Tag Archives: Life

We’re All Eighth Graders At Heart

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I don’t post Miley Cyrus videos (!) but will make an exception just this once.

Why?

Well, the young lady I know as “that eighth-grade middle schooler”, our daughter, will become a high school student from this September. And some of her school choir classmates sang along to an uplifting acoustic guitar version of Miley’s song, “The Climb”.

It’s hard to believe that the years have flown by so fast.
Yet they have.

At her graduation celebration (the school prefers that word over “ceremony”) there were encouraging and moving speeches from both students and teachers about change and growth.

Of course, as a parent and a teacher, I was proud of all their achievements and the basic goodness of these young people. But at the same time I was also a little saddened at some of the problems (global, national, local and personal) they may confront in the years to come.

However, if they can approach these mountains with even a fraction of the power revealed in Ms Cyrus’s lyrics, “it’ll be beast” ;-)

- Mark ‘Billy Ray’ McClure

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What I Used To Secretly Read Between The Bedcovers

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Even though I now consider Japan home after being here since 1994, I still miss just passing time in English language bookshops. Naturally, during our recent trip back to N.Ireland I was in seventh heaven whenever a chance arose to do just that.

Browsing the magazine section I came across a real blast from my past – see the front cover of Miniature Wargames magazine below.

miniature-wargames-japan

Leafing through the pages reminded me warmly of the hobby I fell in love with more than 35 years ago – playing with toy soldiers aka miniature or figures wargaming.

Back in the early 70s I recall borrowing Donald Featherstone’s now classic books on solo wargaming, American Civil Wargaming, and Napoleonic wargaming. In fact, so besotted was I with his writings, that I had these out in rotation – much to the librarian’s amazement.

However, being a very busy teenager at school with sports and studies, meant that time for hobby reading was limited. And in those days, with no Internet to distract, my parents had a 9pm lights out policy during the week.

Where there’s a will, there’s a way. Therefore, unknown to the adults downstairs, I found that light cast from the hallway was sufficient to read Mr. Featherstone’s books from my bedroom. Should someone come up to check on the supposedly sleeping children, I was able to slip my book under the covers, and then turn on a small flashlight once the coast was clear!

Ah, the guilty pleasures of reading about Blue vs Gray table top encounters or of 15mm versions of Wellington’s famous infantry squares fighting off heroic charges by French Hussars.

(A word to the curious: note that, for me, this hobby was a form of play, not a means to safely simulate and glory in the bloody horrors and chaos of real warfare.)

Of course, time passed, I grew up and somewhat sadly put away my toy soldiers (I was mostly a solo wargamer) but did retain a strong interest in military history and a loose attachment to board wargaming (which used cardboard maps and counters, instead of model soldiers.)

Standing in that Belfast bookshop, for a few minutes I relived many of those childhood memories while a part of me felt real sadness that I didn’t become a lifelong hobby wargamer.

Still, it’s never too late to take up a hobby again – even if a busy life and limited space to store toy soldier armies, conspire against a return to the contentment afforded by innocence.

Following in the spirit of my earlier post on making ‘small moves’ , I think my next moves will be to subscribe to the magazine and maybe make an appearance at the West Tokyo Wargames monthly meeting (amazing what you can find on Google!)

That should be enough to tell me if my rediscovered interest is genuine or just a fond remembrance of things past. Either result is OK in my book.

Have you a hobby or interest long abandoned but worth taking a look at again?

- Mark McClure

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Northern Ireland – There We Were

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My daughter and I had a great time in Northern Ireland.

We experienced the ‘four-seasons-in-one-day’ Spring weather that Tokyo rarely sees, but since spending time with family was the #1 goal, Nature’s elements simply added to the spice of life.

Here are ten photos from our trip.

1) Homecooked Roast Beef Sunday Lunch:

The potatoes and veg are from one of the big supermarkets but the meat’s from a local butcher or farm shop.

Sunday-Roast

2) The Bushmills Inn:

Sunday carvery lunch was £ 12.95 – highly recommended.

Bushmills Inn

3) A Pint of Guinness

This helped wash down the carvery lunch.

Guinness

4) Dunluce Castle

After lunch we headed to Dunluce Castle. Walking around the ruins (ably maintained by the National Trust) on a cold but sunny day certainly blew the cobwebs away!

Dunluce Castle

5) North Antrim Coast

I don’t suppose Eddie Bauer need any models for a maturing professional market segment?! Offers over $10,000 considered – I’ll even write the catalog copy ;-)

N. Antrim Coast

6) Carrick-A-Rede Rope Bridge
My Indiana Jones bravado got me across OK but coming back it seemed to be swaying more. Although only 30 meters high, the waves, rocks, openness – and the wind – made this a wonderfully invigorating experience.

Carrick-A-Rede

7) Walking The Plank!

The Carrick-A-Rede Rope bridge does sway in the wind but the trick for a safe crossing’s to use the ropes for balance – not to push out on, because they give!

That hand on the right is my Sister-in-law’s, as I helped her across. Petrified I might have been, however no real man admits or yields to his palm-sweating vertigo. About 3 meters from safety, and it showed!

Carrick-A-Rede Rope Bridge

8) The Giant’s Causeway

Shortly after this photo was taken the rain set in and didn’t stop for at least 36 hours, even turning to snow over the Glenshane pass.

