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Showing posts from December 12, 2004

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 ...
Jim McQueen sent me this vintage footage digitized from an old 8 mm film. He says that his brother Scott is in the clip and that the clip is a > Bathtub Race held in Berkshire in the 1970s.
Tioga County NY It is official. I am now a member of the Tioga County NY planning board. The Berkshire town board took a vote and voted me in as the Town's appointment to the county board. You never know where things are going. This will be different and fun.
I have committed my weekend almost entirely to computers. I bought a new one. I bought a dell 8400 3.2 GHz with a gig a ram and and 160 g HD. I decided as part of this effort I would review my computer situation and get as many of them working as possible and networked. It all takes time, especially for me cause I don't call tech support much and I enjoy figuring stuff out. I have 4 computers working at this writing which is 4 more than at the beginning of the weekend. This exercise has been a great time for me to reflect on the computers in my personal life. I remember the feeling when I bought my SX 64 that I worked on today. I bought it from COMB for about $650. It must have been 1985. I was elated at the power and enjoyed having the gadget tremendously. Then I got my first PC. I pieced together parts starting with a 40 meg drive that was flakey from work. I scrounged other components over time and I bought a case from Jamco and pieced together parts and software fo...