V for ....

Villanova, as many of you, who did not graduate from Villanova, would not know the ending to. I am not gloating, I am just excited. 'Nova has made it to the sweet sixteen before, it just seems like this year it is a better feeling knowing that they were on the bubble and supposidly were one of the last teams to make it into the tournament. Well they have certainly showed they deserved it. Now onto one of the best teams in the nation in Kansas. Well we have beaten them before when they were ranked #1 in the country way back in 2004, but this game will definitely be different. Even if 'Nova bows out against Kansas this has been a fun run for them and us fans. So congrats 'Nova on the win.

Happy Easter!!!

To all, Happy Easter!!!

I couldn't find any good pictures, but just in case you think I am confused as to why we celebrate Easter, it is not for bunnies or easter eggs, it's because Jesus rose from the dead (for more on this, go to this link). So in the midst of all the non-sense in my blog, I just wanted to make sure you all knew what was really important.

Again....Happy Easter!!!

Back 2 Basketball

Yesterday was a great day for the #13 and #12 seeds, including my boys Villanova. If you didn't actually follow any of those games, with the exception of Siena putting the beat down on Vanderbilt, 3 out of those 4 upsets were great games. On another note, I live in ACC country (even though there are Big East teams in the area, they are disrespected for the ACC). If anyone thinks that this wasn't a down year for the ACC as a conference, then reference the tournament thus far (I am including Duke's loss today as a reference). So for anyone who still thinks that V-tech should have gotten in, I think the ACC's performance in the tournament would say otherwise. The only thing that the ACC has going for it is UNC, they are a legit team and have a legit chance of going far, as for everyone else (right now everyone else is Miami), it appears that the ACC will only have 1 team in the sweet sixteen...and that is not a lock.

Going back to Villanova, great win (came back from 18 down to win), and I would usually be okay with playing Siena in the second round, but they really played well against Vanderbilt and they have a lot of unknowns. Oh well, should be a great Easter afternoon game to watch (that would be afternoon for you all in the States as I will have to be up at midnight to catch the game).

On a non-basketball note...

My blog has been riddled with NCAA tournament talk, sorry work has slowed down a bit for me so I have a little time to actually keep up with things that I like from the States. On another note, yesterday was a great day other then the games that were being played cause we got to take friends and family around the city who were visiting us. First, to start, Renee's sister's daughter and her husband are in town (arrived on Wednesday for 1 week) to tour around and see the different sights. I know what you are thinking, why didn't you just call her your niece, well primarily because she is older then me (long story, I can explain later if you want me to) and as such, they are more like cousins to us then a niece and nephew, so I have just been referring to them as family just so as to not confuse people. Also in town yesterday was a friend of mine that I grew up with and his wife (they were on a tour in China and had the afternoon free).

It was a fun time of getting cheap pearls, knock off stuff, seeing Yu Garden, riding the sketchy ferry across the river with all the people on bikes, walking all over the place, having a (in my opinion) great dinner made by our domestic helper, getting foot massages (4 people got 1 hour long foot massages each for less then $10USD total) and just having some great conversation. I was worried about having to balance my time with the family and my friends, but Renee and I worked it out so that she was at a place that was convenient for us to meet them so that we could all hang out together for the rest of the day. Anyway, it was a great day and my friend and I (who we hadn't seen each other in a couple of years since he moved to Phoenix and well, I am here in China) were able to catch up and I was able to meet his wife for the first time, so all was well. I finally got home at around 11pm after dropping my friend off, but the whole day was very good day.

By the way, to the 3 readers that are out there, of course you know that there is an open invitation for you all to come and visit (that is pending that I actually know you), in addition to having family in town, we also have another visitor coming in two weeks and already have friends who have booked a trip here for the fall, so we are becoming quite the tour guides having all these people come through.

I didn't want to brag...but...

Okay, so for the second year in a row my big upset pick has come out in my favor. I know many of you would argue that a Kansas State victory over USC isn't saying much, but it was an 11 over a 6 and it was the only major upset in the first day of games. Okay so I was kind of wrong in hyping up Michael Beasley who, due to foul trouble, wasn't too much of a factor in the game, but K-State still won.

Today's set of games has seen its share of upsets with Davidson over Gonzaga (for me this was a toss up game for who will ultimately lose to Georgetown), Western Kentucky over Drake (this was actually a stunner for me, I really thought Drake could go deap), and San Diego over UConn in overtime (these are the 3 reasons why I hate not being able to watch the games). While I didn't pick any of the 3 above, my one pick at least came true, so hopefully you all are still doing well in your poles, and lets just keep hoping for one more upset today (I am still holding out for the second #12 upset over a #5 in the tournament...only time will tell).

