Japan Fest 2008

Today my dad and I went to Japan Fest 2008 in Arlington Heights. It was a fun event. I wish we could had gone earlier or not work this night. We got there about 2:44pm and got home at 5:40pm. I had to work a 6:00pm. I went to the Largest Japanese Grocery Store in America afterwards called "Mitsuwa". Excellent Prices. I got a drink called "J1" (I think, thats what it says on the bottle.) Its Pomegranate w/ Aloe Juice. It's got to be one of the best drinks I have ever had. They should sell it in American Grocery Stores Too!!! I talked to a Japanese Lady at the event who gave me alot of information on kimonos and obis. I found out that guys do use a bow (A VERY GIRLISH LOOKING BOW!!!) to tie there obis. I'm still working my way into being brave enough to wear my yukata in public.

If I did not mention. My family and I will be vacationing in Tennessee on July 1st thru 6th. I can't wait. My Grandparents own a farm house in Washburn, TN on 33 acres.

Rakugo "Sit-Down Comedy"

Yesterday I went to Downtown Chicago to Volunteer for a event being hosted by City of Osaka. For those who don't know Chicago and Osaka are sister city's and this year (2008) is there 35th anniversary. The event was called "RAKUGO" which is Japanese Comedy. Read About It Here There is so much I want to share about this event. I got the e-mail address of Katsura Asakichi who is one of the Stage Proformers. He is looking forward to my e-mail because he wants to improve his english. I loved this event. I got to volunteer for this event through someone at my church named leroy who knows mami-san who was one of the organizers of this event. I was very tempted to wear my yukata to the event but I was worried that I would have the obi tied wrong since there is like NO INSTRUCTIONS ONLINE to tie an obi. There was a TV crew from a Japanese News Group in Japan interviewing people. Also there was a lady wearing a beautiful red Kimono she also had two little girls wearing kimonos. That was the first time I saw someone wearing a kimono so perfectly in person. I received a gift from the proformers it was a Japanese Fan, Notebook and Small White Bath Towel. I helped run the Will Call Table. There was this guy I think his name was something close to Mitsubishi like mishi or mushi. I wish I could remember. Well he was very nice and at one point he was pointing his fingers at me like he was saying "It all you!" or "Great Job!". I felt like he was my boss and I was his favorite employee. I think he was the person appointed by Japan to be there Cultural Ambassador. Oh, and doing the bowing when greeting or thanking someone is very addictive. I was not doing it at first but I was doing it all over afterwards.

YWAM Update

On Tuesday Barbra from YWAM got back with me and gave me two e-mail addresses for someone named Robert and Tom. Tom is the director of YWAM Asia and Rob (If I understand her correctly) lives in Japan and knows someone on staff at YWAM Japan. So far I have only got a reply from Rob and he says that he thinks I need to take a 5-6 month class at YWAM called DTS (Discipleship Training School). Not that its a bad thing. I sort of hope I don't have to because I want to get involved in IT work not field work. Also the DTS cost is ¥520,000 yen which is more then $4800.00 DOLLARS. I will need a lot of supporters to do that. My goal is to shoot for there listings on YWAM.org for either an IT in Tokyo or Website Designer in Osaka

Also today I went to a place in Mokena, Illinois called Sapporo. They serve Japanese Steak, Seafood and Sushi. I had the steak and boy it was pretty good. I got a ton of Fried Rice and some Miso Soup. I highly suggest this place.

And for those who have not been paying attention YWAM is short for "Youth With a Mission"

Rsponse from YWAM

Yesterday I received a phone call from someone at YWAM in response to my letter. She was very helpful. Like I thought she told me there is a huge need in the mission field for volunteer IT people. she also told me her husband is an Volunteer IT at YWAM in Orlando and is in a similer case to me having no official computer training. She said there is not much she can do from Orlando speaking the place I want to go is Japan. She asked if I tried contacting YWAM in Japan and I said yes. I tried 10-20 different e-mail addresses several months ago and never received an answer. She said starting Monday she will start working on the details for a short term trip for me and get back with me later next week. She told me that speaking to me she could tell that I was passionate about this. She was very interested in the fact I administer and design two websites (http://victoryreins.org and http://greenetreelinen.com). When I receive more information I will post it.

