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Showing posts from August 21, 2005

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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I haven't had the available time to blog. It doesn't mean I am not interested. It is not always a priority. This past weekend I spent mostly tuck pointing the south side of my barn. The wall is 80 feet by 10 feet That is 711 concrete blocks, approximately 2844 linear feet of mortar joint. Although not all the joints are being reworked it takes quite a bit of time grinding the joints out with a diamond wheel in the mini grinder, cleaning and getting new mortar in there. I was thinking that I could by accident take too much mortar out and have the wall fall me. It would be almost a certain death as a hundred or so blocks fall on me. I started being more careful on doing a smaller section at a time after having the visual pop in my head. I need to be skidding trees out of the woods. We need firewood. Although we heat with coal a lot, wood is good for fall and spring evenings and it is used to get coal burning. Coal is hard to get going and getting it stated takes some atten...