Confessions of a Graphic Designer

It’s weird how you can be merrily be rolling along when something you don’t want to happen, happens. I was in the eighth grade when my family moved from Seattle to Arizona. Middle school is an awkward time, and I was just hitting my stride socially and emotionally. Suddenly I found myself leaving my friends and life for a place with virtually no racial diversity—very different from Seattle. I was initially regarded as somewhat of a freak. Even so, I managed to adjust to Arizona, and after two years, my dad’s Boeing assignment was done, so we were able to return to Seattle. When we got home, everything was different. Our house had been rented, and the yard, which had always been meticulously maintained, had been completely neglected. In fact, as we drove up to the house, Caesar, a neighborhood kid, was playing with friends and popped his head up from the tall grass that, much to the chagrin of our neighbors, used to be our lawn. The worst disappointment was learning my parents ...

My sister, Melissa, has been on a mission to clean out our childhood home. During the course of unearthing some truly terrible pottery by yours truly, she came across a variety of artifacts as well as some notes written by our mom. We lost our mom to cancer eight years ago. She entered  Virginia Mason Medical Center in Seattle, and about a week later, she died. It was just like our mom to be selfless, and not trouble us to care for her over the course of a long, drawn-out illness. I think we all expected her to get well. She had celebrated her 88th birthday that year — a special year in Japanese culture. My brother Dave, and his wife Carol, treated everyone to a limousine and dinner at  Canlis for a very special celebration. It was truly amazing. Quite a few years earlier, I had an idea of asking my mom to write a family history. After looking at a number of books on the subject, which made the process look daunting, I found a format (it was the dot-matrix days) print...

Written 5 August 2010 (Note hyperlinks in orange) Two weeks ago I had the opportunity to talk with entrepreneur Ben Huh , of I Can Has Cheezburger , Fail Blog and other memes. When I asked him about his ambitions, he responded without hesitation: “I want to lead a life worth living.” And since that day, his comment has continued to resonate in my mind. Recently our oldest son, Andrew, was home from Germany to spend time with us before his one-year deployment to Afghanistan begins next month. It was a joy for all of us to be together. Whenever he’s home, we make a pilgrimage to Hood River, Oregon , the breathtakingly beautiful place where my paternal grandparents settled after they immigrated from Japan in the early 1900s. As a teenager, Andrew spent summers working in the orchards during the cherry harvest. He is the only fourth-generation ( yonsei ) kid in the family to do so. Beside learning the ways of a new country, my grandparents' early days were physically tough—...