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Showing posts from September 14, 2008

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 ...
The conference is going well. I will be flying back to NY on Thursday. Santa Fe is nice. It turns out the solar panel can get damaged by not having water in it when it exposed to the sun. It gets that hot. "Hot-Liquid Solar" energy is here. It is everywhere else in the world, why not the US? Energy is energy. I saw this moose sculpture getting loaded onto a truck this morning. I was a bit jealous. I have hauled some weird stuff with my truck over the years, but nothing quite like what this guy was towing with his truck.
I am in Santa Fe New Mexico for most of this week for the Center for Information Development (CIDM) conference. This is where I hob nob with all the Technical Information Development movers and shakers from large corporations. The conference is always good. I was reflecting on what has changed in the last five years in this area and it is quite staggering. 5 years ago most participants were musing about information component management systems. Now everyone has one. It is a way of life today, DITA, XML. Then there is the emergence of new problems of integration with SOA, content ownership, and communications between collaborators. It is nice to have respect from large intrepid businesses in the area on content development management.