Turning 50 in "The Jing"

Well, here it is 50 trips around the sun! My body is telling me that I can't do the things I used to do, but my mind says "Aw come one, give it a try!" which certainly explains my knee injury! ;-)

There was a big celebration last weekend between three of us friends who all had June birthdays. We celebrated on the rooftop of a place named "Obiwan" (yep after the character in "Star Wars"), it's located in a place called HouHai about 30min from my apartment. We had the place to ourselves, well and about 25 of our friends, for about 4 hours and it was a good time.

Here's a photo of the three of us.

That's Scott to my right and Aaron to my left.

This is a shot of me, my friend Phil, and my Deutsche friends Kathrin and Peter.

I quietly celebrated my real b-day last night, over dinner, with Kathin and peter at a nice German restaurant named "Schindler's Anlegestelle" (Their Sauerbraten and red cabbage is awesome!)

Not missing an opportunity to make connections, this is yours truly and Josie (one of the managers of the place)

It truly was a grand night with good people, conversation, music, and drink. I can't think of a better way to celebrate a 1/2 a century here on earth, other than the fact the Lightnin wasn't there! (To qoute "3rd Eye Blind": "I've never been so alone, and I've never been so alive!")

My actual birthday is today. I celebrated in a rather lay-back fashion by cooking myself some spaghetti with a basic meat sauce. (sorry no photos yet 'cause it's still cooking).

It's a bit of a bummer because it's cloudy, foggy, humid, and cool yet again today! This is a bit unusual for this part of the world, it should normally be hot, dry, and sunny right now. I mean come on, I was hoping to catch a few rays out on my balcony today. Oh well you can't have everything, and besides I've got some good music on and the place has the smell of oregano, basil, thyme, rosemary, tomatoes, onions, and garlic (hungry yet?).

A Day at the Beach

We were fortunate enough to have a company off-site meeting at a place called Nai Dai He. The first nightt was a bit of entertainment followed the next day with meetings, but hey it was still at the beach!

We had a nice 4 hour bus ride to get there, and it took several hours later for me to get the feeling back in my feet. The day and 1/2 that we were there the weather was uncharacteristically cold, windy, and foggy, as you can tell by the following photos.

The view from the hotel room

A few shots of the fishing boats, probably catching our dinner

The view a bit closer to the waves

At the end of the day yesterday we boarded the buses for the log trip back to "The Jing". It was raining when we got back, and we were all pretty tired. I lugged my overstuffed backpack up to the apartment, unpacked, ate a light snack and hit the bed pretty much worn out from the trip.

All in all it was a pretty good experience.

Breast Fest (Not What You Think )

Hi

All- Lightnin Here Again-

I know I have your attention after the last post, right?

Okay, back to Breast Fest! On Saturday, STEB took me and Thunders new bike on a charity run. This years run was to benefit a mother of five who recently found out she has cancer. We started at The Best Damn Bar in Miamaitown, Ohio. There were about 75 bikes and it was a beautiful day! We left around 1:00 PM and headed out to Indian Creek, in Reilly. When we arrived there they had burgers, brats and hot dogs ready and waiting on the grill for us! Our next stop was a place called the Kiatta Club in Okeana. Again the grill was fired up and smelling great. The third stop is our stomping grounds; a great little place called Dew Drop Inn, Cleves, OH. This is where Thunder and I go to hang out and meet friends. The last stop of the day was at McDog's in Colrain. We were greeted again with the grill, cheese coney's and pizza. There were door prizes, split the pot and numerous drawings going on. We won a gift pack for Taco's hope chest! It was now about 6:00 PM and the clouds were moving in quickly! A few of us decided it was time to "go west". Unfotunately we didn't make this decision quite soon enough. One of us wanted to leave earlier but others didn't (right STEB?) So needless to say it was a rather soggy ride back, but I behaved myself, as I've been told "there is no whining on the back of a bike" and there wasn't! But we all had a great time and thank you STEB for taking me and thank you Thunder for letting us use your bike!

So, now I'm going to try my hand at posting pics so we'll see how it goes!

