September 20, 2010: Today I was in Noshiro City, a town in northern Akita Prefecture, northern Honshu, the main island of Japan. My goal was to hitchhike as much a possible the 330 kilometers back home to Niigata. I ended up hitchhiking nearly a 1/3 of the distance, and this brought me just over the 100,000 kilometer mark since keeping statistics from August 2, 2003! I had hoped to hitchhike a million kilometers before I leave this world, but at the rate I’m doing it, I need 60 more years. 🙁

After some business in Noshiro city, a town in the northern part of Akita Prefecture, I walked toward what I thought was route 7 to head home to Niigata. I used to visit Noshiro often from 1976-77 but now it was an unfamiliar place. It turned out that my directions were totally mixed up and I was standing on the side of the street with traffic heading north, not the southern direction I needed to go. A kind man saw my Niigata sign and informed me of my mistake. He then circled around, picked me up, and took me to a good spot to hitchhike on route 7 which was a considerable distance from where I had been standing!

It’s always amazing to me how God engineers the timing just right for me to meet special people. After waiting just a few minutes where the man dropped me off on Route 7, Akiko, a 32 year old dental clinic receptionist picked me up and took me as far as Iwakawa Sakura station, a distance about 30 kilometers.

Akiko is still single and likes to study and speak English. I told her that she might be happier to marry a Westerner some day, rather than a Japanese man. Because Christianity and principles of New Testament love has influenced Western culture a great deal, most Westerners are used to showing affection toward their spouses. This is something sadly lacking to a great degree in Japanese culture. Husbands and wives hardly hug each other in private, and never in public. I explained to her that when in Russia, I frequently saw public displays of affection, and not only among lovers, but between older married couples.

Because Akiko had been to Hawaii before, I thought she might be interested to know my theory of the Hawaiian word “aloha” which is said in both greeting and parting. Most people don’t know that aloha in the Hawaiian language means “a way of living and treating each other with love and respect.” Before the Hawaiians became Christians after their Queen Kapi’olani, shared the Gospel of Jesus Christ to her people in the 19th century, I do not think they used this word in greetings. The Hawaiians used to be a barbaric savage and cannibalistic people. I believe that it was only after coming to know the love of God in Jesus Christ they started using the word aloha for greetings and partings.

An external website that I believe confirms my theory: Queen Kapi’olani, the First Christian Convert in Hawaii.

After waiting nearly an hour in intermittent rain, a mother and daughter picked me up and took me as far as Akita City. The mother looks so young that at first I thought they were sisters! The daughter went to a Christian high school which is not common among the Japanese. The education is good but the tuition is 3 times more than a regular school.

From experience I knew the spot were the mother and daughter dropped me off in Akita city was not a very good one. I walk down the road to get to a better traffic light. At the third traffic light further down, a young man picked me up and took me to a truck parking stop on the other side of the city. The area was deserted with no trucks waiting, not a very desirable situation for me, but I was glad to be past Akita city because that greatly increased my chances of catching a ride.

Just a couple minutes after getting dropped off, a police car pulled up and two policemen walked up to me questioning me what I was doing and why I was there. I knew I wasn’t doing anything wrong and it was OK for me to be standing where I was. The policeman said they just thought it was unusual to see somebody standing in the truck parking area without a car nearby. I smiled and answered their questions. They thanked me for my cooperation and left.

I also immediately left the parking area to walk to an intersection, but I knew there may not be one for a considerable distance in that country area. After walking some 30 minutes, a lady named Nanae picked me up. I asked her if she often picked up hitchhikers and she said it was her third time experience. Nanae operates a machine to demolish houses.

It was already 5PM and raining. Rather than hitchhike further I opted to take a train the rest of the way spending 4300 yen. I did save some 2000 yen by hitchhiking. But much more than saving a bit of money, I value the experience of meeting the kind people I met.

Akita Prefecture for some reason has the highest suicide rate among all the prefectures in Japan. My prayer is they will come to know that God’s love is the ultimate answer to their problems.

