Happy B-Day

Happy birthday to my daughter Maddie who turns 3 today. We enjoyed cake this morning for breakfast, it was a bit of homemade deliciousness. Jacob, my son, turns 1 tomorrow, so happy early birthday to him. He enjoyed his first piece of cake ever this morning also, it was quite the scene (although I'm not sure he liked it).

Dog Jam

I was in Beijing last August and we were driving to the client location, which was located outside the 5th ring road, not too far from the Olympic Stadium. We got off the 5th ring road and went onto one of the back roads to avoid traffic. All the sudden, the two cars that were in front of came to a stop; similar to what you would see in a real traffic jam. Well from my backseat I could not see the issue, no accidents, in fact no other cars on the road, so what's the hold up. I noticed the other cars maneuver around something, and as we approached I saw it. Yes folks, this was the first time that I had ever been stuck in a traffic jam...because dogs were having "relations" right in the middle of the freaking road!!!!! I mean there are places for that stuff to happen, but the middle of the road is just not right, not even for dogs. The funniest part about it was the group of dogs that surrounded the two going at it....made me wonder if human intelligence is really that far removed from dogs.

Stories from the Subway

Two quick stories from my recent adventures riding the subway:

What's that smell????
Deodorant is still not that common of a toiletry here in China, so you can imagine that when I ride the subway home after a day at work in the 90 degree heat, there are some odd smells that seem to waft from people (not too dissimilar from the wafting that comes from pepe le pew's tail). Even after you think that you have smelled some of the weirdest of body odors there always seems to be a time when the worst of the smells just hit you. As you might know, it is very loud to ride on a subway, and everyone is really really cramped into the car during the time going to work and going home from work. It appears that this gives certain people the freedom to let the gasses that have accumulated for the whole day to be released for all to enjoy. You know when you see someone yawn and it makes you yawn and then all the other people around you yawn, this is by far the worst part about the releasing of gas because it becomes like a bad chain reaction cause once one person has done it, it seems like it just is this never ending smell of people's flatulence on the subway. I learn more and more to then appreciate getting off the subway and enjoying the polluted air of Shanghai.

I don't even know you?
I am not sure that many Americans can imagine how crowded the subway is during the peak time. Granted I ride on Line 2, which isn't even the busiest line, but there are times when you stuffed in the subway pretty tight with no room to even move. It was at one of those times that the subway made its next stop, I thought to myself that there is no way anyone else can get on this train, but alas the 15 people standing to get in the door I was closest too, somehow found a way to get in. It was at this point that I had a guy kept backing more and more into me, as a reminder he was already "all up on" me, but I guess we were making room for the 15 additional people. He was able to squeeze his left leg in between my legs, imagine human Jenga. Now I am comfortable with my manhood, but this scene was too similar to that of a Mississippi Mudhound in heat, so yeah, it was very uncomfortable to basically have this guy's leg all up on my man area. Anyway, I have been able to avoid this uncomfortable situation by conveniently placing my back pack in front of me, thus eliminating the human Jenga session on the subway.

I have hit rock bottom

People say that an alcoholic has hit rock bottom when they are lying passed out with like 12 bottles of empty rubbing alcohol around them, or an overeater when they are passed out with a bunch of cheeseburger wrappers around them, or weird cat ladies when they are passed out with 43 dead cats in their refrigerator.

Well, I think I have hit my rock bottom when it comes to music listening. While I was not passed out anywhere, I can say that listening to Chinese Pop (Cpop) has corrupted me. I was in the car with a colleague of mine heading to a client (now this colleague liked to talk to herself, and you know when you have just met someone and they begin to talk to themselves and you think to yourself...sketchy, well that's another story all in itself), we had finished our small talk about getting to know each other and she asked me if I minded if she put on some music. Of course, I did not mind, she said, "It's the Backstreet Boys. They're my favorite...I love Rock n Roll." I will leave that last part alone as I think we can all identify the fallacy in that statement, nonetheless I said it was okay for the Backstreet Boys to be played. Little did I know that when the music started to I actually...gulp...enjoyed it. Yes in my mind I started to sing along with songs, and my body was doing one of those internal dances (not the kind when Mr. Doo Doo Brown is at your door). Let me repeat that, I enjoyed listening to the Backstreet Boys...I have certainly hit the rock bottom of music.

I'm Melting...Melting!!!!!

