I am sitting in the hotel room, which I will soon leave. My ride to the airport doesn't happen until 4 PM and I have to check out of the hotel at noon. I'll ask the staff if they'll keep my luggage so I can walk around downtown, but failing that I'll just wait in the hotel lounge.

This was the best trip to Moscow I've had so far. There were several factors:

1. Eriko was in Nagoya, where she had the full support of her family.
2. I was able to see Eriko & Jerry every day using video Skype.
3. I came here alone. That gave me lots of personal time (mainly spent working on my own computer projects in the hotel room - I facilitated a dramatic increase in the amount of spam the family receives.) I typically went to bed on a relatively light stomach (instead of being stuffed) and not drunk. Riding the metro by myself was a nice feeling of accomplishment.
4. Dmitry dedicated lots of time to me. He picked me up at the airport, we spent the Monday touring, we had lunch together every day, he gave me rides to the hotel several times, and we went out to dinner on Thursday.

It started at 5 AM. All my items were downstairs in the entrance, so Eriko and I spent some quiet time together before heading down. The "airport limousine" (shuttle van) was right on time - 5:30. It picked up three other passengers, although I wasn't awake for the last one. We arrived at Japan's Central Airport about 6:30 - plenty of time to make my 8 AM flight. I waited for about 15 minutes in the check-in line for ANA. After I arrived at the counter, I found out my flight had been cancelled! The airline refunded the ticket and gave me instructions for taking the shinkansen to Narita. Of course, those instructions had me boarding a train that left in 10 minutes! I hurried to find the train station and bought myself a ticket to Nagoya Station. That was no problem. The instructions, however, said that I should take the shinkansen which left at 7:58 - but the first train didn't arrive at Nagoya until 7:49. Alas, I could have purchased the entire trip at the CentralAir station but did not - so despite rushing through Nagoya Station at high speed (with my luggage), I missed the desired shinkansen since I had to wait in line to buy tickets.

This year’s resolutions are focused on health - emotion, mental, and physical. Hopefully these resolutions are all measured and attainable.

• JLPT: Level 3 (1409 words, 284 kanji)
• Smaller waist (awaiting initial measurement)
• Running and/or swimming at least twice per week
• At least two hours of exercise per week
• One diary entry per week.

Isilon will be trading tomorrow using the ticker symbol ISLN. Very cool.