Classiest Coach Revisited

Someone on this blog had to comment that UCLA's coach, Ben Howland, is a classier coach then Jay Wright...I just couldn't let that blasphemous comment stand. First, the only coach that people outside of Southern California relate to UCLA is John Wooden, as a coach, you will always be in the shadow of that coach...always. Second, yes UCLA has one of the best teams in the nation (although most people outside of the state of California recognize that the PAC 10 is way overrated this year and that UCLA probably will not be able to win the whole thing, but that's neither here nor there), but classiest coach is based on how good your team is right now, it is based on how classy you are while you are coaching your team. An element has to do with how well your team does, but, for example, John Chaney used to coach Temple and they used to be really good under him. Even in their glory days, he was never a classy coach, it is just a fact.

But I did post a picture of Howland for all to see that in no way does he stand up to Wright, Howland doesn't even have a full head of hair, you would never find Wright with a loosened tie during a game (this is a clear sign of coaching weakness by the way) and you would never find him without his suit jacket on. He always coaches like Villanova has the upper hand, which is of course...classy. By the way, Jay Wright won on ESPN.com's bracket contest for most fashionable coach, UCLA didn't even make it to the sweet 16.

Howland has the better team this year, but 'Nova has the classier coach.

What Time Is It?

Yesterday morning my body was telling me to wake up, but when I rolled over and looked at my clock it said 2am. So I denied what my body was telling me as I knew that I still had another 3 ½ hours to sleep (note that I had a split second where I thought that I felt really refreshed and that this might go down as the greatest night of sleep ever with over 3 hours of sleep left). I turned over and went to sleep, but my body woke me up about ½ later. I seemed to think that my body was trying to tell me that I have had enough sleep for the night, but I was thinking why the heck should I be getting up at 2:30am? I sat there with my eyes open and started to listen, I heard some birds chirping. Now that is weird, I thought, why is my body insisting that I get up and at the same time why are birds chirping at 2:30am?

So I decided to get out of bed to do some discovery, as I walked towards the bathroom, I noticed that it was unusually light outside and as I approached another clock I noticed that it was, in fact, 6am in the morning. Hmm…now that makes sense as to why my body was trying to wake me up. Turns out that one of my kids was playing with my clock the night before and turned the time by about 4 hours. Makes me feel good that, if the world did not have alarm clocks, my body would still be waking me up like clockwork (no pun intended).

Classiest Coach in the NCAA

One of my buddies has decided to take his obsession of March Madness and turn it into a blog. On this blog I made a comment that Villanova's Jay Wright is by far the classiest and best dressed coach in all the NCAA. He never sports those weary mock turtlenecks and throws his nose up at those sweaters or open V-neck windbreakers. Instead Coach Wright always sports the classy suit. And when I say suit, I don't mean something that the majority of coaches wear where it looks like it has been collecting moth balls for centuries before they put it on. Rather Wright wears tailor made suits and makes those suits look good. I mean, even when the team is battling an opponent throughout a whole game, a situation that would have most coaches sweating through their suits, Wright stays calm, cool and in control and at the end of the game might as well be able to walk a runway at a fashion show. He is not just a great coach, but he looks good winning.

By the way, Go 'Nova on Friday!!!

China: Where the news isn't alwasy right

I was reading in our local Shanghai newspaper this morning that things have apparently calmed down in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, and that things are starting to get better after the riots that occurred last Friday. In fact they are reporting that only 13 people have died as a result of the riots last Friday. That's very interesting because when I go to western websites it appears that the Chinese Media forgot to mention that there have been a string of violent and non-violent protests throughout the world on Chinese Embassies since the Friday riots. It also appears that they forgot to mention that the death toll has been reported as actually being closer to 20 people or as many as 80 people (as reported by some Tibetan news source). Finally, the western news along with the US consulate is reporting that violence is still an issue in that region and the region should be avoided.

Hmmm… so who am I to believe, well I think I would lean towards western media on this one. While news from that region is not easy to get even for the western media, things tend to get stretched to the point of not being true in the Chinese Media. Just something I thought seems to be relevant now that might be of interest to you readers. Now back to filling out brackets.

