The Business???

If you haven't already seen this video from the Maryland v NC State football game this past Saturday, the referee makes an interesting personal foul call, see the link below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TTGZJlZpyc

Just in case you were wondering, the business is when one man hits another man in the private area.

Get Some Sleep Already

Last night we were trying to get Maddie to sleep. At the time she was playing doctor with her fake stethascope and ear examiner. We asked her if she wanted to go to sleep and her reply was, "Doctors don't sleep." Very true, very true.

Memorization Maddie

We meet with our small group from church on Friday evenings. Two Fridays ago, Renee led the children's portion of the small group and we did motions to learn the memory Bible verse. The kids not only loved the motions, but it really did help them learn the verse.

So I was in charge of the children's portion of small group this past Friday and was trying to figure out what motions to do for this week's verse. Renee and I were reviewing the prior week's verse and forgot the end. So we said the beginning and Maddie looked at us and finished the verse for us. This is pretty cool considering that she is not even 3 ½ and it also confirms to us that the method in teaching the memory verse actually worked or that our daughter is already smarter then her parents.

Not so Black Friday

In a new tradition that we started last year, Renee and I did all of our Christmas shopping for the kids the day after Thanksgiving. Now in the States, this day is known for the hordes of people getting up early to find all the deals for their Christmas shopping. Over here, neither Thanksgiving nor Christmas are huge holidays so the Friday after Thanksgiving means absolutely nothing, thus we were able to go to the Toys R Us in the mall, without having to worry about crowds, take our time picking out the toys and still be the first and only people in line when we were checking out.

It's fun that we were able to say that we finished our Christmas shopping the day after Thanksgiving, but it’s a tradition that we will definitely not continue when we go back to the States.

Thanksgiving Celebration

While we are on the other side of the world, we decided that we would host a Thanksgiving Dinner for some friends. What was going to be a very small get together of some close friends ended up being a pretty big party of a mish mash of 25 people (most we knew, some we didn't). It was a fun time getting to know the new people and talking with our friends and I know that everyone left very full.

Turkey runs around $6USD a pound here, so we decided against getting a turkey and decided on having some chicken and beef, which is significantly cheaper then turkey. I made homemade stuffing (note that it is actually dressing since it was not stuffed into anything, there are just a lot of people that associate dressing with salad), and for my first time making it, it was very good.

Besides the turkey, we missed out on spending time with family and of course watching football, but even though those things were missed, we still had a good time.

Renee vs The Motorbike

Can you guess who won???? The other day, Renee and I were riding our bikes (with the kids connected to my bike via our trailer). There was a guy on a motorbike who was clearly not paying attention to his driving coming towards us and when we alerted him of us approaching it was too late. Renee came to a stop and the guy just panicked and rammed right into her, now who do you think won???? Turns out that the guys pregnant wife was also on the motorbike with her and she came tumbling off along with him.

So to tell you who won the battle, Renee had an alignment issue that we took to the bike shop and was fixed for 5RMB or about .75 US cents. The guy who ran into her, well his front wheel came completely off and his whole front end was mashed up. If you told me that a guy on a motorbike ran into someone with a regular bike, I would ask you how beat up was the regular bike, in this case I am not sure how it happened, but Renee's bike was fine and that guys motorbike took the beating.

The guy told us to just go after the accident (knowing that it was his fault) and Renee was able to ride off before getting her bike fixed, the pregnant lady was fine I think, I think she was faking some of her pain, but we didn't stick around to see. Oh well, Renee 1, Motorbike 0.

Happy B-Lated

All, Happy Thanksgiving, even though this is a couple of days late. We didn't end up having turkey over here in China (try it is a minimum of $6USD a pound, a little pricey), but we had fun getting together with friends.

Enjoy the next couple of weeks leading up to Christmas and the end of 2007!!!

