Today has been one of those days.  You know the ones that I am talking about.  Things go up and down and every which way.  There doesn’t really seem to be a reason why days go the way they do, they just do.  Yesterday the rain just pissed down for a good 24 hours straight.  It was cold.  A chill like I used to have in the San Fran Bay Area that would just chill the bones.  I got soaked, with an umbrella, on my way back to the station.  Just a plain rough day.  The only highlight to my day was kicking back and watching the film The Birdcage.  I was able to just laugh away all my tension that had built up over the day.

Fast forward a bit to this morning, and the skies were overcast but it was substantially warmer today.  It was more like a a humid Miami day than a Japanese autumn day.  I am not one that falls into the cliche trap but, there really was a clearing after the storm.  Not only on my way back to the station this afternoon was the sun hanging low in the afternoon skies, but my spirit seemed better.  Just seeing the sunlight after being deprived of the rays for a day brightened my spirit.  I thank The Creator for bringing the warming rays into my life.  I stopped by my brother from my other Jewish mother on my way home just to chat it up a bit.  Again, it felt so good to reason up for a minute.  My soul felt at ease being with some family.

Then he broke the news to me.  Steve Jobs had passed away.   I thought in my head, man this an end of an era, I before I spoke it out loud.  Steve Jobs has influenced my life.  He and Apple crafted computers for artists.  I didn’t need to be a computer geek to use a computer.  I could just create, and let the computer handle the techie side of things.

I remember my first computer experience back in the late 70s and early 80s.  The special education program I was enrolled in had an Apple II computer.  It was a whole new world opening up to me.  To get on a computer and not only play games, but to do some simple programing to get the computer to do something.  And we backed it all up on giant 5 1/4 inch floppy disks.  Just writing that down just now makes me break out in a wide smile.

The world will await another one like Steve Jobs.  There is someone out there with a little startup company that will change everything.  I look forward to seeing what will explode on the scene where we least expect it.

I got home and checked my email after this roller coaster of emotions to find something in my inbox.  I was nervous, but I quickly opened the mail.  The news was overwhelming.  Some of of you out there know that over the last 2 and half years I have been enrolled in an MA program.  The news was that my dissertation passed and I will be awarded my MA.  I was overjoyed!  I thank all those out there that help me overcome all the troubles in my life and put in the time with me to get my higher degree.

My time has been freed up to an amazing degree.  I will over the next couple of months be exploring various avenues of expression.  Who knows the future will bring; however, I will endeavor to use my creativity to uplift myself and others in The Creators kingdom.I invite all of you to follow me and my journey.  I hope that some of what I learn and go through will ignite those autumn fireworks in your soul.

Livicated to the memory of Steve Jobs.

This blog has been written and edited on my 8th Apple computer:  a rough and tough Macbook.

I was talking with a mate today about the glorious weather that we have been having and he remarked that he had taken a stroll the other day and was a bit dismayed.  He said all the Ginko trees, which turn a brilliant yellow in autumn, leaves were dead or dying.  He was worried that there wouldn’t be much in the way of an explosion of colors that we usually get.  The leaves in our collective neighborhoods took a battering in the typhoon 15 (Moke) that rolled through last Wednesday.  The trees for the most part survived.  It was the bashing of the leaves on each other that damaged them.  I hadn’t noticed it too closely, other than my own plants on my patio, until I was walking home from my station today.  A Ginko tree near the station looked as if all the leaves were pretty much been beat into brown submission.

I am going to be positive about this.  I am sure we will get some autumn leaves even if I am unsure of how intense it may or may not be.  It will just sharped my vision.  I will have to hunt out those colors that soothe my soul after the heat of Tokyo’s summer.  The trees that survived with their leaves intact are going to shine.  They will pop out across the urban landscape.  Those yellows, reds, oranges, mixed hues all there inviting the residents to gave up into their autumn hearts.

In the meantime, I was stopped in my tracks yesterday when I snapped this image.  The sun has right behind the leaves and it caused them to go from hunter green to an neon lit yellow.  For now I will have to be content with this hue.  A magical hue, and a magical time of day and year.

The light is really changing.  That autumn light that streams down that falls somewhere between yellow and orange hues depending on the exact time of the day.

As the world is cooling off my eye is still ever searching for nature that thrives no matter where is might has grown its roots.  Roots that seek out the nutrients in the soil as the leaves catch the rays of sun.

