January
2003
It's a new year and Noriko and I wish
everyone a happy, healthy and prosperous 2003. One of my New Year's
resolutions was getting the Diederich Journal back online (it's been
more than five years since the last issue). When we moved back to the
United States in early 1998, I just didn't have the time or energy to
devote to maintaining a Web site like I had when I was in Tokyo.
Back in Japan, I was a reporter and editor for the English-language edition of that nation's largest newspaper, The Yomiuri Shimbun. It was a good job and I had lots of fun. I spent seven years in Tokyo and decided to move back to the States when an IT newspaper called Computerworld offered me a job as one of their first "online" reporters. But the pay was crappy and so I "sold out" after a year and a half and moved into the corporate world. I'm now working at Palm, the maker of those cool handheld computers. I manage their internal communications, along with the company's global intranet.
Noriko and I bought a house a little over three years ago and she's a financial consultant. We have a dog, Ichi, and a cat, Hugh. No children yet but we're probably going to change that soon.