I’m just lurking around..
I spent around 12 days on vacation with my girlfriend. First we went camping in Nagano-ken for 3 days. We met up with some of her friends at a rock festival called Kiso-Kodo. It was fun and relaxing. Highlight of the camping was the food. Fresh grilled
seafood and wild boar.
After that, we spent the next 5 days in Okinawa. We flew in on a monday night, Naha then to Ishigakijima. We were on the tail end of a typhoon this night, so it was overcast and raining. The next morning we hopped on a speedboat and took a 45minute ride to Iruomotejima.
Continue reading ‘Been a busy past month.. Where to start? Vacation’
Well, it’s been a long 4 months but I finished my project. I was lead for the network implementation of one of japan’s largest currency exchange companies. The project started from the ground up, all new hardware and lines, including the build out of two data centers and upgrade of the office location and the implementation of a VoIP phone system. Then the migration of their current services from foreign hosted data centers to ones local to japan.
These types of projects are normally 9 to 12 month projects. We had basically 5 months, with a 4 month early completion bonus. So from initial planning, ordering and implementation… we made the 4 month mark!
I spent the last month doing config cleanup, training and documentation. Now, from tomorrow, I am spending my bonus on a vacation. Off to go camping in Nagano for 3 days, then to Okinawa’s Iruomotejima and Ishigakijima for beach bumming and more camping for a week and finally back to kyoto for a 3 day camping/music festival.
After that, I come back to a new project as a PM/Manager for Asian Operations for large financial company.. in Roppongi…
cya on the flip
Around two weeks ago, I made the venture back to where I used to live in Hiroshima to take part in the summer aikido camp. 4 days of Aikido, 3 times a day, followed with (un)health doses of drinking. It was great to be back in hiroshima and see how much saijo had changed. Very surprising for such a little town.
Pictures are up on flickr, at the normal place.
RANT:
Working in a international company in Tokyo, I am afforded the opportunity to work with people not only from Japan and American, but from all over the world. I recently had a discussion with both a partner of the company and my girlfriend in regards to the way people approach situations and the reasoning methods. Not only from a technical approach, but in general.
Continue reading ‘Logical vs Illogical reasoning.. Native vs Nonnative english speakers?’
graded.
These past two months have been extremely busy for me. Between managing the network design and implementation of this project and the people working under me and being involved in various other projects, I just haven’t had time to blog.
So a quick update..
It’s hot as hell here. Summer is here and rainy season is all but over.
The job, well it is going awesome. Any doubts that I had about both the company and my abilities are all but gone. Everything I have encountered so far I have been able to solve, via my own ability or via delegating throughout my team. All in all, it’s good. The only problem I have is working with some central european country peoples. Italians, Irish, French Spanish, Tanzanian, Nigerian, Nepalese.. no problem.. others, not so much. And I am not the only one, so I don’t particularly feel like this is a weakness, but I need to try and figure this out.
Aikido is going, bjj is going (perhaps I will have to do some shiai if I want rank..), sabar still going. Japanese is increasing..
As soon as this project is over, I will get a long vacation and a huge bonus.. Planning on going to Nagano and camp in the mountains with girfriend and her friends that live there and then after that perhaps go to a music festival outside of kyoto that lasts for over a month. Also laying plans for a winter trip to Cambodia, Laos and North Vietnam if anyone feels like joinging, around 14 days.
Interesting times all around.
At the Enterprise 2.0 conference (which I didn’t attend), Don Burke and Sean Dennehey from the CIA gave a talk on Intellipedia, the CIA’s internal wikipedia. As part of their talk, they cited a manual, including, this from page 28:
(1) Insist on doing everything through “channels.” Never permit short-cuts to be taken in order to expedite decisions.
(2) Make “speeches.” Talk as frequently as possible and at great length. Illustrate your “points” by long anecdotes and accounts of personal experiences. Never hesitate to make a few appropriate “patriotic” comments.
(3) When possible, refer all matters to committees, for “further study and consideration.” Attempt to make the committees as large as possible — never less than five.
(4) Bring up irrelevant issues as frequently as possible.
(5) Haggle over precise wordings of communications, minutes, resolutions.
(6) Refer back to matters decided upon at the last meeting and attempt to re-open the question of the advisability of that decision.
(7) Advocate “caution.” Be “reasonable” and urge your fellow-conferees to be “reasonable” and avoid haste which might result in embarrassments or difficulties later on.
(8) Be worried about the propriety of any decision — raise the question of whether such action as is contemplated lies within the juris diction of the group or whether it might conflict with the policy of some higher echelon.
This is pretty much the way all business run in japan….
Or something like that.
Things have been busy lately.. Busy with work and back to enjoying Tokyo. Having moved to a more clean and green area of Tokyo, I have to say it is quite refreshing. I have two huge parks within 10 minutes bike ride from my apartment, fabulous view from my balcony, and huge cherry tree’s all around.. (Sakurashinmachi), Sandan test coming up soon if I decide to take it, super bonus coming up also. A friend from canada is coming to visit, again, and possibly moving back. All round, it’s going great.
That’s why updates have not been so frequent.. there is only so much time in the day. My schedule goes like this..
m-f 9-6ish work
tth 830 1030 jujutsu
fr 1830 2000 jujutsu
sas aikido and sabar
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Outside of that, studying japanese and a decent amount of partying with friend… japanese summer.
Since I moved, my judo dojo is just to far away and there is a bjj dojo run by some high ranking bjj guys close by.. (and cheap!) so I started that..
I had my first embassy party last weekend. It was a event at the Canadian embassy in support of Hope International. A charity that builds wells and lends cows to families in need. Right now they are doing a lot in cambodia. It was an interesting time, a lot of politician and “power” players in the Tokyo international scene, or so I was told. The food was pretty good and the open bar was great. Best part was, I didn’t have to wear a tux.. cool biz summers in japan.
I was able to meet and talk with the head of Hope international for a few minutes. Interesting guy. If I go to cambodia, I can help build a well now. Maybe around christmas.