I am awake a 2 am, taking a break here on US tax-filing Extension Deadline Day (October 15). I can't say enough positive about the Japanese health care system. It's excellent, whenever I have had to use it. (The administration of it when it comes to foreigners is its own category of issues. Clinics may deny you--I've had it happen. There are still insurance payment protestors/non-enrollees and crybabies among the foreign community.

I avoid the former Twitter/X, even though I maintain an account there. Really not sure what is going on, and why so many people who should know better about reading hand gestures have stuck with it. I moved over to BlueSky, and, while that's not a perfect platform either, I thought it had better reporting and commentary, and didn't seem so…

My clients are wonderful, and I appreciate them. I try very hard to serve my clients. My people are almost always very acknowledging of that. Some say, "you can never retire, Rick." Or, "I wish I had known you were there." I am so complimented and flattered when I am told these things. I don't let it go to my head, but it is a comforting reasssurance.

The above contrast of photos shows Richard Nixon, 37th president, then a candidate, at a shopping center in Paoli, Pennsylvania in 1968. The photo on the right, of course, is the 47th president of the United States, Donald Trump. And the photo was taken during the 2024 campaign at an event in Norristown, Pennsylvania. It was one where he "worked" at a McDonald's.

YouTube video by Traffic - Topic

I just wrote about Japan's National Pension Fund the other day. As a US tax preparer here in Japan, readers of me know that I living through a personal hell, or it's just work and another tricky day for me. Besides tinnitus, and insomnia, I have had the Latin Mass playing in my jingle channel. I have been thinking about how I get myself back in good graces with the Roman Catholic Church, which is going to involve penance.

Regular readers of me know that I am a former fan of Ben Tanaka's since the days when he was posting as "Sendai Ben" Ben Shearon, up in Sendai. How long ago? This was easily before the tragic 2011 earthquake. Ben subsequently built some sort of unregulated consulting or "coaching" business, called RetireJapan.com. Tanaka-san then went into the business of offering advice to US citizens in Japan on matters of US taxation and US tax planning.

At the annual international festival in Narita New Town, I was asked to make a speech. The invitation came from the Japanese-language practice club chairman, Mr. Okada, who has been organizing the routine sessions, I am told, for the last thirty years. There are several dedicated volunteers who are the "sensei". But it is not a formal course, and it is not competition to the actual Japanese schools that charge tuition.

A post about back home in Pennsylvania, which is home when I go there. I am originally from New Jersey, and feel more like a New Jersey person. I forget what percentage of Pennsylvania residents were born in New Jersey, but it's a high percentage of the state. Quite often, it's retirees from New Jersey. But Pennsylvania is a state that keeps a lot of its native-born state residents there for their entire lives.