Oh man, so much heartbreak and devastation going on over in Japan. If you’ve been around to read the previous updates, you’ll know that the homies and I have been anxious to hear from our Japanese buddy Takeshi for the last couple days since the earthquake and tsunami hit. His home is in the city of Sendai so we feared the worst for him and his family. Luckily for us, our other Japanese friend, Tetsuya Yamaguchi was able to get in contact with another friend of his that had spoken to Takeshi and notified him that he was indeed safe. Even so, we still had no idea of his whereabouts and how he was doing. Yesterday, he finally was able to jump on Facebook real quick to let us know how he was doing…

Takeshi Kobayashi via Facebook:

Hi , everyone. Sorry for I cant reply each message,but me and my fam are okay.I was locate almost pacific ocean ,it was very close to TSUNAMI…I drove my ITR to downtown Sendai right now ,where I live ,still no elec power and no cell phone connection / internet ,no gasoline , no food …anyway thanks for kind words and we appriciate.

So he and his family are okay and he was also able to drive his USDM ITR back to his home, which was not affected other then the current loss of electricity, phone, and internet that most of that area is also experiencing. Him bringing his car home, unfortunately, might mean that his business was damaged or lost but we will have to wait and see what he says. I saw on Tetsuya’s Facebook page that he says that he expects some damage to Takeshi’s business. Either way, with everything else going on, material things are the least important and he can eventually rebuild. It’s just nice to know that with everything that I’ve seen on TV the last couple days that someone was able to at least recover something that wasn’t completely obliterated by the earthquake and tsunami. In any case, we here are all just happy to know that he is alive and well and his family is doing okay and he still has his home.

So at least we can breathe a sigh of relief for the moment…

I’m considering putting together a charity meet to help the people of Japan but it’s going to take some planning. Every little bit helps though so I’m sure all the work will be worth it. We will see though. Location above all else is an issue right now but I will keep you guys updated when I figure anything else out.

Back later today with some coverage from the NastIE Garage Meet…Totally didn’t expect to go but I wanted to make sure you guys had at least something to do when you came on here besides read bad news. It was either the meet or the XDC Remix show so I chose the meet because it was the lesser of two evils. I don’t really feel like paying to go to a Remix show because I’m not really into wasting my money. Haha, I heard they were under new ownership this year and the Extreme Autofest guys are doing those shows now, which makes it really unappealing. I don’t really support those shows too much anymore because I don’t really like the direction that they’ve gone in throughout the years. The meet was ehhh, “interesting” to say the least but it was a good chance to chill with the homies which always ends up turning into something fun. I’ll toss up those pics later after I wake up…