On the train today I noticed a foreigner across the aisle and sat next to him. His darker skin and features told me that he is probably from Pakistan, which he confirmed. I told him that I am a Christian and he replied that his wife is Christian and from Peru. He asked me what I thought about the preacher guy, Terry Jones, who threatened to burn the Koran on September 11. I said I don’t like people who go out of their way to make trouble between two cultures, nations, or religions.

The most interesting part of the brief 10-minute conversation was the man’s explanation of “Al Qaeda”. He said this is a name given by the West to anybody in Pakistan they don’t like. It’s comparable to calling a person in Japan “Yakuza” or somebody in America, “Mafia” even if they are not actually a member of any organized crime syndicate. This confirms what I already felt about the term “Al Qaeda.” It exists only in the mind, a tool of mind control to cause fear, and is part of the Hegelian Dialectic method to conquer the world. Thesis (the status quo the elite wants to change) versus antithesis (artificially created problems) which results in synthesis — solves the conflict between the thesis and antithesis — the New World Order.

I get numerous emails about articles on my websites, especially the Deep Truths site, the one I worked the hardest on since year 2004. Rather than type up the same reply each time for this particular subject of Evolution verses Creation, I thought to document a typical email and my reply to it on this site. Hopefully it’ll save me time in the future.:-)

Hello

I read you website article ‘The Big Lie! – Exposed’ with some interest.

I just thought that I could offer some advice.

When making comments regarding evolution and passing them off as fact, please make sure you get your facts right.

We have not evolved (Or de-evolved as you say) from Neanderthals. They are a different species which because they were not as capable of surviving on this planet at the same time as us became extinct.

There is much evidence of ‘Missing links’. There is fossil evidence (you might want to look this word up) showing how reptiles evolved into mammals. This shows the multiple bones in the jaw (common in lizards) slowly drawing back to the ear and leaving just one bone in the mammals jaws.

These things are not open to debate. They are physical evidence.

I would defend your right to have different opinions to me that is your right. But don’t make up information and then call this fact. You are either not educated enough to understand or you are deliberately being untruthful.

Please open your eyes and see what is going on in this world.

It is wonderful and beautiful and majestic and savage and mindblowing.

And please don’t attack Evolution as you think it goes against God.

Wouldnt God create a world so amazing not leave some tricks for us to find?

Peace.

My reply:

Hi,

Thank you for your email. I’m sure we could go on endlessly about this subject, but I think it all boils down to one’s worldview. My worldview is based on the Holy Bible. Your worldview is based on the writings of Darwin. You are giving me information that you consider to be fact, but there is other information I could give you that would refute that, and you would give me yet more information you think contradicts my information. And on it goes, ad infinitum.

How we see the world depends a great deal on our mindset, our paradigms of life, our worldview, our perceptions. Two people can look at exactly the same thing and come up with two totally opposite and opposing points of view. And I’m talking about two people who are not necessary at odds with each other, for example a husband and wife who love each other. Why is this? It’s because what we see does not necessarily equate with reality. Ask a magician and the honest one will tell you a lot of their tricks have to do with manipulating perceptions. What you tell me you see is merely with you *think* you see. The same with me. Why do I therefore think I am correct? I have the Bible as a basis of my thinking, and the Bible tells me that God created man and all life, and that He did it all in 6 days. He created the sun the day *after* He created plant-life! This is plain in the Bible, and diametrically opposite of what Darwinian Evolution teaches. One can mock the Biblical account, and call it unscientific if they want to, but I would consider them people who do not know the Author of the Bible – God – and have not done much research or study about it.

What we believe largely has to do with our will. I choose to believe the Biblical account because the Bible works for me and has made me what I am today. I’m 60 years old have have no regrets for choosing the path of faith in the Bible. My life has been an adventure traveling the world and meeting all sorts of people and cultures, learning new languages. I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

Peace,
James

(end of reply)

I find replies like this are very effective. They cannot argue against it, for the very argument only proves further the person is merely holding on to his or her own particular paradigm and unwilling to see the other person’s viewpoint. Of course, you could very well say the same thing of me as well. But if you do, please remember this: I didn’t go out of my way to find you and invade your privacy. You invited me to come into your PC and read what I had to say of your own volition. 🙂

On September 5th when visiting the city of Noda in Chiba prefecture, my old friends Joe and Maria came to visit. I was so glad to see them again, especially Maria, for she used to take care of my children when they where young. I haven’t seen her in nearly 10 years.

