Int'l Exposure

Settling in to the UK

richardring — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 20:59:23 +0000

It’s been quite some time since I posted, settling into the new life in the UK has taken a lot out of both of us. We have had quite an ordeal with learning the city, finding an apartment, getting into an apartment and furnishing it. We were (un?)fortunate enough to get a very nice flat that was not furnished, meaning we could get the furniture we wanted and take it with us or sell it off when we leave.

This will be a shorter post and lay out the new topics that I want to share with you all, they include the following:

Our process of getting a flat in the UK.
Furnishing the flat with the help of a company in Seven Sisters.
Setting up utilities, and all of the other things that go with a new apartment.
Learning the city and the area around Bow Quarter.
Transportation in London and all of the headaches it involves.
Working in Canary Wharf (mostly the commute and a little about the office ‘amenities’).
The state of bodybuilding in the UK and my trip to Reading on July 11th.
My goals for an Imperial College MBA and what the next steps are.

There will probably be more topics but for now, let me leave you with a picture of the view from my seat on a train to Reading which was stuck for over an hour due to a downed power cable damaging the front engine. (More to come on that, see #7).

Saying good-bye

richardring — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 09:34:59 +0000

In Japan you often get a goodbye party or a ‘Soubetsukai’ when you leave a company or school (or any large organization of people really). When you are at that party, depending on the type of organization, you will often receive a card with small messages from everyone in the group. Last night at my company threw me a going away party and I received one of those cards. For me, that was the first time and it was really special. I had not realized how much of an impact I had on the organization and how much everyone cared that I was leaving. I thought I could just dissapear and no one would notice, wrong! Anyway, it was a lot of fun and it was good to relive some memories from the time working with so many great people. Thanks everyone!!

Last working day in Tokyo

richardring — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 22:53:47 +0000

Today is my last work day in Tokyo. It’s been a long time coming but boy, did it arrive fast! It feels like the last few weeks have just flown by with all the preparation I’ve been working on. Let me go over a few of things that have been on my mind just in June:

Arranging a shipping company (my wife handled this)
Selling our household goods on Craigslist.org and keeping track of who is buying what and when
All of the work related paperwork that goes along with the move
Getting my UK Work Permit
Transferring my iPhone to a friend
Cancelling the gym — And finding a new gym in London
All the good-bye parties (sooo many of these)
Closing bank accounts
Buying plane tickets
Researching where to live in London
Securing a hotel for the first week’s stay
Planning, planning, planning and more planning

There is nothing like the amount of planning and research that goes into a cross-continental move. In fact, I’d say I am far, far more prepared for this move than I was when I came from Seattle -> Tokyo. That move was a bit amateurish since my parents had never moved abroad and I certainly had no experience. To be sure, I overpacked for that trip and sent a LOT of ‘Stuff’ as Trent likes to capitalize on The Simple Dollar. This time I am working diligentally to underload our Stuff and avoid a lot of wasted effort in transporting goods we don’t need. For example, we got a package deal of 9 boxes for our shipping service, we have 2 that are virtually empty and are not trying to fill with something (good thing, I will bring my Desktop in the end but that was VERY encouraging in our Stuff reduction quest).

Spacial Interfaces

richardring — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 05:39:48 +0000

Today I was looking at an article on Fast Company which referenced a video to John Underkoffler demonstrating the technology they are working on. What’s amazing is that they’ve already designed the interface capabilities in Minority Report.

To some extent, we could say that the future was shaped by the movie? He speaks of the gestures being modeled on what we saw in the movie, which is kind of interesting to think about when you consider the movie was made before the technology.

Check out the demo at Minute: 6:30.

Under Construction

richardring — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 04:54:14 +0000

The blog is being re-constructed to provide a cleaner interface and easier usage mechanism for posting and keeping more frequent in those posts. Check back for further updates!