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the sleepless workdrink blur

Loosey Goosey.

Last full day in Taiwan dawned rainy and gray again.

I set the alarm for 6am, which turned out to be about an hour earlier than I really needed to roust and ready myself.  For some reason though, instead of going back to bed I grabbed my book and read for a while in Pat’s living room.  I should have gone back to bed; the previous night’s soirée didn’t wrap up with me on the doorstep until fairly late.  OK… not Taiwan-late, by any means, but US-late for sure.  Anyway, sleep is rare commodity in Asia… I’ll take what I can get.

The driver comes by the apartment tomorrow ’round 8am to take me to the airport.  The thing about doing the Asia-to-America route is that you effectively go back in time over the course of the seemingly infinitely-long air trip.  Not this time for me, as United took away the direct Taipei-to-San Francisco flight and you have to make a stopover in Tokyo.  It’s OK; I know the terminal there and there’s a place that has some good curry noodles with this spicy pork.  The wireless elusive, but there’s a payphone I can call Sharaun from and the chairs are three-long before a divider bar so you can do a full kicked-back relax mode.

When I called Sharaun on the walk to work this morning, she let Keaton answer the phone with a huge, “Hi Daddy!!”  Oh, such a heartwarming phrase!  Almost brings a tear to the eye when you hear it!  My conversation was mostly with her instead of Sharaun, which was fine by me by far.  She was watching Dora, and wondered what I was doing (“Walking to work in the rain,” I said).  She was also excited that I’d be home soon (although my feeling of “soon” when applied to leaving is a little skewed compared to their feeling of “soon” when applied to my arrival), and told me she’d come with Mommy to get me at the airport.  Nonetheless, it was good to talk to both of them.

I know I have three paragraphs here and precious little actually said, at least that I’ve not said already this week, but I think I’m satisfied.

Talk to you next week back in the good old US-of-A.  Goodnight.

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cisterns, stanchions, & meade

Rivulets.Hey there…  guess what?  I actually had some time today to both do work and write a little bit.  Meetings at work were productive again, just didn’t last all day.  It’s better that way.

Let’s write some blog.

Sitting now in Henry’s Bar, Taipei Taiwan.  Haven’t been here in years but the place hasn’t changed a lick.  Even the same people working here.  It was a cloudy sometimes-rainy day today, but the weather stayed cool enough that walking around outside on the way to and from lunch (which, by the by, was delicious) was pleasant.  Walking around Taipei offers one something of the same kind of “big city” feel that traipsing around Manhattan would – the people, the traffic, the buildings looming on every side – it’s a very metropolitan experience and I enjoy it; makes me feel “grown up” and full of business (nod to Pat’s similar thoughts here).

Over the past few months Sharaun and I have done a fair bit of solo traveling. Her to Florida a couple times for a friend’s wedding, me to Oregon, China, and Taiwan. During these times apart we’ve sort of developed a habit of sending each other pictures via cellphone – well, the one at home with Keaton sends pictures to the traveler, at least. Overseas this week, I’ve really enjoyed getting pictures of Sharaun and Keaton from back home. And, even though they make a bit more pointed my missing my family, I find myself going back and looking at them on my phone at various points during the day. In fact, this week’s volley from Sharaun was good enough that I wanted to share. Here, then, are the pictures Sharaun and Keaton sent along to make my time away feel not so far way. Enjoy.

[nggallery id=35]

Well that’s about it for today methinks.  Not much more time, not much more I haven’t already mentioned.

Goodnight.

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CEO of the ROC

Resurrected.

Ni hao internet.

Somehow it feels like I’ve been over here for more than a week already.  Touched down in Taipei yesterday evening after the short two hour direct flight from Shanghai.  The direct flight is relatively new, whereas previously you’d have to stop in Hong Kong.  “One country, two systems,” or somesuch.  Here in the ROC, I’m staying at Pat & Cynthia’s place.  It’s brand new, plush, more than comfortably sized and quite well-appointed.  Found my way back to the place alone last night when they turned in for the night about an hour earlier than I did; wandering the once-familiar streets of Taipei again.