Linkin Park Concert

Many of you know that I really enjoyed going to see concerts when I was back Stateside, but I have been going through serious withdraw ever since being here in Shanghai, which is pretty deficient in the rock scene. So when I saw that a band that I somewhat enjoyed their music was coming to Shanghai, I jumped all over the chance of going to see them. Yes, last night Linkin Park made there debut in mainland China here in Shanghai at an outside stadium venue, Hongkou Stadium. There were probably about 18,000 fans who braved the cold weather to watch LP, and in my humble opinion, the fans were not disappointed.

LP put on a really good show, as I said above, I am not their biggest fan, but whether you like them or hate them, all they do is produce hits. I know that if you're not a big fan of screamer type bands they might not be your choice, but screaming is not their whole bit. I mean they only have 3 albums out and they played for over 1 ½ hours and basically 80% were singles that have been heavily played on US radio. There are not many bands that can play for that long with that many hits after only 3 albums, so, again, like them or not, all they do is make hits.

Again, this was my first concert here in China, and the fans were great. Actually they started to chant the equivalent of get off the stage to the opening band Thin Man, a Chinese Band (I actually kind of liked Thin Man's music, but the fans were clearly there for one thing). But they went wild when Linkin Park came on, they really had some good energy and they seemed to really like the more screamy parts of the songs.

All in all, LP definitely hit #2 on my scale of huge scale rock band concerts that I have been to (no one has yet to come close to U2 during their Vertigo tour), but they were definitely leaps and bounds above one of my favorite big scale rock bands, Coldplay, who formerly held the #2 position. That and the fact that there are not that many people that can say that they saw LP in their debut concert in China (okay so about 18,000 other people in the world).

He's got a whole lotta AIR

I am not sure why weird things happen when I am around, but yet another story can be slated for the "book of weirdness" otherwise known as "the story of my life." I was riding the subway home from work and noticed, out of the corner of my eye, that there was a man moving in a very unusual manner not too far away from me. The train stopped and so did he, so I didn't think much of it, but then once the train began to move again, he would begin to move in this unusual manner all over again, and this occurred between all the stops while the train was moving.

I am usually not phased by the unusualness that goes on on the subway here, but this literally made me laugh out loud to myself. You see, his unusual moves would involve him closing his eyes as if he was trying to sleep or dream something, and then he would just start thrusting his hips back and forth in the air, as if he was "having relations" with the air (or some imaginary friend of his). It was completely awkward and I did notice some others on the train giving him weird looks.

At first I thought maybe this was some kind of Tai Chi move, but after he continued to thrust for periods of time that are unspeakable, I had a inkling that this was not a Tai Chi move. Oh well, I guess he enjoyed his subway ride much more then I did.

The Kids

I just wanted to post some recent pictures of the kids, maybe I am a little biased, but they are the best ever.

Narwhals and Xolos

No, I am not speaking gibberish, my title includes two animals from the alphabetical animal flashcards that we just bought my daughter. Okay, so I understand that finding an animal starting with the letter X is very tough, so I will give them a pass (although choosing the Xolo, a hairless dog is a little scary), but the Narwhal for N????? I mean the obvious N go to is NEWT, this is the classic N animal, I mean you could have even said nurse shark, but narwhal??

Note to the makers of these children flashcards, the parents are supposed to know what the animal is. It doesn't work when you have a kid ask you, "What is that animal" and the parent replies, "I have no idea…I think they just made it up." The parents are supposed to be these great all knowing, all powerful, awesome people that the kids look up to (until 6 years old when they begin to watch re-runs of Alf and see that we are, in fact, not any of those things). Come on animal flashcard people, throw us parents a bone hear (no pun intended).

That's Not So Raven

As I sit here I just checked the final score of the Monday Night Football Game between the Ravens and the Steelers and it was a 38-7 debacle. For all of you Ravens fans (that includes me), I officially announce the season over. We are at best going to be an 8-8 team and right now that looks a little dicey (you can already predict the losses to New England, Indy, and San Diego, just select one more team and there are the 8 losses). Last year it sucked being over here while the Ravens were so good, this year, I'm okay with being over here, cause if I had to watch the Monday Night game, I would not be a happy camper.