Back in Beijing

All, I'm sorry I've been a bit slack on the posts for awhile, but believe it or not I actually have a job to do over here and since they're paying the bills I sort of felt obligated to get things done. In the world of global commerce you have to cover all the time zones, and for us that usually means working from 7AM (to get our work done) until 9-10PM to connect with Europe and the US to satisfy their needs. That plus the brief trip back to the States sort of caused a bit of interruption to my blogging time.

So anyway I'm back and ready to post again!

I screwed up my knee (one of the dangers of "Growing older, but not up") and so I've been working from home these past 2 days. This has given me the opportunity to catch a photo of a definite oddity in Beijing weather.

This is not smog it is real fog! We actually have enough humidity in the air in daytime to cause a fog!

I'm also going on a company off-site to the sea side at Nan Dai He, so I'll try to capture some photos of that and post about it.

Well that's all the time I have for now, lunch break is over, so I'll try to get back into a routine and keep you updated with what's happening in the "Jing"!

Tasty Treat at Thunder and Lightnin's

Hi all,

Its Lightnin! I tried a new recipe and STEB and Taco were the guinea pigs. It was chipotle salmon burgers with mango, pineapple, cilantro mayonaise and broccoli and cauliflower salad, and avacado halves. Served with a nice merlot. Not too much else to say except that it was delicious! FC and Jackie, you would be impressed and might want this recipe. STEB and I are trying to improve our eating habits (ya know, turning 40 and all) ;-)

Father's Day 2008

It's Father's Day and I thought I'd take some time out of my busy routine to pay tribute to a few father's out there!





This is one of our own knuckle heads who has turned out to be one of the best father's. He keeps our grandson occupied, which is not an easy task.


Happy Father's Day Mike!


















I think you all know this knuckle head, but he also happens to be a great father, and friend!





Happy Father's Day FC!















Here's a couple of Father's Helping us celebrate our anniversary this past year.

Scott is in the orange shirt on the right, and STEB is on the left with a ball cap on (his son is in the stripes next to me).

Happy Father's Day guy's!









Of course I had to get into the picture too. even though this is a grandfather pose here! He and I are always the first one's up in the morning.

I got my Father's day gift a couple of days early when SPC Dude called to let us know he was out of Kuwait and back in Germany!

(Go ahead and make fun of those pants, but keep in mind that they are official KC Chiefs sleepwear!)







The before and after pictures from when my Mother and Father traveled to our new land in Florida to help get the weeds under control. I'm sure they are completely out of control again since I've been out of the country.













My father was 79 in these photos and he was helping me cut weeds, haul brush, and treat the fence! He'll be 80 this August and I'll have to wish him a really long distance happy birthday this year.

Happy Father's Day Dad!












Uncle E - I didn't have any photos of you or I would have posted one! Happy Father's Day!





I hate to do this, but I'm going to end on a sad note today.





Lightnin's father passed away this last year and this is the first Father's day she has spent without him. She's trying to cope with her loss which isn't easy because they were so close!



She's constantly catching herself thinking of calling him to tell him what's been going on, like her visiting me in China, my coming home from China for a visit, SPC Dude getting back to Germany, etc.




I don't think anyone can ever get over the loss of their father, but they just learn how to cope with it!





To all of you other fathers out there: Happy Father's Day!

The Greatest Invention Ever!

To all of you who read my posts I just want to apologize for taking the past couple of weeks off. I've been extremely busy at work, with presentations for the upper management, and also had to start preparing to come back home for the first time.



I'm finally home again!
I arrived late in the evening this past Friday. The trip wasn't too bad until I actually arrived in Cincinnati. We landed about 20 minutes early, but then made up for that by sitting on the runway for an hour waiting for an open gate. It seems the severe weather in Minnesota was causing delays, and our gate was blocked.



Anyway, during my layover in Japan I found what has got to be the greatest invention EVER!



Check this out:

That's right, it's an automatic beer dispenser!

You place the glass on the holder and hit a button and the machine tilts the glass to the proper angle and starts dispensing the beer. As the glass fills the machine levels the glass back out to give just the right amount of head to the serving!



