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Showing posts from February 25, 2007

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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Here is an interview with Anne Aghion the documentary filmmaker I met in Antarctica. I very much expect to be in her Antarctica documentary. She says she has just started to edit. My beard was frosted real nice one day and they got a nice shot of it close up. I very much suspect it will not end up on the cutting room floor. We shall see. There are other shots as well. http://www.ecorazzi.com/?p=1757 I already know I cannot watch another Antarctica documentary the same. The United States Antarctica Program (USAP) is quite small so knowing folks in the film or credits is pretty much inevitable. Being away in Antarctica actually helped me miss most of the winter as strange as it sounds. It is tough to get up in the dark, go shovel, plow, dig and otherwise move the snow out of the way. And after that you get the treat of moving your vehicle through it all to get to work or wherever you are going. Upstate NY is a tough place to live. The summers make up for it around here. The lack of h...
Here is a Top-10 list in ways to destroy earth. Interestly enough, none of these methods seem to mention global warming or Antarctica. (The navigation to the actual list may be difficult to find, but it is there and the intro is fun.) http://www.livescience.com/technology/destroy_earth_mp.html
An article came out just after my blog in regards to the Antarctica card being played in the Global warming campaign. http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/science/02/25/antarctica.icecreatures.reut/index.html The paragraph "Since 1974 5213 square miles of ice shelf have disintegrated...", sets the tone. It makes you go wow that's a lot of area. Antarctica is a big place. It is 98% ice. The peninsula is probably undergoing some serious change just like other parts of the world such as the northern Mediterranean coast. Climates change. I am not ready to say that my wood fire is causing the "disintegration" of Antarctica's ice shelves.