This past week has been pretty hot and humid here in Shanghai (at least 90F and very humid). As you might know I choose to walk home from the subway after work, which is about a 30 minute walk, needless to say in this heat and humidity I get home looking like I just jumped into a pool. Well yesterday Renee met me at the front gate of our apartment complex and we were walking back to our apartment, me looking wetter then ever, as we were passing by one of the outdoor playgrounds, we happened to meet a friend of ours from Singapore. Now for those of you that are not familiar with Singapore, it is small island not too far from the Philippines, basically the temperature there never goes below 70F, so they have an idea as to what hot is.

We stopped to have small chat with our friend and she said to Renee and I that it was "much cooler then yesterday." Now mind you, at this point I was looking like the Nazi guy did in Raiders of the Lost Ark after they opened the Ark of the Covenant (just without all the cool clay-mation effects), of course my first thought was, I am not sure I can tell the ½ degree difference and the 1% drop in humidity after 30 minutes of walking in my own butt sweat, but maybe she knows hot better then I do. Renee just replied with, "yes it is" and we moved on, me walking away looking like Swamp Thing...moral of the story, wear good pants that do not show off your butt sweat.

Better then the NFL??????

Okay okay, no there is truly nothing better then the NFL, I grew up on American Football so it is definitely close to my heart. Although the thought is going through my mind that RUGBY is a better sport then the NFL. It is only a thought, but I'm sure some people around the world would support the thought. I used to take the philosophy that since I am not innundated by US sports television that even the bad sports start to look good, but legitimately, Rugby is a really cool sport to watch (not sure I would play it...yet). First, it is commercial free, which is always a plus. Second these guy hit each other in basically the same manner as the NFL, just without any pads on. Third, all the guys on the team are physical freaks, whereas in the NFL you can have some guys that are either human blobs or guys like the kicker who is your everyday ordinary guy.

It has basically been 3 weeks in a row of watching Rugby on Saturday evenings and I think I'm hooked (this past weekends game where New Zealand came back with 2 trys in the final 5 minutes was awesome). In fact I am even looking forward to the Rugby World Cup that will be taking place this fall in France. Yes, the US has a team, but we are not that great. I will be cheering for my boys, but they play England and South Africa in the first group round, so they will most likely get their butts handed to them (England and South Africa are dominant along with New Zealand, France, and Austrailia). I know that NFL season will be in full swing, but there will be more Rugby coverage on my satellite here in China, so I might just have to follow Rugby closer (dare I say).

We'll see how I enjoy the World Cup, but right now Rugby is creeping up into my favorite sports, now in the top 4 behind NFL, College Basketball, College Football.

I'm not the only one drinking this....

The client took me out to lunch today. As I mentioned in my last post, today is The Dragon Boat Festival Holiday, so the restaurant provided us with some free wine. I took a sip of the wine and it actually tasted exactly like grape juice, but upon asking the client if it was grape juice, they replied that it is a very fruity wine. Nonetheless the stuff was good.

You might have heard that the sanitation in Chinese restaurants is not the best, and I can honestly say that I just look at the food and don't observe the surroundings (as they might not be the most appealing). I was so much enjoying the wine drink that I was drinking it slowly to enjoy, even to the point where I held it up once and took a look at the glass (as if I was some wine connoisseur). Upon looking into the glass I noticed there was something in there. As I brought the glass closer I noticed about 4 wings and then I finally identified it, there was a fly in my drink.

Now, I do not know that much about wines, so I thought for a moment that maybe this wine is like Tequila where there is worm in it for reasons that I don't know, so I thought maybe this bug was supposed to be in it. When I asked the client if this was okay, they looked at it and yelled for the waitress to come over, the words exchanged were basically that this was not acceptable and that we should not have to pay for certain things during the meal. So I guess that was the long way of saying, "No that is not okay." Anyway, I didn't lose my appetite, rather I just didn't drink any more of the wine juice. Too bad cause it was really good.

Far Far Away

I'm currently away from Shanghai on business and missing the fam, but alas the blog must go on.

