Sorry for the dearth of updates. Not much happening except work lately. I will be headed back to the US next weekend for a 10 day tour escorting some Japanese to different places in Atlanta and Washington, DC. Unfortunately, since it's business, I probably won't be able to catch up with friends and family there for more than a short time. Zannen desu...

Other than the crazy hours, I've recently gone through training in Lean Six Sigma. A quality assurance/improvement type of course, it was interesting, but difficult to grasp at times. It is heavy on the business language and case studies didn't necessarily translate well to my day to day work. Still, it gave some good techniques to organizing projects and focusing on what really makes a process tick and become something that adds to the end value of your product/service, etc., vice detracting from it. Now, I just have to get through my project, and I'll be officially a "Green Belt," with all the rights and privileges afforded me because of it...Near as I can figure it, that means that I'll get more work. Of course, the street value of such a course is rumored to be on the order of $16K, so that's nothing to sneeze at. And, apparently, it looks good on a resume, and may benefit me in my future life.