Since I been gone / I can breathe for the first time / So I'm trekking on, yeah, yeah / Thanks to you, GROW Externships -Kelly Clarkson, paraphrasing Hello Loyal Readers. Happy New Year(!). What have I missed? Seriously, as far as I can tell it was some pretty uneventful days around the homefront. But, I can hear you all asking: where have you been, Max? Well, I was out of town. Actually, I was out of country - and in Japan! Actually, what a place to spend December 7th... So, how did I get there? Although I did ironically visit Matsue - the entire City of which, from the mayor on down, is encouraging learning and building with Ruby - I was unfortunately not brought to Japan for programming reasons. Which is to say - I was, very fortunately, brought to Japan, by a company for other reasons. Specifically: my agricultural skills. For those who don't know me, a little background may be of benefit: at one time I was a farmer. I had my own back-forty , flock of chic