I went back several times just to make sure it gave a proper pour every time! ;-)

Lazy, Crazy, Hazy Days of Summer

Well summer is definitely upon us here in Beijing. I think I mentioned this a little the other day, but we're raising an average of about 4 degrees F each day. Even thought it hasn't rained for the past couple of weeks the humidity is on the rise too. In the spring we were averaging around 10-15% humidity, we're know up to 25-30%. Hey, I'm not complaining just stating the facts. I much more prefer this to winter!

Hey a also wanted to let you know that SPC Dude has started up a new blog and has a few posts on it already. He's also got some good pics to check out. You can click on the SPC Dude and it should take you to his site.

Sorry not photos on this one, it's been pretty hazy the past few days, so I'm hoping for rain to clear things up a bit. Besides you know they would most likely have been of the sunset here anyway! ;-)

More Photos from Brussels

Sorry folks, but I've been tied up these past couple of weeks with presentations to my upper management. I've got to justify why they brought me over here in the first place! ;-)

That being said, I'm back and should be able to get back on track. I just wanted to share a couple of more photos from our recent trip to Brussels, and then I'll get back to reporting on my life in Beijing.

Here's a couple of shots of the sunset outside of our hotel window.

The riot police came pulling up while I was out picking up dinner for us. There was a big inter-Belgium rival football (soccer) match that was going on that day and a riot started afterward. I was able to capture these photos of the squad in action as they headed down into the subway to squelch the hooligan's activities!

There were probably about 10 of these trucks that pulled up and the police emptied out of them and were down into the subway in a flash!

We're definitely heading into summer here know. Since I've returned from our trip the daily high temperature has been rising about 4 degrees F each day. We should begin to get up into the 100's F in June and Will most likely stay around that high until after August. I'm fine with that because I'd rather have summer time than winter time any day!

One more thing: Uncle "E" I hope you get to feeling better! I know you'll see this, even if you don't respond!

Trip to Brussels and My Brush with the Law

I had to travel to Brussels for business and was able to use one of my paid trips to bring Lightnin over for a visit. It's really only a long weekend as we both leave tomorrow, she back to the US and me to PRC. It's been a short visit, but fun just the same!






Do you recognize this place from my previous posts?










We ended up running into a couple of parades on Saturday, and during one of them I met up with the Brussels police!











As you can see though it was a friendly encounter! ;-)

While we were sitting at LeRoy's (might be a hint for the question I posed on the first picture) in the late afternoon we met some nice folks from the Netherlands and started talking. The conversation (and beer) was just too good to end so we continued the comaradary over dinner and on into the night. It's always nice to meet folks from other places and share points of view, laughs, food, and drink!

Wineger and Amerikana (the names have been changed to protect the innocent), we hope to see you again sometime it was a blast!


Alas it's time to say goodbye to Brussels, I'm sure there'll be a next time though!

Earthquake

First of all, I'm fine!

If you've been following the news alerts from China, especially on CNN, then you may have been a bit misinformed of the location of the earthquake that hit the other day. The first reports were of an earthquake in Beijing.

True it was a 7.8 quake, but the epicenter was actually in a city named Wenchuan, in the Sichuan Provence. this is about 1000miles south of Beijing. None of us here at my work felt a thing although some people reported feeling some of the tremors. We have a production facility near that city, but everyone was evacuated and accounted for with no injuries.

In my opinion the news media really needs to clean up their act. They seem to be so intent on being the "First On The Scene" and way short on accuracy of reporting! They also only seem to know about 4 cities in China and over use them as reference points: Beijing, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Tibet. If anything happens remotely near any of these places they act as if it happened right in the heart of the city.

Also it was actually the Tibetan fault that slipped and cause the quake, Karma perhaps! ;-)

So whenever watching the news these days please keep in mind that they are always trying to sensationalize things (excitement sells, not necessarily the truth!), and you need to check the sources because they certainly are not anymore!

Hou Hai

Hou hai (Ho-Hi) is a little lake area inside Beijing that has lots of little shops and restaurants around it. Yesterday was a beautifully clear, sunny day, but the wind started to pick up pretty drastically as the day went along.