The Big Dance

I must first admit that my blog has not adequately reflected how excited I am that March Madness has been going on and the NCAA tournament is upon us. I also have to admit that, outside of my own desire, I have not watched any college basketball games this season, but have been able to keep up with the goings ons via reading articles. I was so giddy to wake up on Monday morning, my time, and see the teams gradually getting selected into the tourney (via the internet) and almost jumped out of my chair when my boys, Villanova, made it into the tourney. Oh Man, I can't wait to get up in the early morning hours to watch 'Nova play Clemson. Of course being a homer, I picked them to win the game, which I'll admit is a stretch, but you can't count them out, they have really come on strong here late in the season.

I have filled out my brackets, I am the type of guy who will fill out 4 or 5 brackets, but they will all have the same results for all the games (so I fill in one bracket and just copy it into the different leagues or contests that I enter). The good thing about being over here is that I don't have to fake like I'm working while watching the games, rather I can just wake up at midnight and watch the games until the morning rolls around. This will be my first season where I didn't follow college basketball too closely, someone has told me that because of this I will do much better with my tourney picks as it is always the person who knows nothing that wins these things, well, I'll be testing that theory this year and see if I do any better.

Finally last year, I decided to make one pick as the one big upset of the first round to post on my blog. While Villanova appears to be an upset, I am not making that my official pick, I just chalk that up to being a blind homer. To continue this tradition, I have decided to pick Kansas State over USC in the first round. I know this is not as big of a stretch as picking Winthrop last year, I just am not feeling some of the lower tier teams this year, I feel like the field is pretty strong, so go with K-State and the best freshman in D-1, Michael Beasley as your big bracket buster this year (sorry OJ Mayo, best of luck in the NBA).

I can't believe they stole my....

Last week I went down to my bike to get it ready for a family bike ride. When I got downstairs to check on it I found that something was missing. While many of you will think that my bike was stolen, in fact, my bike was safely still in place. To my surprise the thing that was missing was my bike lock. That's right, the perpetrator decided to leave my bike and instead take the significantly less value bike lock. First, the bike was definitely locked up because we only have one key for the lock, and when the lock locks up, the key comes out. So with key in hand, I had to just stare at my bike thinking how would someone have taken the bike lock without the key, and then my thought went towards why someone would break my lock off and not take my bike? The only thing that I could think of is that it is truly much easier to steal my bike lock out of our apartment compound then it is a bike since the guards stop all people on bikes before they leave to make sure everything is okay. Oh well, they can take all my locks as long as they keep my bike.

Beached Whale Shows Up in Shanghai

In case you haven't seen my humor, the beached whale would be me. Another fun moment that would otherwise get lost in translation, but since I have been here long enough, I have learned how to literally translate things said to me in broken English. On my way out of a client the other day one of the guys I was working with said, "Why do you need such a heavy coat? You are so strong." I have found that the literal translation to this statement is, "Why do you need a coat, doesn't all the fat around your bones give you enough insulation?" So the lesson for those readers who are thinking of coming to China, when someone says you are strong, they mean you are fat and when someone says you are handsome, they are trying to sell you something and rip you off. So when the same person says that you are strong and handsome, you are probably about to be ripped off and then have to stretch you belt out to the next link.

Just not right

I think my daughter, at the tender age of 3 ½, has already lost her admiration for her father. I mean, I always thought that kids would really look up to their parents until at least 5, but my daughter has already begun to wonder, "Is there something wrong with the Dad I was given?"

Let's take, for example, the other day. I was having fun with my kids and we had some music playing while Maddie and Jacob were eating lunch. I decided to get up and show off my styling dance moves (sorry folks, but there are yet to be any published pictures or videos of these moves, so don't ask). When I started to gracefully get "down with the music" (as they say on the streets…of Shanghai), Maddie started looking at me as if I had no head. She began to shake her head and proclaimed to me, "That's just not right." I guess my daughter cannot truly appreciate the artful form of dancing that I employ, oh well, it will come with time.

The Parents Return

Sorry all it has been a pretty long time since I have written anything, life with my parents in town for Chinese New Year and with me being in my really busy time with work has added up to less blog entries.

My parents came over the Chinese New Year and we had a really good time. They got to experience the fireworks going off on a daily basis (day and night) and they got to see some of the stuff they were not able to see their first time here. No real big surprises came about from their visit, just wanted to say that we had fun with them over the week they were here.

The only kink in the trip was that they missed their connecting flight back to the States from London. That just meant that British Airways had to put them up in a hotel for the night before heading off to the US. Otherwise, everything went pretty smoothly.