Time for my annual post to Livejournal.  

Turned 50 last week.

Bought  a new house.

Need to sell this one.

Had a hundred dates via Bear411.  A few good, many bad.

That's all. 

I had a very successful trip to Japan over the last week.  I had several major customer visits in Tokyo, Oita, and Nagasaki.  I was very please with the outcome of these meetings, and my customers appear to be quite happy now (whew!).  Over the past weekend I stayed at joncuband doonda  's place in Zama City and had a fabulous time.  I didn't want to go sightseeing, but wanted to just see their neighborhood and do simple stuff. (See joncub's recent post about our walk in the nearby park, which was very cool).  On Sunday we went to the Mashida (sp??) district and I bought some souvenirs for my two teenagers.   It was a neat area, with hundreds of shops.  
Overall it was fun to stay at their house, they are excellent hosts, and John cooks really well!  Invite yourself over one day!  LOL  And I got to play Wii tennis  woohoo!
I only travel to Japan maybe every 2 to 3 yrs, and each time I learn a little more.  I look forward to my next trip!

I'm in Rotterdam now, preparing for the audit of the Botlek terminal nearby.  Rotterdam is a modern looking city, quite contemporary.  You see lots of concrete and metal, and of course a million people on bicycles.  It was a fantastic day for walking today, and I did a couple long walks to explore around the hotel.  I took a few pics which I'll post soon.
Tomorrow is the audit, then Thursday get back on a plane to come home.  Really no time to adjust to the time zone!  Well, that's the life of a jet-setter I guess.
More to come soon!

Bear Pride was the most awesome time.  I spent a lot of quality time with one of the most amazing people, cachorro34, (Wayne aka Wayner) who is this very talented singer and all around great guy.  We spent time partying,  making great music, getting drunk, plotting to lure bears into compromising situations, the usual Bear Pride activities  LOL.  I value the chance to meet Wayne, he really made my weekend.

I had fun meeting other new people, and had a chance to finally meet some of my LJ buds, such as lucentnotion, allamericanbear (who was surprised I remembered him!) and others.  I also met some brand new people that never knew, and they were very friendly!  (one scene involved two hot bears wearing kilts who kept ordering me to check what's underneath.....well I'm too bashful to tell you the rest!  LOL).  I also spent "quality" time with a nice bear who is harleybear on Bear411.  A sweet, outgoing, and really huggable guy.  It was a pleasure to meet him and to learn about the whole world of pups and kennel parties (certainly an unusual underworld activity....the gay community as such diversity!)

I did have a couple experiences that  "went south" but I suppose that's to be expected.  I planned to meet one guy to play guitars and swap stories about music, etc.  He never called me to get together although I gave him my number, and amazingly we made eye contact at one of the dances and he didn't acknowledge me.  I only have one message to people like this, and practice with me now, it's an easy phrase...."I'm not really interested."  There, that's not so hard, is it?  All this pretending online really has worn thin.

Overall, it was an amazing and fun time this past weekend.  The dances were all very fun, and I had a great time.  I think I'll plan to go to more events this year!

Getting psyched about Bear Pride.  The countdown begins!! (or did it already?)

Music is going to be a big deal, and it 's getting bigger!  Already have planned to jam with cachorro34 with him singing and and me playing guitar.  And now Shannon of bTalk fame, http://www.btalkworld.com/, is going to join up!!  He's this awesome musician from Minneapolis who wants to play some music there too, so we're going to get together and work up some tunes!  This is going to be a helluva weekend!

I'm probably going to take both guitars, the steel string folk guitar for the Eagles tunes and others, then my better classical guitar for early afternoons, for those who appreciate that style (I do, I've been playing it for more than 30 yrs!).  I'm working on this awesome celtic piece by Muriel Anderson that I'd really like to perform for anyone who will listen.  

For Eagle's tunes, I have Desperado, Hotel California, Easy Feeling and Take It Easy down already.  For my bestest bud cachorro34,  I downloaded the Don Henley song, The Heart of the Matter, and have learned that one too!  He sends me links to his karaoke singing, and I tell you, he absolutely brings down the house!  I'm asking him to also sing Landslide by Fleetwood Mac.  It's beautiful on a nylon string guitar, one of those songs you just sit back and enjoy.

I'm probably going to look for an amp, and a pickup up for my guitars.  Depending on where we end up playing, we may need amplification!  I'll make sure to have a mic for the voice.  

Can't wait for this weekend, I've not looked forward to an event like this with so much anticipation.  We're going to par-tay!!

Well I haven't posted much here in recent weeks.  I've gotten onto BearCiti recently and that's absorbing more of my time.  Plus I've been doing more things in real life, like work on my yard, my music, etc.
BearCiti has been interesting.  I've met a number of very nice people on there, people I'd certainly call good friends.  In the mix are your cruisers and other strange characters that lurk about.  Overall its been a better site than I thought it would be, coming from a nonbear such as myself.  Sure I have to work harder at getting people's attention, but easy for me since I'm a talker  lol.  
Anyway, hope you've all been safe, sane, and productive. 

A time of many changes. 

Broke up with my partner after 6 years and he's taking it very, very hard.  I won't go into those details.  I'm still trying to let him down as easily as I can.

I've met someone else online.  He's absolutely the best match for me that I've ever come across.  He's smart, funny, handsome as hell, both very sexy and sexual, and thinks like I do in so many ways.  I've fallen for him like a ton of bricks.  Time will tell if this will be any more than a friendship, but for now the early conversations are fantastic and I'm enjoying this very much.