I met up with a couple of my new friends over here and walked around the lake area a bit, stopped and ate lunch and then headed back across town to an electronics store because one of my friends was looking for a new phone.

While heading back from the shopping trip we ran across this little neighborhood Asian Bar-B-Que restaurant and decided to stop in a try it out. The food was great and the beer was the coldest in Beijing! They kept it in a chest freezer and it was a very refreshing drink after walking around the city all day. We feasted on grilled lamb, chicken wings, and mushrooms, and some sauteed spinach with a wasabi dressing on it. It was all very tasty!

Traffic

I think I mentioned earlier that I'm now working from home on Friday's, well if I didn't I'm mentioning it now!







Here's the view from my apartment of typical Friday morning traffic. That's the direction I would need to go.









The traffic is really bad on Monday's and Friday's, so I decided to do my part to try to reduce that by not taking the 2 hr trek into work that day. That's right, it can take as long as 2 hrs to get to and from work on Monday's and Friday's, and Wednesday is starting to get that bad too. I guess it's just a preview for the Olympics coming in August.

Oh, by the way a friend of mine over here scored some tickets to several events, one of which is the 10,000meter men's finals, and he's offered up one of them to me! This is simply incredible because you see I used to run track and cross-country, and the 10k was one of my races. I had always hoped to get to the Olympics one day, well at least I'll get to be a spectator! ;-)

Beijing Boomerang and the Magic of the Mango!

Well I thought I was putting my love on a plane yesterday. I took her to the airport and saw her go through security. I was sitting talking to friends over beers and dealing with things, when the surprise phone call comes. I hear a familiar voice on the other end say: "Where are you?"(this can't be because it's about 9pm so she should be over the ocean by now). My response: "Where are you?" (obvious confusion in my voice). From the other end I hear: "At the Kempenski, come get me!".

At this point I'm trying to figure out who's playing this cruel joke on me, but the voice in my head told me that the demanding tone that was used for the phrase: "COME GET ME!" could have only come from one person. I set my beer down and tell my friends I have to go, but I'll be right back! I hop in a taxi and almost instinctively say: "Qing Dai Wo Qu Kempenski!" (Please take me to the Kempenski). The driver nods and says: "OK". About 10 minutes later I'm walking into the hotel and see Lightnin waving to me from over at the bar (of course, hey two peas in a pod!). I go over and give her a hug, she introduces me to her new, fellow stranded, friend. It seems their flight had been cancelled due to mechanical issues.

We invite her friend to join us back at the "Goose and Duck" (a sports bar that I've become familiar with and where I have friends waiting to see what the sudden issue was). She declines at this time, but accepts the idea of trying to get up early to try to watch the Kentucky Derby the next morning (You get used to the 12 hr time difference here; we watch US Saturday evening sports on Sunday morning here, but that's another post!). We hop in a taxi and head back to the G&D where we're welcomed by confused looks on faces, you see they've already met Lightnin and where helping me get over my mild depression of her leaving, so they were caught as off guard as I was!

After Lightnin tells her story of hours spent sitting on the runway One of my new friends tells her: "OK, but you understand that if the flight tomorrow gets delayed you were meant to stay!" (this of course is exactly what is going through my head at the same time). So it seems we had one last night together given to us!



Well that was last night, but today is today! I was mentally prepared to say goodbye yesterday, but today is different. I don't know if the infinite master of the universe decided that yesterday's departure was simply too easy for us or what, but today was definitely different. Having the extra time together was great, don't get me wrong, but I was prepared for her to leave yesterday not today. So mode it be!



We spent one more night and morning with each other and I sent her off again, this time seeing her board the shuttle bus from the hotel. After I see them depart I walk back home to make the best of the afternoon. Oh did I mention that the Kempenski is about a block away from my apartment? Oh, I forgot, well I guess I just made up for that! ;-) Yes, as luck would have it they placed her in a hotel right down the street from me! So it was a very convenient inconvenience for her! ;-)



Oh, "The Magic of the Mango", don't worry I haven't forgotten! As I walk away from the hotel, where I left Lightnin on the bus, I know that they will come right by me on their way to the airport, so I give her one last wave goodbye as they pass by. I head up to my apartment to spend the rest of the afternoon sitting in the sun on my balcony and sipping a wonderful concoction known as the Mango Margarita!