The week’s activities are a tad less work-centric than the time in Shanghai – at least I hope so.  Meetings blocking out the mornings today and tomorrow (which is like yesterday and today, or something, for the US readers… it’s confusing),  but the afternoons and evenings are fairly open.  Rough plans have been sketched out: karaoke; shopping for some cheap computer hardware (need a webcam to Skype with family back in Florida – Keaton wants to video-chat with her cousin Hobson); many dinners and lunches consisting of delicious foodstuffs.  Y’know, the standard Taiwan stuff.

This morning on the walk to work we stopped at a little roadside eatery for a “local breakfast.”  Having come from the $30 hotel buffet in Shanghai, the sub-100NT tab was quite a difference.  And the food was, arguably, better than the Shanghai Hilton fare.  I like all the walking in this city… and I’ve written about it somewhere before (I’ll just link to the blog’s entire “Taiwan” category here, rather than try to find the exact entries).  This morning the weather was particularly mild, bright, and clear (even moreso compared to the dingy particulate-laden Shanghai ozone) and, being the first one awake in the house, I stepped out onto Pat and Cynthia’s little patio and just street-gazed for a while.

Goodnight folks.  Until the next day in Asia.  Love you.

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busy streets & busy days

Hack hack hack

Hi from the other side of the Earth, internet.  I miss my family.  Sharaun e-mails me pictures and it makes me miss them more.

Shanghai is pretty much like I remember it.  Even though it’s been quite a while since I’ve been here, it looks roughly the same – although the seemingly never-ending construction and population influx means things look even more crowded and dense, if possible.  I swear it seems like this city sprawls as much as it crowds, both growing outward and becoming thicker inside.  The streets teem with people; people walking, riding bikes, scooters, cars, trucks, buses – all of it a quivering ball of loosely organized chaos.  The people are as hospitable as ever, and the food is always delicious.

On the plane over I started feeling some sinus & respiratory discomfort – as I often do when flying, the tight space and recycled air, perhaps – but it’s gotten worse since being here and is annoying.  I have a sporadic cough and my nose is stuffed up.  Nothing major, no fever or anything, more like allergies or a reaction to the rough air and tight spaces.  Makes for a scratchy voice and sniffles though, and the occasional swimming head.  A guy at the hotel had some generic Wal Mart cold medicine he carried over from the states, so I popped one of those this morning in hopes the decongestant component will offer a little relief later today.  Either way, I’ll maintain.

I took some iPhone pictures throughout the first couple days (funny how, the more often you’ve been somewhere, you tend to be less and less picture crazy).  They’re not the highest quality images, but I had some time this morning so I uploaded a few for your enjoyment.  Check them out below:

[nggallery id=34]

Tomorrow I’ll work a half-day and then take the short flight to Taiwan to finish out the week there.  I canceled the hotel and will be staying with friends while in town, so am excited to spend some time at their new place and bumming around the city with them.

And there’s been work too.  In fact, the work I’ve ended up doing has proven really valuable to me.  Likely this tells me that I should get out here more often.  I’ve been cloistered in a room with the same five other managers now for going on sixteen hours but the output from our sessions makes me proud.  I guess sometimes there’s no real substitute for locking yourselves up and hammering on problems until you end up with a solution.

In summary, then: China is busy; went shopping and ate crazy Asian food; worked hard.

Goodnight.

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UAL to PRC

Sweetcase.Friday and, wow internet…

…I think I actually hit all five days this week.  First time in a long time and it was a busy week, too.  Good on me, I suppose.  By the time you read this, I’ll likely be on a plane somewhere over the vast Pacific.  I’m still waiting for the day when the trip to Asia take as long as the trip to Florida and the trip to Florida takes as long as the trip to Oregon (the trip to Oregon, I suppose then, would be near instantaneous).  Point being – flying to Shanghai takes too long.  Especially when the direct flight is all booked and you have to take the crappy layover version through Tokyo.  But anyway, let’s move on.

OK well, maybe not move on too terribly much… since I’m going to talk about flying still.  For the morrow, I’ve think I’ve got stuff ready.  I’ll be bringing the current book I’m reading (book freakin’ ten of this massive fantasy epic I’ve been trying to get through off and on for ten years now), as well as the next one in the series.  Book twelve just came out and I think I have to wait another couple years before the two final volumes are published.  This means that I’ll have been working to get through the story for near fifteen years.  That’s a long time to read a “book,” even it’s over 10,000 total pages.  Additionally, I’ve got my laptop, my iPod, and my iPhone.  With these things, I feel well-equipped for the long flight.  Since I got the business class upgrade, I’ll at least be able to lay flat to sleep and plug in to a real AC outlet to keep my tech running.  So, I think it’s sorted.