I am in a city called Panyu in the Guangdong province (southern China). Today is a Hong Kong Holiday, the Dragon Boat Festival, so while all my Hong Kong colleagues are enjoying their day off, I get to be working on an always fun client down here in the middle of nowhere. Actually the client is in the middle of nowhere, but they put me up in a hotel, the Panyu Hotel, that is in the middle of things, there is not only a McDonalds within walking distance, but there is also a Seven Eleven close. Some side notes to clarify this sentence:

• First, having a McDonalds close by is a huge thing because they are mostly in the big cities, so it is a huge deal to have one in a "smaller" town.
• Second, I am currently debating whether Chinese hotel food is better then McDonalds....conclusion, probably should starve myself for dinner.
• Third, I am visiting the Seven Eleven tonight, I have only ever seen them in Hong Kong, so I am excited to explore this one (please let them be experimenting with the introduction of Slurpees)

Anyway, Panyu reminds me of Hong Kong like no other city in mainland China, so it has the aura of familiarity even though I have never been here.

Call Me Giddy

Sometimes I get like a 14 year old schoolgirl when it comes to the music I listen to. You know what that's like (we all did it with N'Sync's "Bye Bye Bye", come on admit it), when you listen to a song over and over and over and over again, until after the first day of listening to it you know all the words. So I haven't memorized the words yet, but I can't stop listening to the first two singles that were released by the Editors from their upcoming album "An End Has A Start." The songs "Smokers outside the hospital doors" and the title track "An end has a start" are two amazing songs. I know that this does not mean that the whole album is going to be great, but I can't wait for the album to drop (I love using pop culture terms in my blog) on July 17, probably my second most anticipated album of the year after Bloc Party (and that one did not disappoint).

On other music listening notes, the first single from the new Pela album, "Lost to the Lonesome" is another awesome song that I can't stop listening to. Oh man that Father's Day present (I already know what it is) will help this album to be another great digital addition to my collection.

For those of you who are not aware of this (probably my over 65 readers only), if you want to listen to more then just a 30 second clip of the songs mentioned above, go to the artist's myspace page (links provided) and you can listen (and get hooked) to the songs for free. Now, where's my Webkinz, I have to digitally feed him.

Greatest Game Ever Played

No, contrary to the picture, the foosball game did not involve President Bush rather it involved me and some of the most intense foosball players ever (translation...5 year olds). We were attending a graduation party last night and there happened to be a foosball table in the house. So I gathered up some of the best 5 year old foosball players I could find and challenged them to a casual game. To make a long story short, after about 10 minutes one of the 5 year olds and I were down 9-2 (winner is first one to 10). After almost scoring the winning point, the next three minutes could simply be described as AMAZING. My partner and I came back like a lightning storm of wheatbread and toasters, and after tying the game at 9-9, we finished them off in solid fashion with a strong kick from the defense straight into the goal. Yes, it was pure heaven... comeback of the century...greatest game ever played.

Some other highlights of the night were:

• the stories from one of the kids telling me that he could burp so loud that the world would shake, upon challenging him on this, I found that my 1 year old son could do better.


• the graduate gave a presentation about his 4 years in high school and at the end one of the 5 year old kids raised his hand and said, "I did not understand one word you just said." This was something I have always wanted to do at a presentation, yes my friends, that kid had guts.


• The night culminated with me not having one adult conversation, rather I spent much of time tackling the kids when we played an indoor sort of smear the queer (I think I bruised up the 3 year old real good)

5.0 and Falling

I think the introduction of this parent scale was a huge mistake. I went from around a 6.5 to now below 5.0. I think I am currently at around a 4.5 after the latest incident. We have Peanut M&M's as a reward for my daughter going to the bathroom on the toilet. Now technically I am not supposed to have any of these, but let's face it, I go to the bathroom enough in one day to warrant at least one of those puppies. So I picked one out of the bin and Maddie saw me do this. She proceeded to point her finger at me and say, "What the crap are you doing?" Now I am not a parental expert, but I'm sure a 3 year old saying that sentence is just a slight indication that my parenting skills aren't even close to cracking the 8-10 mark on the scale. As a side note, that is a phrase that is used by my wife, not by me, so while I take the hit on the parenting scale, she definitely shares in the blame.

Not So Compassionate

A couple of posts ago I introduced the parent scale. I said I was around a 6.5, well I think I have offically dropped to 5.5. My wife, Renee, pointed out a news story her father told her about a year or so ago. The news story cited some scientific study that showed that infants are more compassionate then adults. They were somehow able to prove that when an infant sees another infant crying, they begin to cry, which was supposidly some kind of indicator that the infant is being compassionate for the other baby.