Today these tiny berries caught my eye.  A small bush near the ground that had clumps of these autumn red hued berries.  I have no idea if they are edible or not.  I just stood there amazed by their minute stature.  These little berries spoke of joy to be out in the sunshine.  They are signaling the autumn hues that will fill the parks soon enough.

The temperature may have dropped in Tokyo, but the autumn leaves have yet to arrive.  I am not complaining, I am immensely thankful for the cool weather that I have breezing in through my windows.  I am, however, anticipating the changing leaves.  Those colors that dance on my lens as the long rays of autumn light struggle to reach earth.

Today I kept my eye peeled for any signs of the changing leaves to come.  Have the tips of any leaves started to morph into those autumn hues?  Not yet.  They will come soon enough.  In the meantime I found a bush of these flowers tucked behind a huge hydrangea bush at a small buddhist temple.  They are just a taste of the colors that are to come.  I give thanks for all the bursting colors of summer that are still hanging on into autumn.

I was on my bicycle yesterday heading over to Gyotoku in Chiba.  It had been a while since I had ridden over the Urayasu bridge.  The Urayasu bridge connects my town Kasai in Tokyo to the town of Uryasu in Chiba prefecture.  There was a time that I would have ridden over that bridge on a weekly basis, but lives change and I no longer find myself  peddling up and over the bridge.

Today was the exception.  The weather was so crisp and clear.  It was as if one day was summer, and the next day it was autumn, was basically how it felt.  As I cycled my pedals up the slopping incline I was just enjoying the clean air.  Once the bridge leveled off I caught a glimpse of that autumn late afternoon light.  The kind of yellow light that sparkles on the surfaces it reaches.  That was coupled with the big sky that stretched from the bridge into the heavens.  I had to pull over and snap an image of one of my favorite clicking grounds.

I have never been one for landscape photography.  This all is changing post the March 11th earthquake that ignited my interest in photographing nature, has also gotten me exploring the land where I dwell in Tokyo in more detail.  The way that man creates the environment in which to live, and how the natural world melds, contrasts, and harmonizes to form the land that we all inhabit.  The concrete and wood of our creation lives in competitive harmony with the world of the Creator.

Seeing the details is beautiful.  Seeing the big picture is just as beautiful too.

As many of my friends throughout the world snuggle up next to the fire as the snow falls to the street, we here in Tokyo are in full blown autumn.  It seemed to arrive a little bit late this year, after all we are already into December.  There is that lovely transitional period that happens twice a year, in the spring and in the autumn.  The colors just illuminate the concrete and the corrugated metal, if only for a few weeks.

Breathe in the clean autumn air, and let those colors soak into your soul.

ahhhhhhhhhhhhh, and then repeat.

Autumn has come.

The colors are here.

For soon they will fall,

and be swept up.

This lone clear vinyl umbrella was sitting pretty in the cold rain this morning.  As the commuters all shuffled off to work muttering how cold it was under their breath this one umbrella just paused for a rest under a tree.  Never to be forgotten, and not smoking it sat and watched all the people hustle into the station.

This Sunday was beyond gorgeous.  The air was dry,and the breeze was coo.  I could sit in a t-shirt and

not be cold.  The weather these past few days in Tokyo has been completely schizophrenic.  Cold, and rainy

followed by hot, and muggy, followed by weather that we should be having in late spring.  Like I usually

say, I shouldn’t complain, because it will be bloody cold before we know it.

After getting some things done in the house, I grabbed my camera, and hopped on my bike

to see what is to be seen in the park.  The park was rumbling with smiling faces, all enjoying

the fab weather, like myself.

Soak it all in.  Let that vitamin D come on inside and warm your heart.

I awoke to hearing the sounds of a festival drift in though my open windows.  The day was gorgeous. Sunshine filled the sky and warm dry air kept the house cool.  I decided to hop on my mountain bike and track down where the music was coming from.  There are 3 or 4 shrines and temples in the neighborhood and I knew that one of them must be putting on a little festival.

It was happening at a little shrine about 7 minutes away on bike that was packed with people this Sunday afternoon out to get a bite to eat and enjoy the sunshine.  Colder weather is suppose to follow by the middle of the week.  It was a grand time, and I chilled for a minute in the sun.  I am not looking forward to those long winter nights, so I’ve got to enjoy it while I can.

Today actually felt like autumn in the air today.  After the last couple days of summer like weather the skies were a bit more gray any the mercury dipped much lower.  Still pleasant until the real cold weather comes rolling on in.  I enjoyed the stroll and watching the the patchy cloudy skies.