Looking into the past

Cool pics via my newest bookmark,  like cool

How Appropriate

Clem Snide is coming to Off Broadway Saturday and in preparation for the show I downloaded the new album. I feel it's important to stress the word ALBUM. This is not just a collection of songs thrown together on a CD. This is a story with highs and lows told from beginning to end. In an ADD age where we can only concentrate on one thing for roughly 2 minutes at a time , it''s refreshing for a band to recognize the way albums were meant to be made, and not just chopped up into 3 or 4 singles. Hungry Bird is epic. It will probably see little to no airplay, but this album is captivating in its heartfelt sarcasm.

A couple of songs doesn't do them justice, but maybe this will wet your beak.

Me No

With All My Heart

1,2,3 Hello

I haven't come across much to be thrilled about in the way of music lately. I've been on the lookout recently for a sound like the National, that is completely solid and rich. Alas the music segment on NPR did a feature on Elvis Perkins and it was love at first listen. I feel obliged to share it with my friends

123 Goodbye

Doomsday

End of the Road

The trip is now over. I'm a couple days removed from it and still battling the jet lag narcolepsy. I still haven't been able to string together 8 hours of sleep consecutively.

On one of the final nights we had a grand dinner with a factory owner. Everyone customarily spent the whole dinner making toasts to each other. As we neared the end of dinner the toasts became more " friendly." The owner of our overseas office at one point told me I "will be the hero of my generation." That was a very flattering compliment. When I made a toast to everyone in thanks for a great trip, I was told I had to fill my wine glass to the brim and chug it, because after all I am a "healthy young man" and I can take it.

All in all it was a great trip, and it was actually pretty relaxing considering I worked or traveled every day. There were no worries about gas, or groceries, or what I'm going to do tonight. That being said I am happy to be back on American soil, where a double cheeseburger is never more than a block away.

Colder than a well digger's...

I've been pretty worn out by the end of the day, so I haven't really been up to for the blogging.

I managed to snag some DVDs while we shopped, so tonight I'm watching Revolutionary Road.I'm excited.

It's been cold as all get out here lately. It's been in the 40s for the past couple of days and all I brought was t-shirts because it's normally 75 this time of year. I'm certainly glad to have brought the North face coat just in case

I did add a few more pics to the flickr account. Check it out

http://www.flickr.com/photos/35793320@N07/

I'm sure I'll have more to add tomorrow. this trip is getting pretty long.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/35793320@N07/

Delaying the Inevitable

Yesterday I mentioned what I thought might be a minor airport delay. It turned out to be 6 hours. We spent 3 of those hours sitting in the plane and on the tarmac, motionless. About an hour into it, mayhem ensued. Everyone was yelling at the top of their lungs people were freaking out and flight attendants were crying.  What made it worse was that it was all in Chinese and I had no idea what was going on. We finally took off and made it back to the hotel at midnight.

Today I feel terrible, as if the late night awoke my jet lag.

Tonight we get wined and dined by a factory owner.We seem to be in very good graces here so it should be fun.

More pics updated from the crap delay.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/35793320@N07/

Sitting on G, waiting on O

As I type this, I am stuck in an airport in Shenzen. Our flight back to Putian has been delayed due to a storm. It's been over an hour and there isn't the slightest update on our status. 

Last night was we went to the KTV again. I think I'm bored with that now. The whole language barrier holds back most of the fun that could be had there.

Before KTV we ate at a Korean restaurant. I've never ate Korean food before last night. I'll probably never eat it again.  The food had great flavor, but it was far too spicy for my sensitive tongue. Most of the dishes are based around cold cabbage as well. I'll try anything once but not always twice.

Today we are just traveling. We said our goodbyes to the great people of the Donguan office and now we're headed back to Putian to clean up the mess that happened yesterday. I'm already thinking about when I can get in bed.

Random observations of the day.

As we walked around downtown DG yesterday I noticed several women walking around holding hands. It struck me as a little odd, so I asked about it. I was told that women often walk the streets holding hands and men walk with arms around each other mostly for safety. 

I just remembered when we had pizza the other night for dinner, it was served with plastic gloves. Everyone was expected to wear them to keep the grease off of your fingers. Of course the Chinese one size fits all doesn't necessarily apply to my american sized hands . I made due.

Today is a crappy day of work. The main project I traveled here to look after was screwed up and no one is very apologetic. 