Today I traveled back home from Toride city in Ibaragi prefecture. At first I took three trains to get to Fujimino station on the Tobu line, the station that is closest to Miyoshi parking area on the Kan’etsu expressway. Normally I would take a bus from the station to get to an even closer point, but I got tired of waiting for the bus and decided to hoof it. It was only a 30 minute walk.

After another 30 minute wait, two ladies, a mother and her daughter holding her 8 month old baby girl picked me up and took me as far as Akagikogen service area. This is excellent for it is past Takasaki and the junction that runs toward Nagano.

Yesterday I had a very smooth trip hitchhiking to Tokyo from Niigata in only two cars. This was an encouragement to me because the previous 3 trips were difficult and caused me considerable discomfort.

The first driver was a lady with a 7 week old baby in the car seat in the back. She took me to the Sanjo-Tsubame interchange of the Hokuriku expressway. From there I took a 180 yen 5 kilometer bus ride to Sakae parking area.

At the parking area I saw two bikers, one of whom appeared to be a foreigner. The Japanese biker told me, “Japanese people don’t like to pick up hitchhikers.” I replied, “Some do!”

And after a relatively short wait at Sakae, I was picked up by two men. The driver’s name is Eddy, a real estate agent, who spoke some English. He told me he is a Christian and proved it by sharing some of his favorite Bible scriptures with me! Usually the Japanese Christians I meet are merely church goers whose religion appears to be more of tradition than real faith, but I could tell that Eddy is different. He recently married a lady from Harbin China and said he will visit me in October after picking up his wife at Niigata airport. He wants me to do a little ceremony to give him and his wife a blessing for their marriage. I am honored to have Eddy for a new friend.

I told Eddy I have a lot of Chinese Bibles at home and I would be happy to send him one. He promptly gave me 1000 yen to do so. Upon returning home to Niigata, that was one of the first things I did. Eddy called me the next day thanking me for the Bible. It is an entire Bible in new Chinese for the People’s Republic of China, and I would be happy to send one to anybody in exchange for a donation to cover postage.

A petition was posted on Care2 urging people to push fake food safety Bill s510 into action! And people are signing away, not knowing the facts on this FAKE food safety Bill. Please research s.510, and the ongoing push back from Dr. Rima, our best hopes against allowing Codex Alimentarius to take over our food supply.

Tuesday, August 10, 2010: Today I had another relatively hard experience hitchhiking. The root of the word “hitchhike” comes from “hitch” (to ride) and “hike” (to walk) and today I did a whole lot of walking, more than yesterday.

In the beginning it went very well. A lady going to Nagano said she will take me to the Kamisato service area, but as we approached Hanazono, we faced a big traffic jam that was caused by a car accident. The electronic sign said it would take 70 minutes to travel the next 20 kilometers! So she decided to get off at the Hanazono interchange and take the low road. This meant that I had to get off at Hanazono.

As soon as I started to hitchhike at the Hanazono IC, a policeman saw me and ordered me to leave the area! I was too close to the toll booth which is part of the expressway.

I walked to the normal road and tried to catch cars going on the expressway, but they were going too fast to stop. Then looking at the map, I saw that Yorii Parking area may be close enough to walk to. It appeared to be about 5 kilometers and I thought maybe I could walk there in an hour. But after walking 45 minutes I saw a sign that Yorii was yet 3 kilometers further up the road! In all it took me an hour and 20 minutes to walk it. The total distance is 8.4 kilometers or 5.25 miles. I walked at a rate of 6.3 kilometers an hour or about 4 miles an hour. My shirt and undershirt was drenched with perspiration when I arrived in Yorii and so I changed to another shirt at the parking area restroom.

