Grand Sumo Championships this week

The Grand Sumo Tournament is underway in Japan. I get live coverage on some Japanese channel. It’s actually pretty interesting–kind of like baseball. Lots of preparation–little action here and there. Basically when the announcers start to scream, I turn my head for all of about ten seconds and then get back to work. Good background noise. There are a couple of American-looking guys wrestling, though not quite up to the proper weight. I did see a funky “official’s conference” where the five scorers got up and consulted with the field judge. All the robes in the center circle–it was pretty cool looking. Oops, turns out he is from Georgia

The other funky guy is Toki, who, with these sideburns, looks a lot like fat bloated Elvis.

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Lots of Ships

The USS Lake Erie is in Hong Kong today, continuing it’s first patrol in five years as part of our response to North Korean missile testing. The Lake Erie has been back in the states for a number of years doing some anti-missile testing, but now it is here in Hong Kong giving the crew a taste of the city.

Lodbrog is part of the Alcatel Submarine network of cable ships. It’s funny that it is visiting today as just this week some fisherman stole (or tried to steal) 300 yards of cable from of all places, Central Hong Kong (like it wouldn’t be noticed). Police boats nabbed them pretty quickly (by the way, there are over 130 Hong Kong police boats). I found a blog of a sailor on the Lodbrog. I guess he is the Lodbrog blogger.]]>