Time behind the firewall

I've been spending a lot of time up in the Hangzhou/Shanghai area, where Blogspot is blocked. As I am too lazy to find ways around the Great Firewall, there are no postings on facebook, twitter, or blogspot during these trips. I actually just concentrate on work (yikes).

Last week saw the following facts and figures:

-6+ minute solar eclipse watched from the top floor of our factory.
-4 hours of Guitar Hero, with the Metallica edition especially enjoyable.
-0 trips to Hooters, a terrible mismanagement of time on the part of all involved.
-2 hotel rooms and 1 guest bedroom dominated by my sleep.
-1 flight canceled so I could drive 2 hours, have a 15 minute meeting, then drive 2 hours back to Shanghai.
-45 seconds of a new Baron Davis viral video clip being put together by a company I visited.
-3 new production lines in the planning stages.

and my favorite of the week:

-44 arrests in New Jersey for corruption, money laundering, and all those other things that give the Garden State a good name.

Finally, if you haven't seen the Onion in its new, Chinese State-Owned Enterprise form, you haven't really been living.

Mid-Summer Despair

No long weekends on the calendar until October. Farewell white sand, thatched umbrellas, and clear waters. We'll meet again.

Unhappy Cab Driver

"Please turn off the god-damned flash."

Big Sky

Up above Sun Valley, Idaho; clouds bigger than New Jersey.

Bike Rides in Vietnam

Above are a few pictures taken from our trip through Vietnam in 2008. The top picture is China Beach (outside of Hoi'An), the middle picture is to give an idea of the bikes we rode (mine was the same as Sophia's; obviously hilarious), and the bottom picture is from outside of Hue. Outside of Hanoi and Saigon, we rented bikes frequently as a means to get around without having to deal with tour operators, motorcycle taxis, or shitty rental cars.

During our stay in Hue we rode around to a number of imperial tomb sites in the area. The largest of these was about 12km outside of the city, and to get there by bike requires a different route from the usual tourist approach on boat. As the guide books maps were spotty at best, we figured we could use Sophia's navigational skills to sort it out as we got closer. After a pretty long time we began to worry we had gone too far; the road had more hills than our bikes could really handle, and there was really no sign of (or for) the site. Then a woman on a motorcycle pulled up and asked if we were headed for the imperial tombs. She guided us back to her home/rest-stop along the road where there was a path that led to the tombs.

We stopped at her rest stop and had a drink. She informed us that because we had passed the turn off for the tombs, if we had kept riding we would have ended up at the Laos border. So, we almost accidentally invaded Laos by bicycle. As we walked along the path to the tomb there were rice paddies (see photo) and a wall that marked the border of the tomb. Soon a little kid appeared and took us to a hole in the wall we could crawl through to avoid paying the entrance fee, but we'd have to pay him. We ended up going to the the main gate.

Business Trips of Yesteryear - ISPO 2007

Back in the day I used to go on badass business trips around Europe. These pictures are from one of those trips. We went to ISPO in Munich with the Union Binding Team so we could occasionally put down our beers and explain the manufacturing prowess that goes into every pair. Totally blew some minds with our technical lingo. Also got bored and created the little appendage for that guy in the top picture.

On a separate trip that included a brief stop in Paris, Jeff (right side, bottom picture) and I decided to forgo any Parisian cuisine for Chinese food, because at least at a Chinese restaurant we would know when the waitstaff was making fun of us. That trip also saw us carrying nine foot surfboards around Paris, occasionally making scenes by knocking them over or into people. Remember, this was pre-Obama; a couple of Americans making loud noises and whacking French hipsters in the heads with surfboards was completely unacceptable to the locals.

Kraftwerk

I once spent two hours watching four Germans in tight fitting black clothing stand behind synthesizers and in front of a huge screen of flying pills. However, the screen certainly changed with every song, and at one point there were four robots in place of the Germans.

Given the opportunity, I would most certainly repeat the experience.