But the effort to get to Yorii paid off. After a relatively short wait, a man, Dr. Suzuki, picked me up and took me to Kamisato. He is a medical doctor. And it turned out we have a mutual friend, James Rudow of Sayama city!

After another relatively short wait in Kamisato, a man from Yokohama took me to Sanjo city which is the next town to Niigata. From there a lady took me to a train station only 3 stations away from mine and I caught a train the rest of the way. Total transportation cost from Sayama: 190 yen.

Monday, August 9, 2010: After an unsuccessful attempt to hitchhike from Suita service area in central Osaka yesterday, today I thought to make it easier on myself by taking a train to Ostsu city in Shiga Prefecture, just on the other side of Kyoto. The Hankyu line is the cheapest train in Japan and it only cost 390 yen to get as far as Kyoto.

After searching more than an hour for a ride at Otsu service area, I felt the situation wasn’t any better than the one yesterday. This is now Obon season during which time the Japanese like to visit their home towns. Normally I find Obon an easy time to hitchhike, but this year seemed to be different. Is it because I’m getting older?

I realized that since the completion of the Shin (new) Meishin highway that connects to the Meishin just 10 kilometers down the road, the preponderance of traffic would be taking the ShinMeshin to go to Nagoya. But I needed to continue down the older route, the one that goes to the Hokuriku junction at Maibara. I therefore thought that by leaving the expressway parking, and hitchhiking down the low road just 10 more kilometers further, I would be on the other side of the Shinmeshin entrance and more likely to catch a ride. It took me over 2 hours to hitchhike only 10 kilometers in two rides! The first ride I caught immediately from a young couple, but the second ride took me well over an hour. Now finally at the Kussatsu interchange I had to wait yet another 1.5 hours for the next ride! I wondered if I made a mistake leaving Otsu. Now was stuck where I was at and couldn’t go anywhere else. The Kussatsu interchange where I was waiting was my only hope. Just a couple days ago I told a driver that when it sometimes takes a long time to catch a ride, it always ends up in a wonderful experience meeting somebody special. Now God was really testing me to see if I really believed that statement and have patience to wait further! I started to think about retiring from hitchhiking.

Finally the most unlikely looking vehicle picked me up. It was a deliver truck with two men in the front, and the back was so full of packages I had no room to sit down anywhere. I had to squeeze between a box and the side of the truck. The men were going the direction from whence I came, toward Kyoto. The Kussatsu Service Area was just a couple minutes down the road, and I got off there.

Now my problem is figuring out how to get to the parking area on the opposite side of the expressway with traffic going the way I needed to go. I found an overpass and walked to a gate that appeared to be used for the parking area, and I saw a lady passing through the gate. I realized she must have come from the parking area, but on the other side of the gate was a sound barrier with no apparent entrance or way to get either over it or around it. I walked toward the left, found a siding door on the wall, and tried to open it. It was locked. I walked toward the right, found another sliding door, and it opened!

The parking area going toward Niigata and Tokyo is much smaller, with fewer cars, but it was my only hope. After only a few minutes, I met a man who was traveling all the way from Miyazaki in Kyushu and asked him for a ride. His name is Mr. Mochihara, he speaks English, and was friendly. This is the man who made it worth it all that suffering! Our conversation was not only pleasant, it was deep about the basic things of life. And went out of his way to take me directly to my friend’s house in Sayama city, and saved me from having to hitchhike further in the heat of this hot summer.

It took me nearly 14 hours today to hitchhike 560 kilometers to Osaka! I got stuck for a period of time at the halfway point in the city of Kanazawa. A parking attendant at Fudoji parking area on the Hokuriku expressway asked me to leave. I walked down to the regular road, hitchhiked to the next big interchange, and got back on the expressway two hours later.

The highlight of this trip was to get a ride in a convertible two seater BMW sports car with the top down. Though it rained a bit when riding, the rain didn’t fall on us but was blown over the car’s windshield.