Also earlier this week (6/7/8) I attended my friend Robert Dolan's Wedding. There I met Charlie O'Connell, someone who used to go to our church when I was in youth group. He is very interested in Japan and other countries. In madder a fact he has lived in Japan for about 3/4th a year total. We talked and he told me a lot of good advice like if I get a choice of where to stay in Japan he said try to stay with a Host Family you will learn so much more about their culture. and some other great advice.

Side Note

A couple months ago I met someone at my church named Leroy and I found he has a desire for Japan as well. Well today he e-mailed me and asked if I would be interest in Volunteering for some Japanese Event........No Details on what it is about. but none the less it sounds cool.

Earlier this week I had the opportunity to talk with someone my family has known for sometime now. She is am employee for a company near me in University Park called Applied Systems. She said that if I e-mail her my resume she would personally hand it in. She said it should not be that hard to get a job in there IT as a Desktop Support. She said that someone would contact me and schedule a time for me to come in to complete a Quiz. The cool thing about the quiz is I can answer the questions I know because they grade you according to how many correct out of complete. She said one employee that got hired was stunned he got hired because he only completed half the quiz.

Well I can't wait until July and September. In July I will be going to Washburn, Tennessee where my Grand Parents on my dads side own a Farm House on 33 acres. I will be gone July 1st thru July 6th. Then in September my family and I will be going to Florida for my parents 25th anniversary and my grand parents 50th anniversary. We are having a huge party. My family jokes that if I got married this year then it would be my 25th, parents 50th and grand parents 75th anniversary in 25 years.

Well I hope I will be getting closer to going to Japan I wrote a letter this week to YWAM asking the schedule a Short Term trip for me. I talked with my best friend Luke on Sunday and it sounded like he is interested in going on a short term trip with me to Japan next year. I think that would be so cool.

Starting today I will be turning a new leaf. I am planing to get some job applications turned in this week. Blockbuster is not paying me enough money for what they are chocking out of me. In the last couple months they said that the company is going in the path of sales to make more money. It's not that hard to sell a Rewards Package being only $9.95 for a whole year, but it's the Movie Passes and Game Passes that are HARD to sell. Let me see you get a customer go from paying $3.69 to $29.99. I think that customer service is not for me anymore. I was told by our Sales Manager that people who don't sell at least one pass will get written up, but if you sell two or more then you get wear joens the next week (WOW, WHAT A REWARD - NOT!!!!!!). I also get frustrated with some customers, Now don't get me wrong. I love doing Management, I ran a Radioshack Store for two weeks all by my self one time and did okay. I took care of fixing the satellite, keeping sales going and it was fun. But it's not for me anymore. I also need a better paying job. If I want to accomplish my calling I need to make more money. I have been doing very well so far on my spending. I have more money in my bank then I have had before. (-:

What is the purpose of my blog?

Well if anyone out there has wondered why I have this blog and what I hope to do with it in the future. Well in the last two years I have felt a calling on my life to do something with my life other then computers which I have had a lot of people tell me that is what I should do with my life. Well I have a strong felling that I am called to Mission Field to help bring Christianity to Japan. Do you know that 0.7% of there population is Christian, yet there is no laws that forbid being a Christian in Japan. I know this is got to be a calling on my life because when I was about 14 I would sit in my Youth Group and listen to my Youth Pastor (which now I call him my Mentor in Life.) and hear about the 10/40 window and how there was a lot of people being killed for being Christian and I was so afraid to be called to overseas ministry and just wanted to stay in my comfort zone, But now I have a peace about doing this.

Well the first road block has come. WHAT WOULD I DO IN JAPAN? Well I was thinking and thought that maybe I'd enjoy working with computers. Well I am very talented with them. MAYBE? It's worth a try. I see a lot of mission organizations looking for IT people to commit time and work at the Mission Offices. After that road block number two comes. Where am I to get the money to support my trip. Well I know that I can get Donations (People will not be able to write the donation off there taxes unless I go with a mission organization) but I really need to go there for a week or two to know if this really what I want to do. Now for road block number three, (Learning the language) If I want to communicate well I need to learn Japanese. I have tried books and It has been hard to learn because I do not know anyone else who can speak Japanese so I have no practicing buddy.

So that is an idea of what I want to do with this Blog. I hope to document my progress to Japan and record my thoughts. When I make it to Japan I would like to start posting video clips. Basicly turning this Blog into Vlog, As big time bloggers call it.