We went out for dinner tonight, used a coupon.  Just a little family thing before I split town.  Got there early, got back early, and was all packed before 8pm.  Not bad, actually… and was able to spend the rest of the night (after coming here to write this last paragraph) hanging out on the couch with Sharaun watching TV.  Yup, just wasting away in front of the tube.  And now it’s time to hit the sack.

Goodnight and I’ll talk to you next week from the People’s Republic of China.

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sayanora, trumpet man

Sayanora, trumpet man.Happy Thursday folks.

If you’re viewing the page via your iPhone or Android device today, you’ve likely noticed that I installed a much more mobile-friendly theme that takes over when the page is viewed in a mobile browser.  I like it a lot, and it’s actually what inspired me to change up my current desktop theme (the main look and feel of sounds familiar).  I haven’t done this in a long while… but my current theme was kind of clunky compared to some of the more modern themes.

My goal was to maintain as much of the look and feel of the site as possible while taking advantage of something less hacked-together (I still have to go through and reformat some of the more kludgy CSS remnants, but I’ll get it all modernized soon enough).  I think it’s mostly in-place now, the only drastic change being my decision to drop the years-old header logo… which meant ditching the Bible-times trumpet man image Ben stole for me off the internet way back in 2003.  Sayanora, trumpet man.

OK enough website junk.  Let’s talk about something better.  Maybe something funny… Oh, I know!

Sunday evening this past week my daughter spent nearly five minutes explaining to me the wonder that was her Halloween-acquired Ring Pop.

See Dad, it’s like ring but you can eat it like a lollipop.  It’s candy.  You put it on your finger like a ring and it’s pretty like jewelry but it’s also candy like a lollipop.  See?  See it on my finger like a ring?  But watch, Dad!, look with your eyes!, see… I can… mmmpphh… see, I can lick it like a lollipop.  Isn’t that neat, Dad?  Dad… did you see?  It’s a Ring Pop.  It’s called that because it’s a ring and a lollipop.  Dad.  Dad?

About two explanatory sentences into her rant, I started laughing a little.  By the third or fourth recitation of her stark wonder, I had all but lost it and was cracking up.  Sharaun, sitting opposite me on the other couch, was also laughing.  By the end, I was playing with her (I think she figured it out).  “But wait,” I’d stop her to interject, “Is that thing a ring, or a lollipop?”  Aaaand we’d start all over again.  Good stuff.

Changing subjects…

Recently, I’ve started using the track rating feature on the iPod.  I never really used the functionality before, for a couple main reasons: 1) I pretty much only put music I like on the iPod, so I would hope not to find anything less than “middlin'” were I to do a “rating audit” or somesuch and 2) I don’t use iTunes to manage my music, so the track rating metadata would only live on my iPod and not be transferred permanently back into my collection.  If my iPod ever went south or I had to reload tracks off disk, I’d lose the ratings data anyway, so I’ve always considered it fleeting and useless.

Over time, my mind has changed somewhat on each point.  Yes, everything on my iPod is there because I at least “like” it.  But, as I’ve learned being a manager at the sawmill, even a group of top-performers has a bottom performer – regardless of whether or not that person is generically “good” or not.  Same with a huge batch of “good” tunes, I suppose.  Even if I like it all, there are some tracks that deserve a star or two more than others.  I figured that exploiting the natural strata of my tastes might actually make for some neat ratings-based “smart” playlists.

Furthermore, about a year ago I bought some software that promises it’s able to make a complete, hardware/firmware agnostic, restoreable backup of my iPod.  The idea being that, as long as I keep up with the backups, were my iPod ever upgraded, lost, or ruined, I could restore it to its previous state – including track-by-track metadata.  Still, ratings wouldn’t get sync’d back into my master collection on disk – but I gave up on this a long time ago after a couple failed migration attempts.  But, at least I could carry the ratings metadata through an iPod crash or upgrade… better than nothing.

Anyway… I’m trying it out.  Why not?

Goodnight.

Posted on

to do

Oh, and... thank God.

Note before we begin: Yes, I am playing with new themes.  No, they are not 100% yet so please pardon the dust.  Moving on.

