Carolina experience

This weekend was jam packed activities with my better half traipsing through a 100 mile radius from home and visiting a multitude of food and recreation spots outside Charlotte.

Saturday started with visiting now revitalized digs of former tobacco and rail barons like RJ Reynolds and Duke and JP Morgan in the form of Winston Salem. Having visited before we knew where some taste bud enticing menu was located and we immediately stopped there.

Food came in the form of pork buns and steamed shrimp dumplings along with some amazing beef noodle soup in a spicy broth. The place, May Way, is a little shack in the Reynolda garden complex (part of the Wake Forest University close by). The spring season was in full bloom and so a walk later on in the rose and flowering gardens was enjoyable along with stopping to chat with visitors from far and near also seeking joy in nature.

After this heart beat racing stroll in the gardens we stopped for a little bit to admire art and poetry (erasure poetry was a new art form to me) at the SECA complex not far from Reynolda.

From there it was a short drive south to just outside Salisbury to see the Norfolk Southern goods train marshalling yard - the access being at the end of a dead end street. There is no signage whatsoever and for a minute you are not even sure your car is going in the right direction until you end up at the tens of tracks housing the rail cars waiting to their turn to be shunted to their destination.

As a rail geek it is always a fascination to see such action up close.

From there we visited another historic and amazing facility - this the NC state transport museum in Spencer, NC. Town was named for a guy that JP Morgan hired as owner of Southern Railway, over a 100 years ago to run his railway business which resulted in America's glory days in rail including that for the Carolinas. Samuel Spencer was the first president of the railway and the town is popular today because of this museum.

100 year old roundhouse (largest of its size and kind in North America)

To get to this town off I-85 you can take a service road coming from parts north like we did in Winston and it took us over a 100 plus year old Wil-Cox bridge. An amazing architecture and engineering marvel it is best viewed from a pull out on the northern end as it spans the Yadkin river.

I loved walking around the 37 track and 100 feet long roundhouse table that is still used to service some of the exhibit locomotive and train set that operates on the site.

After relaxing Saturday night with some amazing Indian food we planned a hike for Sunday morning in a 2,000 acre greenspace, this time in town of Fort Mill SC. This wonderful area is named after the woman who bequeathed this land to the locals to be used as a recreational space and opportunity to get outdoors. Her name was Anne Springs Close. Her maiden name of Springs tells the history of a cotton mill baron, her father who owned several mills in the area in South Carolina and later donated his estate to her.

It is part educational space for young children - with exhibits for both natural artifacts as well as historic ones being the site of the trail carrying armies to fight the British during the war of 1867.

A hanging bridge over Steele Creek inside this park along with some quality time strolling along Haigler lake was our favorite part.

On the go(zay masta) in Japan again

Cool cat the Japanese are Tokyo at dusk My second visit to this land of the rising sun after almost a decade. Back then clearly I was wet behind the ears product manager and likely didn’t pay attention to all (efficient) things Japanese. But today I did and of course continue to be impressed. It is as much the obvious stuff like on time travel that is both clean and comfortable and all that which makes it possible. The impressive landmark and landscapes that these humans have put together despite their cramped (or because of it) surroundings and precarious geological conditions could amaze a novice architect among us. But it’s also the little things that someone had to think about which have a phenomenal impact on day to day lives that make the Japanese stand apart. Below are few random examples- 1. Providing a very fine machined wooden toothpick in every packet of wooden chopsticks. The said chapsticks are simply set on the To Go counter of any food vendor/ convenience store wher...

A few good books

On an informal mission to read one book a week as long as the eyes allow for such ambition. Fiction or non is not important as long as it entertains and /or educates. To that end the past few weeks have brought a bounty in the form of some wonderful and then not so engaging literature. Among the notables are - Non fiction category: 1. Good arguments by Bo Seo (how to handle a dispute or debate the most efficient way possible) 2. Genesis by Eric Schmidt (and former US Secy of State Henry Kissinger, who recently passed) - how AI might affect our lives as we know it 3. One in a billion - Zarna Garg (an autobiographical look at an Indian born American woman with a bindi narrated in a standup format - yes it is at times cliched but still funny) Fiction: 1. Personal by Lee Child (a vigilante story with Jack Reacher the giant, nomad protagonist of Child's novels goes hunting for a sniper) 2. Ramayana unraveled by Ami Ganatra (she might disagree about it being a work of fiction but oh wel...

Back in DC

This time for a tech conference in the realm of what else? AI. But applied to an oft neglected space called Knowledge Management. The latter is a community of practice that focuses on analyzing, organizing and making available reams of data that have been gathered over time by various functions within an organization for anyone in the company to utilize. This function or process is ripe for applying AI agents (or agentic AI framework) and optimize for better outcomes. It was informative. More rewarding was getting acquainted with folks who practice this craft as well as learning of what they see in the corporate or public sectors. Since the venue was Washington DC it also afforded me the chance to take evening strolls albeit the weather was trying. With wind chill in the single digit it still is a glamorous place to perambulate through history absorbing what this country has been through since its founding days. I was able to visit the place Lincoln was killed along with his monument t...

Brown Motion

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