Michael T. Miyoshi's Blog, page 36

Family Reunions

Family reunions are fun. At least when you love your family and enjoy being with them. And I certainly love mine and enjoy being with them.

One of the reasons I love my family is because it is unique. I know. All families are unique, but mine might even be a bit more unique. After all, I am not sure there are that many families who have both sides of the family participate in a reunion. And at this one, there were even more than just my mom’s and dad’s sides of the family. There were people...

Something about Routine

There is something to be said for routine. You know, doing the same thing over and over and over again.

There is something to be said for routine. You know, doing something over and over and over again. Until it is a habit. Until it is ingrained in your body and soul. There is comfort. There is familiarity. There is a certain amount of peace. Even if that routine is early in the morning or late at night. Or any time.

I enjoy routine. I like getting up early and reading my Bible, eating, and...

When the Earth Shakes

USGS Earthquake Event

I do not like getting woken up. Especially just before 3 am. Sheesh! But what are you going to do? Sometimes the earth shakes and up you wake.

I have felt three earthquakes that I remember. I must say that I would rather be woken up and tell bad jokes to one of my kids who was still awake (I asked him if the earthquake shook him up) than be in the other situations. Okay. Neither of the other two was that bad, but how often do you get to tell stories about earthquakes?

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Secret Decoder Rings

Alberti Cipher Disk
by Augusto Buonafalce contributed by Antonio G Colombo
(Alterations: size and transparency changed)
Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0

Whatever happened to secret decoder rings?

Back when I was a kid in the dark ages, we all had secret decoder rings. Okay. Not everybody had them. After all, if they did, we could never send secret messages to our friends who had those secret decoder rings. Everybody would be in on the secrets. But we did have them. We might have even used them...

Parentheses Make Words Invisible

Parentheses make words invisible in a composition. (Or at least they are supposed to.)

I have written previously that parentheses make words invisible. It was in one of those “But that is another story” parenthetical remarks that I often make in my blog (see Parentheses). Which are usually in parentheses which is why you might not have seen the remark.

At any rate, I have already commented about how I use parentheses far too much in my posts (again, see Parentheses), but I wanted to write...

A Missed Opportunity

Christ Carrying the Cross
by El Greco

This work is in the public domain.

I missed an opportunity to do a little evangelizing the other day. But I am not missing this one.

I was taken aback the other day when a colleague said that she tries to be like me. I actually did not know what to say right away. Close to right away, but then the moment passed and she was off.

I do not know that I have had anybody tell me something like that before. Sure, I have heard people say, “I want to be like Mi...

Just Plain Tired

As much as I love my job, the end of the school year makes me just plain tired.

Lately, when people ask me the question, “How are you?” I have been answering, “Tired.” I know. The correct answer is supposed to be, “Fine.” And for the most part, I am fine. As in “Doing well enough that I can say fine, but not well enough to say great. Which is not to say poorly, but definitely not amazing. But somewhere between great and not so great. In other words, just fine.”

Actually, I usually reply, “W...

From Avocation to Vocation

Most of us have hobbies. We dabble in this or that. Art, music, poetry, writing. Some of us even hope to someday that those avocations turn into vocations. But it does not really matter in the end. We do our hobbies, because we love them. Whether or not we ever get paid.

I remember when I first started thinking I would like to write a bestseller. I was young and naïve. And undisciplined. I would just write when I thought about it. Or as I put it: when I was inspired. That worked out for poe...

Congratulations Thing 3 and 2019 Graduates

It is graduation time again. I cannot help but be a proud parent. Congratulations Thing 3!

It is funny. I have written many times about how I hate the end of the school year. How I do not like saying goodbye. Ever. This year though. I am excited. Not to say goodbye, but excited that our youngest son is getting ready to set off on a new adventure. He is leaving the nest, and going off to college in the fall.

My kids do not really like me posting much about them, but I cannot help but be a pr...

How Many Twitter Followers? [1]

How many Twitter followers do you have? Does it really matter?

We can all get validation of what we do from our friends and family, but it is nice when a peer says nice things about you. Or follows you on social media. I even commented on this in at least one previous post (see Liking Other Writers). But there is a danger in getting too caught up in who follows who or how many followers you have.

I have been writing for a long time. I have published my blog since 2007. And I was writing stu...