Maybe there's still some life in this thing

I didn't mention it in my last posting, but my only real compulsion to get this thing going again came at the goading of Charlie Danoff. Before I explain the entire circumstances of it, I should probably introduce Charlie...

Charlie Danoff's my closest JET-neighbor. If you drive 40km-ish drive south from Sarufutsu on Route 238, you'll arrive in his town Hamatonbetsu. Hamaton's about 5,000-people large and is the site of the world-renowned Lake Kucharo (well, maybe just Japan-renowned(. The lake's famous for the swans that annually migrate from Russia and make Kucharo their home for the winter. I don't think it's a World Heritage site, but it does a few distinctions like that of a lesser caliber. For it's size, Hamatonbetsu seems to be a pretty lively, high-spirited place. Maybe towns outside of the northermost, coldest region of Japan blow Hamaton away; proportionally it just feels far more bustling than my town, Sarufutsu. That's also why I often escape what can be the boredom of my town for whatever's happening in Hamaton (festivals, dinner-parties, etc.(. Case and point: I'm actually typing this from Charlie's right now (and on his computer with a broken end-parenthetical key, which is why all my afterthoughts and specifications end with this...(. Charlie's originally from Chicagoland, spending most of his formative years in a suburb that actually neighbor's where my aunt grew up.

All that said, Charlie is always pushing me to keep up the blog. He initially had similar struggles keeping his afloat, but now it seems to be experiencing a renaissance of sorts, as you can see here: http://leftinfront.wordpress.com/author/cdanoff/ (he wants to add him to his "blog roll," which I don't know how to do; so for now he'll have to settle with the above link(. For my previous entry, it was a mutual agreement that we would post something by last Friday that motivated me (although both of us missed the deadline by a couple of days(. This time, it's the agreement that if I write another blog entry and start a Twitter account (he's recently become infatuated with that, too(, he'll download Skype. Right now I also have some time to kill, as he's still sleeping off our night--with James, another Northern Hokkaido JET, and various locals--of a nature-drive, an enkai (you could call it a dinner party, but there's a little more drinking and raucousness involved(, and karaoke. As soon as he wakes up, we should be off to near-by Nakatonbetsu for a basketball tournament. Wish us luck...