Updates from the land of broadband

After secretly skimming Planet Olin (really, I just skim) and reading all the “road-tripping home”, “packing”, “unpacking”, “graduation”, “life after Olin” posts, I realized that I hadn’t posted anything lately. Ah, such is life.

So, just like so many students, after Olin’s graduation, my family packed up and blazed out of town as quickly as possible.

Aside: Part of what makes Olin so great (IMHO) is the culture. It is one of learning, excitement, and, in all honesty, overindulgence in being geeky (for many). One of the downsides of this culture is that we (and I) are always on, 24/7. What that leads to is the urgent desire to get very far away from Olin once the opportunity presents itself. This is what leads us to…

Korea. And Hawaii.

Last year, it was England and Italy with the pregnant Caryn and her mother. This year it is visiting family in Seoul and catching the ASEE conference in Hawaii with Caryn and our seven-month-old son, Carter.

We left Boston June 3rd, 2007 at noon, and arrived around 11pm local time in Seoul. I actually have no idea what day it was. We went Boston > Detroit > Tokyo > Seoul. It took forever.

A few hours to Detroit, where we took in a little Taco Bell and rushed to our plane late. Carter did just fine on that ride, although he didn’t sleep much.

The DTW > NRT leg was 12 hours 55 minutes. A long time for an adult. An eternity for an infant. Add to this the fact we left maybe an hour late, and things were shaping up to be hell above earth. In reality, the 13 or so hours went by faster than most trans-Pacific flights I can recall. I believe it had something to do with the constant needs of an infant taking precedence over being interminably bored. Amazingly, we got to Tokyo in one piece. Not much sleep had happened, but we were on the ground.

The NRT > ICN leg was trying, with Carter having a major meltdown for about 10 minutes in-flight. He slept alternately in our arms and we finally arrived in the land of broadband, Seoul, Korea.

I’ll be doing pretty much nothing for the next few weeks as we visit friends and family here. Work resumes with our trip to Hawaii, but that isn’t for a while. In the meantime, I’ll try and post up some interesting pictures and commentary while I have some free time. I have a few articles that have been brewing all year. Time to get them out.