Narita

My 16 hour travel day is just about half over. I've arrived in Narita/Tokyo Airport and am currently sitting in the Business Class lounge enjoying the free Internet access. The lounge in the airport is the size of a small hotel. Our lay over is less than 3 hours, but on the return flight it is 4 hours and 30 minutes so we are planning to get out of the airport and check out Narita City on Friday. Otherwise, my experience in Japan mirrors my last: an excellent bowl of ramein in the airport.

Looks like our first meeting in Korea isn't until tomorrow afternoon, so I'll have a little time to try to adjust time zones. I tried to get some sleep on the plane, but at best I think my hands and left arm got about an hour of rest. First thing I'm doing when I get to the hotel in Seoul is to grab a shower.

I'm convinced that they pick the 'blockbusters that failed' for all in-flight movie choices. Miss Congeniality 2, Sahara, and In Good Company. All the more reason to try to sleep.

Update: Looks like I won't be going to Canada next week after all, which is probably for the best since the other two engineers in my group won't be back from the UK until the following week.

Seoul

Made it Korea after a really long day. It is just after 11:30pm Tuesday night here and I've not slept much since leaving Seattle something like 17 hours ago.

When did Seoul, South Korea become familiar? On the drive over, I recognized much of the route and a lot of the downtown area around the Coex International Hotel.

New Orleans

The extent of the damage is indeed sobering, and I feel for those who are suffering and will continue to suffer for the foreseeable future. New Orleans is a town of immense character, and it is sad to see it so hard hit. With that said, it was bound to happen at some point. Environmentalists have been warning of the potential damage to the city from lost wet lands for years, and even without the influence of global warming potentially causing more intense storms, a large storm was going to hit the gulf sooner than later in just right the spot to cause major damage.

Perhaps over the coming weeks there will be more discussion of the environmental issues that should have been be addressed, the historical perspective of large storms hitting the U.S., political support for critical scientific thinking on how to address the concerns of increasing storms from global warming, being proactive about other places in the country ripe for such an impact, better civil defense capabilities to help the poor without any effective public transportation evacuate seasonal storms, and the economic realities of being dependant on a few key oil-producing facilities. I doubt it though. It seems to make a better story to make it sound like a random disaster from the blue that nobody could do anything about.

In any case, it is clear the name Katrina will be retired from future use by the US weather center.