The photo doesn’t do justice to the 40,000 basalt columns that Nature’s volcanic handiwork and the sea created many millions of years ago. In better weather you can spend a whole day here exploring the surrounding walks and sunset is said to be incredibly beautiful.

Giant's Causeway

9) ‘Baby’ Finn MacCool And The Giant’s Causeway

Here’s the Causeway Visitor Centre’s account of the mythology connecting the Irish giant, Finn MacCool, with the creation of the Causeway itself. Luckily for us, the retreating Scottish giant left behind some evidence of Finn’s hard work!

Giant's Causeway Basalt

10) Ulster Fry Brunch

My youngest brother rustles up a great Ulster fry every weekend and we were treated to mouthwatering pork sausages and delicious soda farls. No mug of PG-Tips tea here – Fair Trade Colombian filter coffee it was.

Ulster Fry Brunch

What did I learn from this trip?

Well, even though Northern Ireland’s a small country there’s an amazing mix of beautiful scenery within just an hour or two’s drive.

Yet like many good things in life sometimes appreciation of what we truly have only comes when they’re beyond reach. That’s why it’s important to periodically connect with the people and places you value most…

… why, this very minute, through a glass darkly (see #3 above!), occasional business trips to Norn Iron present themselves for this freelance technical copywriter.

Have you been to Ireland – north or south?

What were the highlights of your trip?

- Mark McClure

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Explore Your True Nature With MoveNat

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I’ve written before about my first tentative steps with barefoot running and although I’m only dabbling – “Small moves, Mark. Small moves”!! – the experiences so far have been sensory revelations for my feet and my nervous system.

Some observations from the field (quite literally!):

  • Sole and soul seem to feel the awesome rhythm of movement anew.
  • Running shoeless on wet grass recalls times long ago when this was playfully but often furtively done!
  • Asphalt delivers a coarse and vigorous (but rarely painful) foot massage.
  • Snow running for about 15 minutes (we had a few laughably light flutters in Tokyo recently) has feet toasty and warm – or is that frostbite setting in?! Actually, I don’t think so, as the temperature remained above freezing and I was only out for a short time.

However, the most entrancing moments have been those gliding or “micro-sliding” over damp and compacted soil which is not yet muddy enough to have me “slip, sliding away” (thanks, Paul Simon!)

What my feet are signaling I cannot adequately do justice to with words – sensuous, tickling and titillating come to mind. And yet all symbols fall short at the nerve endings of narration, methinks!

A wry thought did cross my mind that this was the best free foot massage on offer in a country where people pay others to do what may very well be available naturally to the able-bodied.

Of course, running barefoot is not for everyone – nor should it be. But I do find it fascinating as a runner to “explore strange new surfaces and seek out bold new stride patterns…” Whoops, time to beam this post up to where it belongs.

I’d like to leave you with a 2 minutes video clip of Frenchman, Erwan Le Corre, barefoot running in what appear to be the hills of Corsica. It’s a remarkable clip, not least because of the cameraman’s ability to get some great movement shots.

Erwan’s approach to life is a very interesting one. He’s all about moving and living more naturally – visit his web site, movnat.com to learn more about why you may very well be another “zoo human”; and what to do about it. (Hint: learn to move…)

- Mark McClure

PS: Note that I’m not recommending in this post that YOU should try barefoot running. I’ve been running for 30+ years and walking barefoot around my apartment in Japan for the last 15, so it’s something I’m OK to try out. Your mileage may vary.

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Northern Ireland, Here We Come!

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Well, if all goes to plan this post will be automatically published while I’m in a plane somewhere over Siberia, bound for Belfast, N.Ireland (via London’s Heathrow.)

We haven’t been in ‘Norn Iron’ since Xmas ’06 so it will be good to see family again, demolish an ‘Ulster Fry’ or two, enjoy packets of Tayto crisps washed down with a few pints of the black stuff, and even take in a Sunday carvery meal at the Bushmills Inn . (Yes, that Bushmills. Home to the world famous whiskey distillery.)

The sum total of these separate events is what we Ulster folk often refer to as ‘great crack.’ (See this Wikipedia ‘craic’ article for a sense of the Ulster-Scots word, ‘crack’, and its Gaelic derivative, ‘craic’.)

On a more serious note, I’m also planning to do some on-the-ground research about how Irish people in mid-career are dealing with the now much tougher economic times.

Being outside the European Monetary System and possessed (?) with a large public sector, N.Ireland’s economy doesn’t appear to have (yet) hit the buffers in the way that the Euro-bound South’s has.

To get a sense of how serious things look for the South even when viewed from the Far East, in Feb 2009 I wrote about the experiences of Irish exiles who’d returned home to the still roaring Celtic Tiger. The Irish Times article by Brendan Landers, linked to in my post, made for sober reading and I suspect that reality 12 months on is now much bleaker.

Bottom line: the career upside for many Irish men and women may be some time coming.

Ultimately I think that means smart and ambitious Irish people are going to need all the crack and entrepreneurial dynamism they can muster to pull through.

Why?

Because their country’s FIRE-based economy is not only extinguishing the wealth of future generations but is being rendered uncompetitive by a high cost base and the appearance on global labour markets of tens of millions of young and ‘success-hungry’ white collar workers throughout much of the developing world.

I see many Irish people having to make major career change decisions over the next few years.

- Mark McClure

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