticed so many interesting guests on her show so raised my hand and sent an “audition reel” and voila…
From Creative Social Media Connections to Postcard Storytelling | Dave Olson| Episode 259
JJ’s introduction:
“Poems and Postcards from Okayama to the World by DaveOStory Dave Olson – looking forward to chatting about life in rural Japan, finding a creative way to connect with people across the world during Covid, his background in journalism and career as a Canadian hockey commentator and more…”
Was fun to riff on so many different topics and stories. Noting that the effervescent Ms. Walsh rocks out one or two of these shows *every weekday* (buy her a coffee). Huge commitment to building community and boundless energy. She really does her preparation as well #Respect PS there is also an audio podcast version of Seeking Sustainability for your aural convenience.
Pulled out a lot of stories that I’ve kept it hidden for sometime. Thanks for the space to riff out the long jams. Topics around building a holistic life in Japan, i.e. our generational house project, story making as a biz, living cheap and cheerful, possibly fermenting, and yeah my arborist/jazz singer wife Ryoko and my exceptionally adorable almost 1-year-old Ichiro Stanley.
Even a pitch for my DaveOShop at Buy Me a Coffeeand mentions of loads of other creative output you’ll find in this very archive.
just a little DIY promo item of me cheesing out with a postbox in Katsuyama
Note: had planned to set-up outside but just before noticed the workers are pulling into the yard with tile / brick saws (loud!) and a rain is falling (i don’t mind but the camera do) so gonna adjust my planned set up.
This summer was a splendid fog of humid waves of action welcoming baby Ichiro amongst *all the world*. Yet, remains tasks to do (esp as i am still getting settled as an immigrant in a new country and logistically removing myself from several other countries, so: make a list, check the items, repeat.
Anyhow, what follows are scenes of “usual days” in late-summer 2020 as we caught up on life after welcoming Ichiro and tending to various life admin tasks. In other words, the bits which don’t fit anywhere else yet i find somehow amusing. Minimally annotated, non-chronologically. Carry on.
Note: I roll slowly (1 action per day and only 1 outing a week usually) so strategic planning and adjusting to my health and the baby’s need were/are key.
Background: I have challenging/delicate eyes (astigmatism, wearing glasses since a baby) and need an awesome ophthalmologist (眼科医 Gankai) eye doctor – was hoping someone with english skills as some the vocab evades me but had a very thorough test and fresh prescription to take to an ace optometrist and/or optician + optical shop / Note: tricky eyes so the “cheap and cheerful” places aren’t right for me.
Also: for the eye chart, instead of “letters” it was circle shapes with an opening to the up, down, right or, left. Of course the circle shapes and the opening became progressively smaller. got to do it all in japanese to add the brain confusion / needed to be placed in a dark quiet room for the rest of the day to reset my brain / needed a quiet room after. Continue reading Diary: usual days / summer’s end 2020 (ophthalmologist, peanut butter, cats, coins, plans)→
Various hockey ephemera (cards, calendars, tickets, clippings), made into a shadowbox once upon a time, broken, harvested and laid in situ.
Primarily Vancouver Canucks related including: Captain Marcus Naslund, goaltenders variety of Gary Bromley, Kirk McLean, Dan Cloutier plus tickets stubs from Vancouver Canucks, Seattle Thunderbirds, schedule from Vancouver Giants, plus Mario Lemieux and Wayne Gretzky to rub off some greatness, and a list of Stanley Cup champions torn from a newspaper. Plus, Vancouver Canucks puck #inventory
Of such items, many many more exist in boxes, this just appeared behind broken glass.
Fish Stories with Stan Smyl at Canadian House, Vancouver 2010 Olympics
Apparently i was telling Stan about my “Dr” Hunter S Thompson Media badge and/or John Stockton also wearing #12 or that we love to cook “Stan’s Mom’s Perogies” from the 1982 Canucks Family cookbook (note to self: share that precious artifact).
Richard Loat and Stan Smyl at Canadian House, Vancouver 2010 Olympics
As an enthusiast of creative commons “alt copyright”, I publish/shared many photos under an “non-commercial/attribution/sharealike license” which resulted in my images popping up in many places, often not with the proper attribution and dubious commercialization, but hey, life’s complicated like that sometimes. Nevertheless, I do try to document these things for the permanent record. In this case, my photo of the Stanley Cup (snapped at an NHL trophy exhibit at SLC Olympics in 2002) used and shared in many places, including / here in “Real Clear Sports” (whatever that is) in a bit of “meta” documentation using a screenshot of an archived version of the page.
