My First Visit To The Japanese American History Museum

While Thomas grew up knowing a lot about his Japanese history, I barely knew any details about the Japanese culture. I was slowly learning things by listening to stories from both his grandma and his uncle, but our visit to the Japanese American History Museum in Los Angeles was my first time diving into his culture fully.

We drove up to LA on a sunny Saturday. Thomas was excited to introduce me to a new part of his cultures history. I honestly walked in not knowing what to expect, and not ready for what I would experience and feel while visiting the museum.

This museum focuses a lot on the events after Pearl Harbor and how the Japanese Americans were effected by World War II. I had heard all of these stories before, but the amount of artifacts, pictures and stories made me see how widespread the unfairness of their treatment was.

One of the most striking pieces in the museum is a partially reconstructed bunker from one of the internment camps. Visitors can walk through it and look at pictures that have been hung on the walls. The bunker was made out of wood and had paper-thin walls. It was amazing to see how such a primitive structure was used to house people for four whole years in some pretty harsh conditions. There were a lot of small artifacts too. Old photographs depicting some of the propaganda before and during the war. Banners hung in neighborhoods saying "Go Home Japs" or "No Japs Allowed" were some of the more disturbing items I saw there.

Thomas' grandma and uncle have often discussed Manzanar, and neither of them have anything negative to say when discussing it. Reading the official accounts of their treatment made me realize just how horrible the whole thing was. I suddenly felt very personally effected by this. I started imagining what it would be like to be me 50 years ago, married to Thomas. Would they have dragged us both off to the camps, or would they have tried to separate us? I had never paid much attention to my inter-racial couple status until I realized that we could be pulled apart because of it.

At the end of the day, I felt like a new world had been introduced to me. I knew I wanted to visit Hiroshima, but Pearl Harbor as well. I wanted to experience both sides of the story, because at the end of the day, people lost family members, no matter what the race.

I highly recommend that anyone interested in the Japanese culture visit this museum some day. It doesn't take very long to walk through it and see it all, and there are a lot of interesting things to learn about the Japanese people during that time in history.

LEGO Star Wars: The Visual Dictionary

LEGO Star Wars The Visual Dictionary is the complete history of LEGO Star Wars sets. The book takes a look at the sets as they were introduced as well as by sub theme within the Star Wars universe. I was lucky enough to receive this book as a gift from my bother-in-law and his wife after a trip they took to Walt Disney World.

The book is big and the full color glossy pages are really enjoyable to flip through.  Over the years I've been collecting Star Wars themed sets but always wondered what I may have missed. Well, this book lists out everything LEGO has made with a picture of each set. The book also goes in to detail about the cast of characters featured in each set as well as some back story about when and why each set was made. For example, I learned that several sets have had different versions since LEGO started making sets for Star Wars. In particular, the Trade Federation MTT that I own is actually the second version of this model.

In the back of the book the authors also decided to give some behind the scenes looks at LEGO the company and the designers within the Star Wars division. The interviews cover the design process and what inspires the guys at LEGO to build sets the way they do.

This is a great book for any LEGO fan, especially those of us who are into the Star Wars sets as well. I would say that the only downside to this book is that it shows me just how many cool sets there are that I never got to buy for myself.

Photography For Beginners: Understanding ISO

So far we've talked about your camera's aperture size and its shutter speed setting. Today we're going to take a look at ISO. If you were around when you still needed to buy film for cameras, ISO may sound familiar to you. If you weren't taking pictures back in the days of film, here's a quick explanation of ISO and what it means for your photos.

In the world of film photography, the ISO rating indicates its speed rating (sensitivity to light). I remember using cameras with the easy drop-in film cartridges that had their ISO speed printed right on the package. When it comes to digital cameras, ISO still refers to sensitivity to light. Even though there is no film inside your digital camera, the ISO setting is used to tell your camera how sensitive it should be to light for any given photograph.