Milton William “Bill” Cooper (May 6, 1943 – November 5, 2001) was an American conspiracy researcher, radio broadcaster, and author known for his 1991 book Behold a Pale Horse, in which he warned of multiple global conspiracies.

The principles that Mr. Cooper — my brother in the truth – expounded in his book, “Behold a Pale Horse“, are principles that I am willing to die for — right now, today! Unless one is willing to die for something one believes in, is life in this dimension really worth living? True joy is waking up to TRUTH, principles one is willing to live for, and to die for.

Bill Cooper did not claim to have a total knowledge of the political agenda he attempted to describe in this book, “Behold a Pale horse“,. He admitted that he could be wrong on his UFO theories. Mr. Cooper confessed in a later publication that he was indeed wrong about UFOs! I consider an admission of error from anyone a meritorious statement indeed.

Download a PDF format copy courtesy of an anonymous truth teller that I found on the WWW. (A 17 megabyte download. You might want to right click the link, and left click “Save as”)

Mt. Yahiko and Mt. Kakuda from a distance of 20 kilometers.

I enjoy taking long bicycle trips from time to time. I thought it would be a good day’s challenge to circle two famous mountains of Niigata, Mt. Kakuda and Mt. Yahiko, and return home before nightfall. Mt. Kakuda and Mt. Yahiko are not famous for their height. Mt. Yahiko is only 600 some meters high. They are famous for being the only mountains smack dab on the coast of the Sea of Japan in the midst of the flat rice fields that Niigata is famous for. Click the photo to see an enlargement.

Niigata has some of the flattest areas in all of Japan. One reason it’s so flat is that much of Niigata (Japanese meaning “new lagoon”) was reclaimed from the ocean. All of the rice growing area between the Shinano and Agano rivers, meaning the area you see in the photo below, used to be underwater.

It took me a little over two hours to cycle 30 kilometers to Kakudahama which is the northern base of Mt. Kakuda. I didn’t know the roads but followed what I thought was the closest route by line of sight. It turned out that I probably zigzagged back and forth on the roads between the rice fields a lot more than I needed to.

From Kakudahama I took the only road that runs along the coast of the Sea of Japan, a road over rolling hills and through several tunnels. The traffic was light and therefore a bit safer for a cyclist than on a normal highway. I needed to ride as far as the lowest point past Mt. Yahiko. I knew I reached it when I arrived at the mouth of Bunsui, a river that is a tributary of the Shinano river, the longest river in Japan. There is a road running parallel to it going in the direction I needed to go, and I knew it would be therefore flat.

I could add photos to this post. If you want to see them, please say so in a comment.

The Georgia Guidestones is a large granite monument in Elbert County, Georgia, USA. A message comprising ten guides is inscribed on the structure in eight modern languages, and a shorter message is inscribed at the top of the structure in four ancient languages’ scripts: Babylonian, Classical Greek, Sanskrit, and Egyptian hieroglyphs. (from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_Guidestones)

What the first statement says:

Recently a friend called my attention to the Georgia Guidestones. I’ve heard of the message on them before, but this is the first time to see a photo of one of the stones. The Wikipedia explanation of them is evenhanded in my opinion, but the photo of the stone shown on Wikipedia is dark making it hard to read. Using a free graphic editor (Gimp), I increased the brightness and contrast making the writing on the stone much easier to see. Is this the plan of the New World Order? You be the judge.

THE MESSAGE OF THE GEORGIA GUIDESTONES

1. Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature.
2. Guide reproduction wisely – improving fitness and diversity.
3. Unite humanity with a living new language.
4. Rule passion – faith – tradition – and all things with tempered reason.
5. Protect people and nations with fair laws and just courts.
6. Let all nations rule internally resolving external disputes in a world court.
7. Avoid petty laws and useless officials.
8. Balance personal rights with social duties.
9. Prize truth – beauty – love – seeking harmony with the infinite.
10. Be not a cancer on the earth – Leave room for nature – Leave room for nature.