Well, this little scientific study doesn't ring true in our family. In fact our kids seem to get pleasure out of other's pain. They are usually found laughing hysterically when Renee or I get hurt (whether it is fake or real) as if they were watching a good episode of Mork and Mindy. They are also really curious when they hear other babies crying, curious to see what is going on rather then beginning to cry when they hear they other cry. I'm sure this somehow reflects poorly on Renee and I, hence why I continue to slip down the parent scale.



In other news I had a dream the other night that I was trying to defrost red meat in my bed. Not sure why in dreamland I thought this was a good idea and I'm not sure why my wife would allow me to defrost meat in the bed. So what does this say about my mind, not sure, but what I can say is it would make for a great feature film, "Sleeping with Salmonella!" Starring me and Whoopi Goldberg (as the defrosting meat).

We're headed to Abearica

I know that you all have been hanging on the edge of your seats for a weekend update (all 1 of you); anyway here are some highlights from this past weekend:

-When talking with Maddie we asked her where Jacob was born and she said, "China." When we asked her where she was born she didn't know, so we said you were born in America. She replied with, "Abearica, why?" Ah Abearica, must be the magical land that my daughter envisions America to be with its free enterprise, survival of the fittest government, grizzly inhabitants, no feeding the citizens signs everywhere and the free flowing honey fountains. God Bless Abearica.

-Renee and I celebrated our anniversary by going to Paulaner, a German restaurant here in Shanghai. We had seats over looking the Huangpu River and the kids were being watched by friends. The food took a little while to get to us, but honestly it didn't matter cause we were just enjoying our time together and our conversations, so in this case the restaurant did us a favor by being slow.

-I thought over the weekend that I needed to start a "Where am I on the Parenting scale." I think that as I blog more and more about my daughter and son you all will get some kind of opinion as to what kind of parent I am, so I might as well just come out and say it. Obviously on the scale 10 would be the best and 0 would be the worst parent ever. Certain events in my parenting experience will cause me to slide drastically up and down the scale, but to give it a start I think I am about a 7.5 on the scale. I am not a perfect 10 primarily because I think we let our daughter watch a little too much TV and we definitely let her have candy and other snacks that she really shouldn't get in the habit of eating, I guess the whole event this weekend where I walked in on my daughter juggling knives and smoking a cigarette probably made me fall a couple of points also (joking, she was actually only trying to play with a lighter, oops, maybe I'm a 6).

-We went with some friends to a new Tapas place, Mejor Tapas. The food wasn't that bad, it actually has a lunch menu of Mexican food and a dinner menu of Spanish tapas and other dishes like paella. The paella was not the best in the world, but it will do considering we are in China. All in all, we had a good experience and would probably go back sometime in the future.

HAPPY HAPPY

Today June 1, 2007 my wife, Renee, and I are celebrating our big 5 year wedding anniversary. Big ups to us that we made it 5 years (not that it was a challenge).

Happy Anniversary Renee, it has been the best 3 years of my life...wait...umm...yeah that's right.

Rant #2: Snobby Mcsnob

Let me get on my soap box for a second: westerners in China tend to get treated differently then most Asians primarily because of our skin color. In different I mean there is a double standard here in China in that most westerners can get away with things that a Chinese person couldn't, plus there are many things that people in authority will look the other way on just because you are white. This of course has advantages, for example we can pretty much walk into any apartment compound without getting a double look, whereas most Chinese would have to show some kind of ID or prove that they have a friend in the compounds (apartment compounds here in China are gated with security guards just as a FYI). As a westerner you can even walk around not even knowing the language and still stroll with a certain chip on your shoulder that you are better then the people here, which is just plain stupid.

The reason I bring this up is I don't like it when I see a westerner walking around with a clear chip on their shoulder. I feel defeated in cases where I need to communicate but can't, some westerners just don't care cause they believe they are above the people and the language (mostly stemming from the fact that they make more money and feel that they are more educated). The other night there was a westerner who was trying to get into our apartment compound and was, surprisingly, actually stopped by our guards to show his card. He was clearly not from our compound and he did not speak any Mandarin and just tried to walk by the guard ignoring him. When the guard confronted him he just pointed forward and started walking. Then the guard stepped in front of him and basically told him to stop, well he just ignored the guard and moved aside and kept walking. This is what I try not to be over here in China. I recognize that I don't speak the language, but to totally disrespect someone like that just because you don't care is just not right.

I really dislike westerners who are like this and unfortunately they are all over the place here in China, and that's just terrible.

Sorry for that rant, now I will just go back to breaking chairs.