I've officially signed up for 2010 Ironman Canada. Have to sign up a year in advance as it sells out within a day of opening up.

Skymark considering flights from Okinawa to Taiwan

This could be huge as I'm all about more ways to get to Okinawa. Flying via Japan can be costly and time-consuming. Right now China Air has flights to Okinawa from Taiwan but if Japan's largest discount carrier starts offering int'l flights, that could be a good sign for more opportunities to get good deals and also more time options. Skymark is also considering flights to South Korea, the Philippines, or Hong Kong.

Last week I spent a couple days in Chicago for a JETAA National conference. I arrived a bit early so I decided to venture out and check out the Art Institute. There was a lot to see and some of it was typical of most big city museums, art by famous people... There were a couple pieces that made me think that even I could become famous as I didn't get how the piece was considered art. A canvas with nothing but orange on it doesn't seem so creative. There was one area where as I was walking to it, a lady walked in and immediately walked out mumbling under her breath, "I don't do clowns." This should have let me know that this area wasn't for me as I don't do disturbing/scary and clowns are scary. Well, I went in and it freaked me out. Luckily I had the frame of mind to record it and give you a chance to see what I saw.

So after a long, long break from contributing to Okioki.net, it looks like we’re back at it. Thanks to Pat, some new content has been uploaded to the site. Basically if you’re interested in any news relating to Okinawa, then we’re hoping that this is one of the sites you’ll go to. The contributors to the site are passionate about Okinawa and will do our best to keep it updated and interesting. Also, if you want a tour guide of Okinawa, please feel free to pay my way and I’ll take care of you while we’re there So if you got a minute, go check out www.okioki.net

www.okioki.net は沖縄についてのウェブサイトです。英語で記事を書きますけど、どうぞ見てください。

By the way the day began I thought that it was going to be great. Had some quality meetings today regarding moving forward on some web ideas, great networking, and made the choice to purchase a car that is pretty sweet. But then I got home and it all went to... First letter I open and guess what, I have to report for jury duty next week. Second letter and whoopee, my mileage from my trip to New Zealand won't be credited. Here's the nail in the coffin; I spent over 45 min. on the phone with AT&T and 2Wire customer service trying to get my lovely internet working at my apartment. The instructions for setting up internet are really straight forward but apparently the person who wrote the instructions has never actually set up internet at his or her place... that's my take. So after 45 minutes of doing everything they told me to do, it appears that they want me to be home from 8 am - 8 pm on a certain day next week but that just happens to coincide with the day I get to go to court. Looks like this saga may last a bit longer than I thought it would. It's only 5 pm and hopefully a good tough M2 class will work out my aggression. I try not to blog about displeasing personal topics but sometimes you just need to release the tension via whatever you have. In my case, the internet. Serenity now, serenity now... don't want to pull a kramer.

Match.com, here's a business model for you

After 2 years of my Match.com profile being set on ‘invisible’ I decided to take a look at it and make some updates. I got interested in different dating sites due to various iphone apps for meeting people. My intentions weren’t/aren’t to meet the one but more to check out the UI’s and different functions available within the iphone apps. While I’m open to online dating, I’ve found that there’s a couple of barriers for me that hinder meeting someone. First reason I’m not completely sold on online dating is that I’m still being introduced to ladies through friends and social groups who know me quite well. Secondly, I don’t like the business models.

I guess part of it is that I’m still quite happy meeting people through friends which makes me lazy when it comes to putting in real time and effort into meeting a woman via the internet. That being said, I do enjoy checking out the match.com iphone app and who knows, maybe I’ll meet somebody. There really are a ton of people using it. Now comes the business model issue that I referred to: I’m what I consider a “casual online dating site checker” I look at who’s viewed me, winked… every once in a while but I still am very much meeting people through other avenues. So I’m not willing to pay a monthly subscription to communicate with somebody or see who’s emailed me… thus far, the emails have been from people who don’t have profile pics up and yes, that’s a deal-breaker for me. I would be more interested in Match.com if they started offering a micro-transaction type model for those of us who every once in a while want to email/ wink… then we could be charged per wink or per email. How about charging me a dollar for every email and $.25 per wink? That would definitely make people think longer before winking at every Joe Schmo they see. And if you’re wondering if this type of model is profitable, I’d say it is. Just look at the revenues that gaming/virtual worlds are pulling in via micro-transaction models.

I chose Match.com as an example because I haven’t bothered using any other sites and with dating sites, there needs to be a large pool of people using the site and they seem to be the biggest.

*Disclaimer: I don’t work for any dating sites. I’m actually happily single and blessed/humbled to have wonderful friends who feel I’m a good enough guy to introduce to their other friends

**Just a note: This isn’t going to become a blog about dating as I don’t write about my personal relationships. My Facebook status will not be showing single, complicate, dating… nor will ever unless I start dating Jessica Alba.

Hi friends and family,

If you regularly check this blog, please note that I will be transferring everything to johnhayato.com or johnbranderhorst.com both of which will go to the same place.

Cheers :)