March 16, 2011 Japan Update

Hello,

Hope you don't mind getting these reports. I actually have something to talk about these days.

Don't know if I mentioned it, but the big earthquake had a magnitude of 5 where we are at. Last night there was another one of about 4 and one of 3 tonight.

I've been off from work since Saturday. Hopefully my location will be back open by next Saturday. It's kind of nice being around home to help take care of my family during these times, but my company made me use three paid holidays since they're not making me go to work a the Tokyo locations. Since there still are a lot of train delays, I'd hate to get stuck somewhere a long way from home.

We've had the power out the last two days. Fortunately it's planned so that the area is divided into groups. Each group is given a time slot. If the power needs to be cut at any time, it will be cut in the assigned area for the assigned time. This way, people can plan on when to expect the power outages to happen and schedule their business accordingly. Also, the power is out for no longer than three hours at a time.

Next thing, I'm sure all of you have noticed the news about the damaged nuclear reactors. Seems like all the units in the Daiichi complex have developed some kind of problem. In case you were wondering, we are about 170 miles from the reactors as the crow flies. It actually sounds like there has been a trace of radiation that has made it as far as we are, but was incredibly small. For example, on the scale that is being used, an x ray like you get at the doctors would be about 50. The radiation that we got was 0.16 I think. Here's some trivia, on a jet flight from Tokyo to New York, because of the high altitude's lack of atmosphere above, you actually get more radiation than in an x ray.

Sounds like a water cannon just arrived at the reactor site and it's going to be used to cool the reactors from the outside. Let's hope this helps.

Other than that we're doing OK. My best friend over here, Musashi, lives in Ibaraki prefecture much closer to where the big earthquakes were. He and his wife also just had a baby about five months before Lynn was born. Fortunately they're unhurt. They weren't near to the ocean or tsunami, but they still had a fair amount of damage from the earthquake. In addition to that, they live about 90 miles away from the reactors and are pretty worried about it as you could imagine. So please keep them in mind too when you think about us.

That's about it for now. It's only been five days since the quake, but we're looking forward to life getting back to normal as soon as possible.

Take care.