A Note From my Badass Sister

Hi All,

I wanted to provide you with some facts before I got into the body of this email. As you can see, blood cancers affect many people, especially young adults and children. As some of you know, I will be cycling 100 miles in Salisbury, MD for The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS) on October 10, 2009.

My dad and I are doing this ride as a team, "Beauty and the Beast" is the name of our team and although you may not know him, the name is very appropriate :0). He is the one who encouraged me to get involved with LLS as he participated in their Lake Tahoe ride last year raising over $4000 for LLS. I have just started training, and rode for the first time on a road bike last Friday for 17.5 miles. That is a long way from 100 miles, but hopefully between now and October, I will continue to train and 100 miles in one day will feel like a piece of cake!

Part of this ride is raising $2800 to help find a cure for these blood cancers. If you would like to donate, please use the link below.

Please do not feel obligated to donate and also feel free to pass this email along to anyone you think would be interested. I want to make sure to get this out to as many people as possible as it is for such a wonderful cause.

If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact me.
Thanks,
Brenna
To donate, please click here: http://pages.teamintraining.org/snj/seagull09/bskaar

Lazy Tourist

Yeah, she was about 1/3rd my weight, but there were 3 other people in the boat...so I'm off the hook, right? On the way to the Perfume Pagoda in lovely Vietnam.

Safety is for the Weak

I guess he is wearing a safety helmet.

Way Back in '05

He's writing out his life story.

The Jungle Bar

The first month I lived in China was spent at a big private school outside the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone. It was indicative of China and Shenzhen's glaring gaps between the urban, industrializing areas and the rural, farming poor. While we were within Shenzhen city limits, by going out the back entrance of the school and walking for ten minutes, we'd be in a world of run down homes with little tying them to the modern world, basic farming on small plots of land, and the "Jungle Bar".

The Jungle Bar was not a bar, but the little shop the local villagers went to for everything from soy sauce to Pringles. Its shelves were packed with one or two of all the basic necessities, and thanks to their electric scooter anything could be procured from the industrial area a scant 10 minute ride away. Just on the other side of the school were large factories, apartment buildings, electronics shops, grocery stores. The Jungle Bar side was jungle.

We drank their beer at cement picnic tables under the shade of aluminum roofing and some spotty palm trees. The local dogs would lie in their stench nearby while we hooked up some speakers and listened to ODB. The Tsingdao cost 3 RMB.

That is how I spent 4-5 nights per week for my first month in the country.

Where's Waldo?

That's me, doing what I do best: sweating in a factory.

Just for the record, I am the only person sweating. This is usually the case.

Idealism Marred by Realism

Beaches are way better than offices, but the pay is shit.

First Post (hopefully also not Last Post)

Summer in Hong Kong is no joke. Humid, hot, generally horrid weather mixed with the scents of wet markets, decomposing trash, and the guy standing next to you. Gruesome usually, uncomfortable constantly, tolerable only indoors. A long slog, but we didn't move here because it would be the easy life. No, we are here for the action, adventure; sweaty summers be damned.

This afternoon I get my new China visa, and Saturday we storm the mainland to celebrate the 4th of July. The celebration will include a pool, a tailor, Japanese food and beverage, topped off with a KTV dessert. After we recover, I will push further up the Pearl River where hotel meals and Corporate-ese awaits. Deadlines to meet, deals to discuss, margins to analyze. Later in the week I'll pull a quick 18 hour tour of duty in Shanghai, avoiding the glitz and glam, and embracing an early morning car ride to the middle of nowhere.

After the trips to Malaysia and Idaho over the past 6 weeks there's little hope of any kind of quick vacation in July or August. Worse yet, we have now entered into the Hong Kong Public Holiday Draught (aka, Bring on the Level 8 Typhoons, Please). From July 2nd until September 30th there will be no random long weekends, sneaky Tuesdays off, or even the previously unknown Buddhist holiday to keep us out of work. Here's hoping for a strong gust of wind, black rain, and level 8's.