JasonKimball.org

It finally happened, the Internet has been connected at our house here in the United Kingdom! Expect some new post of what we have been doing the past month or two.

I wonder how people communicated before the Internet. For us, it will be at least another week or so before our ISP hooks our Internet connection up at our house. I signed up with BT Broadband about a week or two ago and cant understand why its going to take a month to hook up an ADSL connection. In the mean time, we travel to our local library to use their free Internet.

I miss the speed of a direct fiber connection that we gave up when we left Okinawa and the incredible work ethic of the Japanese. No way the Japanese would let me sit around for a month without connectivity…no way!

Hopefully September will be the month we can continuously update our facebooks/mypsaces and talk on VOIP again. Because I don’t know how else it would be possible for two people to communicate without the Internet. 

Wait, I just thought of a brilliant way to communicate with our geographically challenged friends and family…smoke signals! That will definitely work for sure.

Just wanted to let everyone know that we made it safely to Croughton. I also want to apologize for not updating the site with new posts. The main problem is that we don’t have Internet access in the hotel room we are currently staying at. We have to take a trip to the base library every time we want to access the world.

So, expect to see a couple new post as soon as we find a house and get our Internet situation resolved. Until then, cheers!

What would a trip to Honolulu, Hawaii be without taking the time to visit and appreciate the thousands that gave their lives for our freedom at Pearl Harbor?

On our recent trip to Honolulu we decided to do just that and spend a day at Pearl Harbor to learn and experience more about that horrifying day that happened nearly seventy years ago.

The surprise attack by the Japanese on December 7, 1941 was very important because it would do the opposite of what the Japanese expected. This attack did not destroy our country’s will, it would unify our nation during this tragic time and eventually lead to the U.S. involvement in WWII.

The Pearl Harbor area consists of several different memorials including the USS Arizona , USS Missouri , USS Bowfin , USS Oklahoma , and the Pacific Aviation Museum . One vital piece of information to remember is that all of these locations ban bags from being carried in. This includes purses, camera bags, and shopping bags. Don’t worry, they give you an option to check your bags for a price of three dollars per bag. I would suggest packing only the essentials when you visit the memorials if you want to save a couple extra dollars. If you are into photography and carry a couple of lenses with you, wear something like cargo shorts so you can stuff an extra lens in your pocket like I did.

It was somewhat eerie to be standing in the same location where some much death and destruction occurred 68 years prior. I was pleased to see so many people waiting to pay their respects and visit each memorial just as we were. It is important that we remember and honor those who sacrificed so much to provide the freedoms that we all enjoy today.

We spent nearly six hours visiting the different memorials and I think we still could have spent several more hours or even another day to truly experience it all. I would suggest getting their early if you want to beat the crowds and take your time at each location.

I wanted to share some of my photos from our trip. I hope you enjoy and all get the chance to visit Pearl Harbor.

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It has been about two days but I wanted to let everyone know that the Kimball family made it safely to beautiful Hawaii.

The weather here is a big change from the weather in Tokyo and we absolutely love it. We are staying in Waikiki right near the beach…boy!

Here are a couple of pictures from our first couple days here in paradise!

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It has been a wonderful experience spending the last three years of my life in Okinawa, Japan. Okinawa will always have a place in my heart for sure. It was the place I got married to my beautiful wife, discovered my passion for photography, started this website, and met and created some great friendships.

A quick look through my website and you will see that the majority of the content has to do with Okinawa. For this reason, it is quite obvious that my wife and I really enjoyed the island, culture and the especially the people.

What else can I say about Okinawa except, you really have to experience it first hand to understand how much it saddens us to leave. I hope we can have the great fortune to visit or someday live there again.

Goodbye Okinawa!

You may remember an earlier post from this year about how my team at work got this crazy idea to eat sandwiches large enough to kill a man. Well, we got some new people in the shop and Vinny decided that it was time to initiate them with the largest sandwich ever!

It came as no surprise that Finkel was ready to eat before all of the food arrived. Maybe an even bigger surprise was the fact that our new guy Massey finished his sandwich before the big Russian even knew what hit him.

Everyone had entirely way too much to eat as usual and I fought to stay awake for the remainder of the work day. All of those carbohydrates have some serious knockout power.

Here are some of the pictures from the second helping of The BIG Sandwich day.

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We took the advice of a great Nike advertising campaign “Just Do It” and this was the end result. 

Not sure if this is what Nike had in mind!