Take note of the cap on world population in the first statement. That’s a reduction of 92% of the present 6 billion people on earth! How is the ruling Elite going do that? They’ve been working on it from as early as 1954! Probably the final method will be extermination of all who will not bow down to the Beast. But Jesus won’t let them get away with it entirely!

I was invited to do some work for a hotel in the city of Ajigasawa on the northern coast of the Sea of Japan in Aomori Prefecture. The hotel people treated me like a king and served me a dinner of what the Japanese would consider to be a gourmet specialty – half of which was biblically unclean seafood which I couldn’t eat! But the breakfast was fantastic, a smorgasbord type of setting from which I could choose what I liked. The hotel paid the 10,000 yen ($90) train fare to get me there, but as usual I always opt to hitchhike as much as possible to save money getting back home. I couldn’t leave Ajigasawa until 11:30AM the next day to begin my race with the sun to try to catch the last ride before dark. In the summer I have two extra hours to hitchhike, but I knew it would still be pretty tough considering the distance of 450 plus kilometers to Niigata, and most of it on a regular road.

This trip brought me one ride over the 2000th mark of the number of rides I caught hitchhiking since keeping records from Aug. 2, 2003. Since then, I’ve traveled 97.900 kilometers.

After waiting over 40 minutes for the first ride, a couple picked me up and took me as far as Noshiro City in Akita Prefecture, a good distance of 100 kilometers! They even bought me lunch, a bowl of Ramen noodles.

After that a lady took me about 40 kilometers toward Akita city. After her, a second lady with a cute little Terrier dog took me just past Akita city. This lady was very talkative. And it turns out that she knows a person who picked me up in 2006, Makoto Hasegawa, the captain of a professional basketball team in Niigata! She says that Mr. Hasegawa comes to visit her house from time to time because his native town is Akita and she has something to do with promoting basketball in Japan. This sport is not nearly as popular in Japan as it is in America. The average player works for a salary no better than an office worker in a regular company.

The 4th driver works for the income tax bureau. He was friendly, but not too talkative, and not very responsive to my questions about his work. But he took me with 10 minutes to spare to Sakata station from where I caught a train the rest of the way home. It was 7:30PM, already dark (no daylight savings time in Japan) and the train from Sakata City was the last one that day I could catch to avoid hitchhiking in the dark the rest of the way. I saved 2/3rds of the train fare I would have paid had I taken a train all the way.

A couple days ago I made a new web site for a friend called Super Stone Clean, a revolutionary new way to dispose of and treat garbage.

See http://superstoneclean.com for more information.

James David Manning (born February 20, 1947) is chief pastor at the ATLAH World Missionary Church on 123rd Street in New York City. Manning grew up in Red Springs, North Carolina, and has been at ATLAH since 1981. ATLAH stands for All The Land Anointed Holy, which is Manning’s name for Harlem.

He really lays into President Obama something fierce! If a white person said what he is saying, that white person would be accused of racism!

Before anybody accuses me of racism, you should know I’ve lived in Asia over half of my life. Race is not a factor for me, it’s the heart of the individual that is most important, whether that heart has the love of God or not. I can tell Pastor Manning has love for people of all races, white included. I sure love and respect Pastor Manning for his honestly and fearlessness in telling the truth!

I told a buddy recently that I don’t like to voice mere opinions on my blog, but I do feel a need to warn my friends who didn’t know about Alex Jones until very recently and suddenly became interested in him.

OK, Ron Paul did not specifically mention Alex Jones in this talk, but I do believe it can apply to him. And the YouTube title has his name.

I started to wonder about Ron Paul as well. The very fact he knows the significance of Carroll Quigley’s “Tragedy and Hope” tells me he is fully aware of the true political situation of this world, and that he should know he doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of changing anything for the better. Would not therefore Senator Paul’s followers have false hopes for change? But I take my hat off to him for his excellent explanation about how a person can work for the Elite and expose them at the same time.