Actually speaking of not watching NFL, I have not seen 1 regular season game this season. They used to show replays of the games on ESPN and Star Sports, but now they don't (that in addition to the fact that our satellite has been out). This might be the first time that I can remember where a whole NFL season went by and I did not watch one game. I know there is still a lot of football left in the season, but it may not be easy to watch it, if it's not on television.

Still Thawing Out

Last week I was out of town in a small town known as Kaiping in the Guangdong province of China (southern China). It typically stays in the upper 50's and 60's during the winter time here, but it got a little chilly last week, chilly enough that I regretted not bringing my jacket. So on Friday I hopped into my ride back to the airport from the client, the ride takes about 2 ½ hours. When I hopped in I was a little chilly and I saw the guy adjust the air conditioner/heater and started to feel the air blowing on me. The only problem was that the air was COLD!!! The guy had the air conditioning blasting in the car the whole ride to the airport, and by the end I thought I had frost bite on my ears and fingers. Oh and on top of that, I missed my flight, so I got to thaw out in the airport waiting for the next flight…fun times.

Microwave Matt

Back when we just moved into our apartment we figured out quickly that we needed a microwave, something that wasn't provided when we first moved in. So we went on a walk to the closest department store to find the microwave. The closest department store was about 25 minutes from our apartment (probably about 3km's away). So we went for the walk and found the microwave. Now you may or may not know that I am a cheap, but I am very cheap. So we leave the department store and we realize that neither of us has a business card to hand the taxi driver for him to take us home. Note that we knew nothing about the language and we really could only point our way home, which would be a project in itself. So we were forced to walk home with microwave in hand. Now for those of you who have not carried a microwave a long way (which is probably most of you), a microwave is not that heavy initially, but after you walk about ten minutes with one on your shoulder it starts to get heavy. Just picture the scene, a white guy with his wife and a young kid, walking down a street in the middle of Shanghai China, with a microwave box on his shoulder. Needless to say we were getting a bunch of stares (much more then normal at least) and my shoulder was getting sore, but it was by far one of the weirdest walks that I have ever done.

That's just not right

For those people who are squeamish and can't take stories about gross things, then please do not read on, while this posting is safe for work, it may not be safe for your health.

A couple of months into us being here in China we were driving home in a taxi and I just like to people watch while we are driving in a taxi, so on this particular day we were driving back to our apartment when we came to a stop. While we were stop I noticed that there was a lady holding a little baby. The baby let out a cough and was clearly feeling a little sickly. Well what happened next was something that I will never forget for the rest of my life. The lady proceeded to put her mouth up to the baby's nose and sucked the snot out of the baby's nose and then spit it out on the ground. It was by far one of the grossest things I have ever seen. Now this is China, but that is not something that commonly happens here, and I just can't imagine what was going through that ladies mind when she did that.

Yuck, it still gives me the chills thinking about it (can't say I didn't warn you reader).

Stomachs, Lungs and Brains...Oh My!!!

I am at my favorite client right now (not really), and as a part of all the fun, we get to eat all of our lunches at the Company's cafeteria (here they call them Canteens). Today for lunch we were served pig's lung soup (I had a nice big chunk of lung in mine) and spicy chicken stomach...uhhhh...at least its spicy. In talking with my staff of course they gave me what I have heard out of all my staff when I am offered something "interesting," they say, "here in China we believe that the parts you eat help the same part in the human body be healthy."

Okay, Okay, so the lungs will help me breathe better and the stomach will help with my digestion, I get that, but there are some parts that I just can't put my hands around. What good does a ducks chin do for me if I eat it? What about bird's spit? What about the meat from a camel's hump? And finally, what the heck does eating any kind of anus do for me? Can you help me solve the mystery????