Update

It has been a long time since I last posted, So it is time for a update. Well my recent post about getting a new job a BB was not as good as I thought my Backgroud Check never came back and she never called me back, well it was not until November I lost my job at RS for some stupid reason and had to find a new Job so I called the BB store and after a couple weeks I got rehired as Shift Leader with $8.00/hr Pay. Time pasted and I was not getting the Hours I was promised and I was forced to get demoted to CSR "Customer Service Rep" and my pay lowered to $7.50/hr. (Not a big deal of money) So then in January I was offered a Job by my friend, to work as a IT Tech. Great job. I loved it I never had a job before were I was so happy to wake up and go to Work. Well couple months later me and my friend had a disagreement and so for the best of our relationship I quit...

New Job

I received a new job the other day I got hired at Blockbuster as a Shift Manager.
I will be starting the job in a week or two, The person who hired me said that they are waiting for my background check to go though. I'm going to get this job as second job most likely. if the job pays better then RadioShack and I get more hours then I will quit my job at Radioshack.

I just found a blog on some other guys site about how the mac commercials are incorrect.
I bet everything this guy never owned a Mac.

(copied from http://www.bryantchoung.com/archives/2006/05/)
| So Apple has been running a new series of ads on TV where a middle aged "dorky" looking guy | in a suit represents a "PC" and some hip young guy is supposed to represent a Mac.

| Now while the ads are fresh, new and entertaining, I'm not sure if they are actually technically correct.

| A few examples:

| In "Network" the ad explains that PC's and Macs can network together. Then the introduce a new "camera" into the picture and show that the Mac can talk to the camera, but the PC can't. "Everything just kind of works with a mac," they say. As far as I know, PC's probably have more drivers written for them and are compatible with more models of cameras than Mac's.

(First off yes there is more camera drivers for pc but macs don't use 15,000,000 drivers they use several common drivers for all cameras, also to note more then half of camera/scanner drivers I had to download and spend three + hours installing.)

| In "Virus" the ad shows a PC with a virus and the Mac not being concerned about getting a virus. Not only can Mac's get viruses, it's also dangerous for Mac users to think that they're immune to viruses.

(Show me a Mac Virus and I will show you the next ICE AGE!, I have a mac in my bedroom that has ran very well for 3 years strait with no viruses or bugs. My Laptop and my two desktops crash 100 times as much then my mac; My laptop crashed 7 times this month because of a glitch or virus.)

| In "Better" and "iLife" the mac claims to be better at things like movies, music and pictures due to the fact that the software is bundled with the OS. While this may be true, this isn't to say that you can't do everything and maybe evern better than the bundled software on Mac's with Free and Retail PC programs. The other interesting fact is that if Microsoft did decide to bundle all of this software with Windows, I'm pretty sure we'd hear the pitter patter of lawyer footsteps and the shouting of anti-trust.

(I tried Windows Movie Maker and other retail multimedia software; they all crash or hang on tasks like video capture. GO IMOVIE!)

| In "WSJ" it's amusing because they quote Mossberg as saying that the Mac is the "finest desktop PC on the market at any price." So is a mac a pc? anyways, they go on to ask if the PC guy has received any reviews, and the PC guy fumbles at the question and makes up a fake magazine name. To imply that PC's haven't received favorable reviews from the media is kind of ridiculous too.

(Yes there is more reviews for PC's but 99% of them are from company's and article writers who never used a mac for more then 15 minutes.)

| While I am impressed by the Mac, and their ads have always been different and interesting, I'm not sure if they're always or ever based on fact.

(On a last note I just installed Windows Vista on my Laptop and I notice that with every new Windows Release it is looking more and more like Mac OS X and to note they are also copying features of Mac OS X as well)

Joel Greene

New Location

Today was my first day in my new store in Frankfort, Illinois. (25 miles round trip) As most of you did not know My old store in Hazel Crest, Illinois was closed due to profit lose and to many break in. This day was hard because I spend 4 days doing nothing but closing the Hazel Crest Store now I'm expected to sell a ton of cell phones and Radioshack AnswersPlus(Credit Card). It's a pain! I did about $433 in sales at $30 a ticket. WHICH IS OK!!! :-0