The true mark of a messenger of Truth is persecution. Who has received some heavy duty persecution for their message? Some of my heroes:

• William Cooper who wrote “Behold a Pale Horse“, killed in a shoot out with “authorities”. I do not believe he fired the first shot, but was defending himself.
• John Todd, the first person who opened my eyes to the hidden rulers of this world. He was framed and convicted for rape.
• Alberto Rivera, a former Jesuit priest who exposed Jesuit plans. He was eventually murdered by poison.

Alex Jones does seem to be informative, but he doesn’t expose all the ones who need to be exposed. He breeds fear. Just the fact that his show has gone on so long, and the fact that he tries to shift the blame away from Zionists is enough reason for me not to listen to him anymore.

For the record, being against Zionism is not the same thing as Antisemitism.

What about famous evangelists like Billy Graham? Has he ever received any opposition or persecution? You can do your own research about him.

Update on September 30, 2022

Alex Jones fans may refute this article saying that Jones was indeed persecuted by the Establishment because of recent court cases, but I would not call propagating false information about the Sandy Hook school shooting massacre persecution for righteousness’ sake! He justly faced litigation from parents who lost their children. He called them liars and “crisis actors”. I call him a crisis actor.

children of a couple who took me to a parking area on the Hokuriku Expressway.

Trip 1: From Niigata to Osaka

Japan enjoys a string of holidays from April 29 to May 5th known as Golden Week. I took advantage of this time to travel.

On May 2, 2010, I hitchhiked to Osaka from Niigata, a distance of 585 kilometers in 10 cars. Five of the cars were married couples and three of them had small children in the back seat. During holidays like Golden Week and Obon in August, I often get picked up by families visiting their hometowns. Sometimes they have the family dog with them. In the back seat of the seventh car was a beautiful three-year-old Golden Retriever named Mary.

At the Amagozen parking area in Ishikawa Prefecture after waiting for an hour for a car, I was asked to leave by one of the parking attendants! He told me I couldn’t hitchhike there. It is extremely rare for me to be asked to leave an expressway parking area, and I have no choice but to comply. It was still only a little over halfway to my destination and didn’t have enough money to take a bus or train the rest of the way to Osaka.

The parking attendant told me where I could catch a bus from within the parking area. I walked halfway toward it, saw a man, and making eye contact with him, I told him I wanted to go to Osaka. He asked where in Osaka. Anywhere I said. It turned out the man was going exactly to the very parking area in Osaka I wanted to get off at, the Sakae Parking area! He is a rather well-to-do man, a company president owning 3 companies, and his wife was in the back seat. I consider it a real miracle to run into him just when I needed a ride most desperately! We had a most pleasant conversation with him and his wife who happens to be Chinese from Taiwan! This was the second time today to ride with a foreigner. The wife of the driver in the previous vehicle is from the Philippines.

Trip 2: From Osaka to Hamamatsu City in Shizuoka

On May 5th I traveled in 4 cars 273 kilometers from Osaka to the city of Hamamatsu in the Tokkai area of Japan. Tokkai is famous for its earthquakes and occasional tsunami. It also happens to be one of the most popular areas to live in Japan due to its warm and sunny weather throughout the year. Only this year I found it unusually cold during my previous trip last April. Where’s “global warming” when you need it? I remember the Tokkai area being warmer in mid-winter than it was last April, and that was 25 years ago!

Three of the 4 cars were families, and two had young children in the car. The first car took me to the Katsugawa Service area just before Kyoto. Sometimes I have to wait a relatively long time just to get to the other side of a large city like Kyoto, but today I caught the second ride in a matter of minutes. An older couple took me to a parking area close to Nagoya.

The last driver was a father of 3 children and a minister of the Tenrikyo faith, a religion that began in the city of Tenri Japan in 1838. Tenrikyo is unusual for Japan because it is neither Buddhist nor Shinto and is a monotheistic religion, a belief in only one God. It seems to have had a lot of influence from Christian missionaries to Japan.

More about Tenrikyo.

