Your Bag Is Private: Police Searches in Japan
A request to open your bag is not the same thing as a legal duty. Here is why I recommend declining voluntary, suspicionless searches, and where that advice has limits.
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Notes
Every published field note, argument, experiment, and machine story in chronological order.
How My Honda Fit Became a $21,261 Carbon-Fiber Family Car
I bought a practical 2018 Fit RS with 11,000 km. Then I changed almost everything except its ability to carry my children.
ReadJapan's 15-Day Free Trial Lasted Almost 33 Years
Japan finally arrested a man who entered in 1993 on a 15-day stay, built a life under an alias, and somehow outlasted several generations of bureaucracy.
ReadAll the Parts, None of the Software: My 180-WHP Honda Fit Build Is Stuck Behind an ECU
More than $15,000 into my Honda Fit project, the only part stopping the engine build is the one I cannot bolt on: software.
ReadTwo Disney Parks, Three Children, and One Very Long Day
Taking three children from Nagaoka to both Tokyo Disney parks in one day was expensive, exhausting, and somehow worth doing.
ReadWhy I Left Puerto Rico for Japan After Hurricane María
Hurricane María did not make me want to travel. It made me ask which country could give my family the stability Puerto Rico no longer could.
ReadFour Hondas and What Freedom Means to Me
The least exotic car in my garage gets driven the most. That contradiction explains almost everything I value about cars.
ReadWhat I Wanted My Children to Have
Parenthood changed migration from a question about my opportunities into a question about the childhood my children would consider normal.
ReadGrowing Up Autistic Without Knowing It
I had already made it through school, the Army, Iraq, research, work, and parenthood before one diagnosis made old struggles legible.
ReadThree Hours at Fuji: SUPER GT Through a Puerto Rican-Japanese Family’s Eyes
Our first family trip to SUPER GT mixed GT500 strategy, GT300 variety, Golden Week traffic, bad tacos, and a child determined to enter the circuit.
ReadThe Life I Left Behind Before Japan
I was ready to leave behind any hope of building a career in Puerto Rico. I was not ready to leave my children, even temporarily.
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