We have a report from the fj.life.in-japan Dynamics Officer that CL has
exploded. Flight director confirms that:

>On 05/11/2011 11:01 AM, The 2-Belo wrote:
>> We have a report from the fj.life.in-japan Dynamics Officer that
>> mtfester@netMAPSONscape.net has exploded. Flight director confirms that:
>>
>>> The 2-Belo<the2belo@msdremovethis.biglobe.ne.jp>  wrote:
>>>> We have a report from the fj.life.in-japan Dynamics Officer that chuckers has
>>>> exploded. Flight director confirms that:
>>>
>>>>> You really are FAR better off NOT reading his stuff.  Most of it is so fore=
>>>>> head smackingly crazy, you will end up with a concave head and eye strain f=
>>>>> rom your eyes rolling over and over at the level of stupidity.
>>>
>>>> I read his blog for a couple weeks back around 2000, looking for advice on house
>>>> construction. I found piles of conspiracy-theory ramblings on how the entire
>>>> Japanese construction industry was a cesspool of racist cutthroats and
>>>> charlatans.
>>>
>>> Well, they are; yakuza-connected as well.
>
>So is my wife's family. And, even worse, they also deal with the LDP. 
>Oddly enough, none of them wanted to deal with me when we were thinking 
>about building.
>
>>> I knew that before I set foot in Japan
>
>So did I.  I figure that the list of stuff I have forgotten about this 
>place is at least half as long as the stuff they teach the host 
>nationals in school.  I've had my kid's teacher dispute stuff I have 
>said and then had them come back and apologize because they'd never 
>learned that when they were kids ...
>
>> Well, so did I, but I was looking for helpful advice on how to deal with such
>> things. On debito.org I got sweeping generalizations that did not help me at
>> all. I ended up doing my own damn research.
>
>When Mrs. and I were looking to build I read Debit's screeds and decided 
>that we'd do everything differently from the way he did it.  After the 
>builder realized that I had actually worked as a carpenter during the 
>summers in college and really had studied for a while with a miyadaiku 
>in Kyoto and could assemble entire wood structures without nails, they 
>showed me a bunch of ways to get stuff of higher quality for lower cost 
>and told me about stuff they were changing and why.  When the kenritsu 
>approval people gave me a ration of shit over my request to use cedar 
>shakes, the carpenters told the guys to fuck off and sign the waiver 
>because I knew more than they did.

Weeelll, okay, I didn't do *that* much research, but I made sure to go with a
carpenter who was a friend of the family; he also did the no-nails interlocking
beam structures. The only problem we had was with the hired-out siding guys, who
did such a hysterically shitty job I had them come back and redo it. I've been
in that house ten years now, no complaints...


-- 
The 2-Belo                           [the2beloATmsdDOTbiglobeDOTneDOTjp]
alt.flame  alt.fan.karl-malden.nose  alt.alien.vampire.flonk.flonk.flonk
meow                   a brimful of asha on a 45                    meow
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"If you can't be good, be colorful." -- Pete Conrad