Trip 3: Hamamatsu to Tokyo

The next day on May 6th I needed to go to Noda city in Chiba on the eastern side of Tokyo. I also had an appointment at 7 PM to meet a man in Otemachi, the heart of Tokyo, a man from the U.K. who wrote me during this trip and expressed interest in my website!

From Hamamatsu, it only took 3 cars to go to Tokyo. The first car was goiing the opposite direction toward Nagoya, but I grabbed it because the Hamanako Service area is only 8 kilometers from where I was at the Hamamatsu Nishi interchange, and it is very easy to walk to the side of this particular service area to catch traffic going the opposite way.

Three young men, all younger than my own two sons took me to the Fujikawa Service area. The view of Mt. Fuji today was better than I expected it to be. Normally the best time to see it is mid-winter when the sky is clearest with fewer clouds surrounding it.

The last car was elderly two ladies, one 75 years old, who took me to Yoga in Tokyo. I got to Tokyo by 4PM, and decided to use the extra time before the 7PM appointment to meet with my friends Steven and Teiko. and helped Teiko set up her own WordPress blog. (Japanese only)

Trip 4: The return home

May 7, 2010: Japan enjoyed good weather thoughout the Golden Week holiday, but today was Friday, a regular work day, and the weather turned cloudy and raining. But the rain in the Kanto area of Tokyo was light and intermittent, and I had a fold-up umbrella that I usually carry. I decided to go home today to have a couple of days of rest before work on Monday at my new job. I’m so glad I did because it took me two days to recover from this trip! When I travel I usually feel great, but upon returning home it’s as if God pulled out the plug and I’m exhausted.

The first vehicle from the Miyoshi Service area near Tokyo was a truck which is unusual on the expressway. Trucks don’t usually pick me up, but perhaps this one did because I asked the rider in the parking area and he asked the driver. They took me as far as Kamisato in Saitama which is next to the border of Gunma and just before the junction of the Joshi’etsu expressway that goes to Nagano. Not many cars are going to Niigata from Kamisato. Most go only as far as Takasaki or Maebashi in Gunma, and many take the Joshin’etsu toward Karuizawa and Nagano city. I could catch a ride going that way, but it’s a longer roundabout way to Niigata and would get me home later. I opted to go for the road and wait for the direct route.

After about an hour a man saw my Niigata sign and offered to take me as far as Sanjo city. This was great because Niigata city is only 40 kilometers further and I could take a train from that point. The man’s name was Mr. Sato and he was talkative throughout the remaining 200 kilometers of the trip.

I upgraded to Fedora 13 beta from the middle of April. Except for a couple of issues that I considered to be yet bugs in the beta version, I consider Fedora 13 to be the best Fedora Linux yet. Nevertheless, I thought to give Ubuntu 10.4 another chance before Fedora 13 goes gold on May 18. I realized later that Ubuntu 10.4 was still in beta testing when I wrote about it on March 18.

The first thing I noticed was the default background color of the latest Ubuntu had changed from that ugly brown to a pretty purple. The installation instructions were clear and straightforward.

I would have reformatted the root and boot partitions to do a clean install with Ubuntu 10.4, but the partitioner only listed my first hard drive and not the second where I keep my /home partition! There didn’t seem to be any way to list it in order to tell Ubuntu I want to assign the second physical drive as /home. Fedora always gives a list of available drives during the installation process. Why wouldn’t Ubuntu also do the same? Am I missing something? I googled for an answer but found none.

Conclusion: Cutting edge Fedora remains the best Linux distribution for me. I don’t want my user data on the same physical hard drive as the operating system. Using two drives speeds up the system. The first drive is also used as a backup for the /home partition on the second drive.

Ron Paul giving a Masonic handshake

I found this photo on http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread354189/pg1

And I always thought Senator Paul was one of the good guys! We can’t always go by what a person says, only by what he or she does. As Jesus said “Ye shall know them by their fruits.” (Matthew 7:20)

Image taken from “www.ephesians5-11.org/handshakes.htm“>

“The best way to control the opposition is to lead it ourselves.”
— Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

What Henry Makow Ph.D. has to say about Ron Paul.