Things to do before I leave for Shanghai and Taiwan:

Get a haircut. For my Halloween costume, I shaved my beard super tight in hopes it would help the faux beard and moustache stay attached. It didn’t. However, the transition from this short facial hair to my overlong already-needed-a-trim head hair is now too stark. When I go overseas or even to a customer domestically, I like to have a fresh haircut. For some reason, having a tight crop in the “fade” area makes the baldness on top appear a little more… “intentional” or something. Also, a nice close cut helps me carry authority and appear erudite when speaking. So says me, at least.

Wash the dress clothes. For a week now I’ve not had anything brown-based to wear. I’ve been cycling through the grey, black, and dark pinstriped pants coupled with the same three or so dress shirts that are un-wrinkly enough to wear. The problem started back when Sharaun was in Florida. Not that I rely on her to do my ironing, but she will occasionally iron all my dress shirts so that I have a nice stable of wearable items. Problem with sticking to blacks and greys means that I’ve also run out of clean black dress socks. I’ll need a range of colors for the week abroad. It’s important to not only come well-groomed but to come well-appointed also. Shockingly, I haven’t been to the Asia-Pacific region since before Keaton was born. Managing to dodge the love/hate bullet that is Asia travel for this long, I’d like to show up looking as if my station has improved since that last visit years prior. I mean, why not, right?

Get the big-trash people to come by the house and take away this massive pile of big trash that I’ve been storing alongside the house. We bought a new dining room table a month or so back, one that can accommodate a larger dinner party or maybe someday a real family Thanksgiving. I had to do something with the old table, so I moved it into the backyard. Some friends had indicated they might want it as a prop for a house they were trying to rent, to fill out the space and hopefully make it more attractive to potential tenants. I left it out there while we went to Mexico and the thing got rained on heavily. When I returned, it was literally a woody mush holding precariously to the shape of a table. When I tried to move it it fell apart in pulpy pieces, literally crumbling in my hands. I threw it back by the shed, along with the chairs, amongst a growing little pile of things I don’t use anymore (like my years-old Craigslist-purchased lawn mower and some large wood and plastic scraps from various projects). Time to move this off the property before the coming winter rains reduce it to even more of a mushy mess.

Call the floor guy. As part of the (now overdue) Q3 “home upgrade” item I try to include in each year’s budget, we’re getting hardwood flooring installed in the house. I bought the materials long ago, and have been delaying the actual install to work around various travels and events now for too long. I need to call our friendly Eastern European contractor and get the dates scheduled so we can have the things in before the holidays. We’re both pretty excited about the floors, and have also both become quite detached from the care of the current carpet – not even bothering to give it a clean post-Halloween Bash. We’ll also have him replace the carpet in our master bathroom shower/sink area (carpet in a bathroom, really?) with some nice large tile – since we’re doing “floor stuff” anyway.

Order some of those credit card “convenience” checks. To pay the floor guy. We don’t carry a balance on our single credit card; we pay it off every month. However, we use it almost exclusively as our preferred method of payment for as many purchases as will allow it. All this to accrue airline miles which we can use to shuttle around the USofA visiting our scattered friends and relatives (or for the occasional international trip to Oktoberfest in Munich, “cough-cough 2010”). Since the flooring install will be check only, and will be a substantial outlay, I can’t overlook the chance to net miles from the transaction. The card we have allows me to get one mile for every two dollars on checks (one-for-one on most normal transaction and two-for-one for a limited set). Yes, the checks impose a minimum fee for usage, but ultimately, doing the math, the miles are worth it. We typically end up netting between four and five free round trips per year, or enough for a family jaunt and some me-alone or Sharaun-alone travel to boot. Not bad.

Fix the walls. Again, as part of the Q3 “home upgrade” bucket, I had some wiring work done in the main room. Because most of the wiring had to run through external or hard-to-access internal walls, the work was somewhat invasive and required a good deal of drywall cutting. This leaves me having to go back and patch, texture, and paint the worked areas. It was worth it though, not having to do the work myself (I hate working in the attic pulling wires) and getting the surround speakers mounted attractively only the wall sans visible wiring. The last items on that Q3 list involve mounting the flatscreen and getting a custom entertainment cabinet built on the wall below it. In the end, everything will be attached to the wall with no wires to be seen. Should be a large improvement to the room.

Wow.  Gotta run.  Tons to do.  Goodnight.