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Showing posts from December 15, 2002

Honshu and Okinawa

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I am back. I spent 10 days in Japan, 5 days for work on the main island of Honshu and 5 days of solo adventure in Okinawa. Travel is so invigorating dispite the uncomfortableness. Jetlag, anxiety, crowds, and other discomforts aside, it is mind-expanding and rewarding. Work went well. I flew a new airline (Skymark) from Tokyo to Naha. I am always wary of strange discount airlines and all the traps they set. However, I had a great expereince with "Sky". I was actually shocked. Super easy checkin at the airport, no extra fees even with extra luggage. The primary mission in Okinawa was to visit the Peace Park and the suicide cliffs of Okinawa. From what I understand, at the end of WW2 the inhabitants were encouraged to commit suicide rather than surrender to the Americans and get tortured and eaten. Besides other types of suicide, they jumped off the cliffs at the Southern end of the main island. If you have seen the original color footage taken at the time, I am sure you ...
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The New York Times on the Web I noticed a situation about perceptions and values between cultures. "A city person calls it Shit or Crap. A suburbanite calls it Manure. A farmer understands it as valuable organic matter." John is coming over this AM to bottle beer. I should be downstairs racking the fermenter into the keg as to make bottling easier. I am also planning on hanging my new barn door today. It will look great. I spent a lot more effort and thought on that door than most would appreciate.
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Kelley Blue Book - Used Car Bluebook Values and New Car Pricing There is a pickup truck being auctioned off by the town of Berkshire. I like these sealed bid things. You can actually get a decent deal through these sometimes. I am going to ask my friend Jeff if he is interested. I think he is looking for a new truck. We had an organizational restructure announced yesterday at work. It certainly appears that this will not open any doors for me personally or my career. I look at my career in a two-fold light; those items in my control (personal development and investments of time) and those items that are not in my control. The items I consider out of my control are fixed attitudes and values of senior management, history and what I call "winds aloft". I was looking through my bookshelves of manuals the other night looking for the one a guy in Oregon wants to buy. While searching I ran into a manual that had "send off comments" in it from a place I resigned fr...
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http://www.woodmaster.com/ I am looking at better ways to heat our house. I have some initial ideas of building a large chimney that will have a fireplace and a flue for the coal stove. The coal stove will be in the basement and the fireplace will be in the living room. Bonnie brought me some excellent information on designing and building a chimnney and fireplace from the architect library where she works. So far that information is great. Unlike many contemporaries, we will be putting the chimney structure inside the heated space of the home. Although you lose usable square footage, you gain a great deal of thermal mass. That means the house will be secondarily heated by the heat slowly given off from the masonry after the fire cools in the early morning hours. A lot of chimney and fireplace design information is reverse-engineered information. Successful fireplace systems are measured and then those dimensions are recommended. I am looking forward to this project. I like maso...
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