Why fiddle with your ISO setting if you don't have to worry about film? Well as it turns out, adjusting your ISO has a set of positives and negatives that you need to balance for each shot.

Lets say you've got somewhat of a dark scene that you'd like to shoot. At ISO 100, your camera will need to keep its aperture at a wider opening, keep the shutter open longer, or both. A slow shutter speed may not give you a picture you are looking for. A wide aperture might give you too much depth of field. Your only alternative is to bump up the ISO.

If you raise your ISO to something like, 800, your camera becomes more sensitive to the available light in any scene. Therefore your shutter speed can be faster, and your aperture can be smaller. There is one drawback however. The higher your ISO, the more noise enters the picture. When you compare a picture taken at ISO 100 to a picture at ISO 800 there is a noticeable amount of grain in the later.

Whenever I'm out shooting, I like to shoot at the lowest ISO setting I can get away with so that my picture quality isn't compromised. Sometimes it isn't avoidable though. With no tripod, moving subjects, and low light, a hand held, high ISO picture may be all you can use. That isn't always a bad thing as sometimes the grain can give a certain look and feel to photographs that people like. Changing pictures to black and white when they have a high amount of grain can sometimes be quite pleasing.

Adjusting your camera's ISO is something that can be done on all DSLR's and even some point and shoots. We have a Canon point and shoot that has a special ISO 3200 setting that can get the job done when there's no other option.

Did you know what ISO was before reading this? Did you just find it on your camera and wonder what to do with it? Play around with it and see what happens. I'd love to hear what you think.

How To Easily Save Money At The Grocery Store

I honestly thought that saving money would be difficult and depressing. We were surprised that once we started to make the effort that it wasn't nearly as difficult as we feared. Here are some of the things we have learned!

- Weekly circulars can be an awesome thing. We try to look through the grocery store circular while we are making our list for the week to see if any of our regular things are on sale. If we see things that are non-perishable (like soup) we stock up. If there are some of our favorite ice cream treats, we splurge that week. We have noticed that the sales cycle through about once a month, so almost everything we purchase on a regular basis does end up on sale at least once, and we have become familiar with when that might be. Do we need pasta this week, but none is on sale? If we wait 7 days, it will be half off. Its simple shifts in how we purchase food and it helps us save a lot of money each month, and is so easy to do.

- Free coupon websites are also awesome. I will occasionally check out the free coupon websites (coupon mom is a great one) and look for things we already buy, like shampoo, soap, toilet paper, etc. If they don't have anything we normally purchase, I don't bother printing it, but in the times that they do, it is a great simple saver. I have bought face wash for 99 cents and frozen foods for $3 less than they sell for in the store. The way to keep this one for getting difficult is to just look for things you already use instead of trying to conform your purchases to only what is on sale.

- Buy the store brand. While not everything made in the store brand is better (I prefer Alta Dena milk and we both prefer Sara Lee Bread), a lot of the time, the store brand is just as good as the expensive name brand. Its easy because the store brand is right next to the name brand it is copying, and often says which product it compares to right on the label. The money savings on this one can be huge.

- Make a list, and stick to it. Thomas and I make a list of food we need for the week before we step foot in a grocery store. This helps prevent spur of the moment purchases most of the time, which will always help save money. This also helps us remember everything we need to purchase!

- Do one big shopping trip a week, not multiple small trips. The less time we spend in the store, the less of a chance for a wandering eye, or the desire to buy something that is currently not needed.

- Don't shop on an empty stomach. When I am hungry, I want everything I run across in the grocery store. I find it hard to stick to my list and end up adding a lot of things (most of the time unhealthy things to make it worse). We have found that shopping on Sunday mornings right after breakfast is the best time for us. Find your best time and stick to that.

What are some ways you have learned to save money easily?

Meme Monday: Bounty Hunter's Roadshow

Meme Monday brings you a weekly Internet Meme that we have found. Internet Memes are described as something that catches on like wildfire with Internet communities with no outside source of promotion. They exist purely for enjoyment and laughs.