You have to understand that the mango's that we get here are the yellow Malaysian variety, not the green ones you get in the states. These things are tiny, but are sweet as candy! I've become a fanatic for them and get a few each time I go to the fruit and vegetable market. So today I decided to put them to a good use. I added the proper ingredients (I'll disclose if you want the recipe) into the blender, poured myself a glass, and headed to the balcony to sit in the sun!





Check this tasty treat out!

OK so it's a wine glass and not a margarita glass, hey man this is Beijing you have to make certain sacrifices! ;-)

I've got Buffet playing in the background, sipping one of nature's wonders, and I think I'll be alright now! Bon Voyage Lightin, see you in Bruxelles!

Gloomy Day in Beijing

Yes it was a gloomy day here in Beijing! Not just because it was raining all day, but because Lightnin boarded her plane back to the US about an hour ago. Actually that's what made this a bit of a depressing day and not the rain at all.





Her bags are packed and she's ready to leave!















The rain is welcomed because this city is so pretty after a good rain. There is so much construction going on that there is dirt/dust that builds up on the sidewalks and on the sides of the buildings, but after a good rain it's all washed away and the city shines.





I'm bumming though because Lightnin just left after a great 2 week visit here. However my gloomy mood won't last too long because I'll meet up with her again in just a couple of weeks. I'll be traveling to Brussels on business and she's going to join me over there!
Also, I'm meeting up with a few of my friends over here in a little while to drink a few beers and shoot the breeze. That should help to take my mind off of it for a little while anyway.

Answer to the Puzzler

These pictures might help!

It's a German Ice Tray, or more appropriately Ice Bag. This is courtesy of RBP who sent me 6 boxes of them.

The first time I saw these "ice bags" I thought what a great idea. They take up little space and actually seem to make a more dense ice cube than a regular ice trys, or it's possibly the shape of the ice, but either way they seem to last longer in your drink than standard cubes do. So maximum efficiency: saves space in the freezer, lasts longer in your drink!

Thanks for sending them to me RBP, and I think the chocolates will be a big hit here too!

Zhe Shi Shenme?

What is this?

Thought I'd try my hand at a little puzzler.

RBP, Spc. Dude, JaF, and STEB, please give everyone else time to see if they can figure it out first since you all have an unfair advantage on this one!

So, Zhe Shi Shenme?

Happy Birthday in Beijing

Well today was another great day in Beijing! We were awaken by "House-keeping" (insert best Chinese accent here) at 10:00 AM. Now, these are the same people that haven't been here before 4:00 PM every day since I've been here. Great start right? Thunder cooked a wonderful breakfast and it's time to roll....

Off to the Temple of Heaven. What a beautiful place! Ancient architectures, carved marble structures, gold, cobalt blue and green glazed bricks.

He's is now dragging my tired a$$ (Remember "housekeeping at 10:00, right?)to Tiananmen Square. This is really impressive! A lot of history here! "Okay, honey, Princess is getting really tired"...."Oh we just go down here a little ways and we'll catch a cab" Yea Right!!! 1400 blocks later (now I know how he's lost all those kilos) and we basically forced our way into a cab.

Thankfully the driver was willing to take us all the way back home. To our destination...Morels. Today would have been my Daddy's 79th birthday. We used to take the kids to his farm and hunt Morel mushrooms with him on his birthday every year. So, the spelling is different, so what? It's the thought that counts. I got moule frittes (mussels and fries). We had a birthday toast to my dad and then it was time to go.

All in all another great day in Beijing, but still missing my Daddy...Happy Birthday Big O!!!

PS: To my little sister--I guess I didn't read the clock correctly when I called you. I thought it said 6:06 not 16:06! Guess I owe you a big one for that!