Last night I enjoyed a wonderful dinner at a Japanese Hibachi restaurant. I let one of the foreign office managers take the reigns on ordering and it came out very well. As each plate came to us I thought to myself, "I would never order this" and each plate turned out to be delicious. I even tried Sashimi (big chunks of raw fish) for the first time and it was wonderful!

Tonight I think we are going to enjoy the evening as a local would. We'll start with drinks at someone's apartment and go from there.

I'm starting to feel comfortable here. My coworker is now itching to get home, but i feel like I could spend another month here.

Observation of the day: Everyone on the street likes to squat. It apparently helps with circulation and digestion. People are perched on ledges like birds...

Only a couple of photos for this update

http://www.flickr.com/photos/35793320@N07/

Groundhog day

After a full days work we went out to eat and shopping last night. The downtown shopping district is centered around a mall that is anchored by a (cringe) Walmart. We first went to the DVD store where I managed to pick up several new/early releases. I didn't think the quality would be great considering i was paying the equivilant of $2 US combined with the fact that most of them are still in theaters. I was pleasantly surprised that all of those I purchased are perfect quality DVDs. We hit up a few more shops and headed home. The day was pretty uneventful.

I've discovered that I am getting lost in my own imagination while sitting through some of these meetings. Obviously I don't understand anything that is being said in the exchange of conversation around me, so I started making up sitcom scenarios in my head for the people around me. I struggled to keep a straight face the rest of the day. I think I'm going crazy

Day...It doesn't matter

Time is a blur. I've given up trying to figure out how long I've been here and I've also given up on trying to remember what day/ time it is in the states.

Saturday nightwe went to a KTV, which is very difficult to explain if you're never been. Simply put it's a private karaoke party where you sing and play drinking games with random house Chinese girls that don't speak a lick of English. It was interesting, but fun.

I spent yesterday traveling from Putian to Dongguan. Dongguan is a much bigger city, and more advanced.

Today I'll work in the office, and go shopping in the evening.  should be fun.

Some random notes:

Chinese seem to serve hot water with every meal, they don't drink anything else when they eat. Apparently it aids in digestion. They also serve hot water as just a snack.

1 fried egg is served with many meals. All of my meals at restaurants here have been served with one fried egg on the side. I had a room service cheeseburger last night at the new hotel, and of course there's a fried egg on the plate with the fries. Weird.

I haven't taken too many pics lately, but I did update flickr with some new ones. I'll take more when  I go shopping tonight

http://www.flickr.com/photos/35793320@N07/

Day 3...I think

After going to be at 8:00PM for thesecodn consecutive night, I woke up this morning to feel like I've been hit by a train. This is supposed to be my last day of feeling jet lagged, and I'm sure the combination with the cold has not helped. I can barely keep my eyes open right now.

Yesterday we worked in the office and traveled to a couple of nearby factories. I didn't take any photos because I wasn't sure if it was okay, I'll try today. We toured through the first factory yesterday with a feeling of unwelcomeness. The factory supervisor wasn't very friendly and the workers seemed to give us 1 of two extreme vibes; The men looked like they wanted to stab us, and the women fluttered their lashes like they wanted to marry us. 

Our second stop was a factory that produced mostly Puma shoes. After the tour we sat down for tea, which seemed very ceromonial. I can't tell you how much green tea I drank, but I was pretty buzzed and at some point I think the fish in the aqarium were talking to me.

We ended the day with another great dinner with some great fish back at the office.

Today we will visit several factories an hour and a half away. I'm going to try and catch up on some Zs in the car.

Day 2

Yesterday I woke to relentless horn honking and firecracker expolsions. The honks were nothing out of the ordinary for the city. It seems like there are no traffic laws whatsoever and the only way to survive is to lay on the horn. The firecrackers however marked a special occasion. There seemed to be a celebration of prosperity in the new year. No one at the office could explain it to me in English, and I tried to look it up to no avail. Nonetheless it was pretty cool to be a part of. 

I worked in the sample room for most of the day to clear of the problems I'm having with color on my MLB promo shoes. I can't tell you how difficult it is to battle the language barrier, even with those that speak pretty good English. We worked through it though.

The food here has been great so far. While I have not been out to a restaurant yet, the bfreakfast buffet here at the hotel as well as the HUGE meals at the office have been wonderful. Nothing too bizarre or gross...yet

I put my photos on flickr now because it is easier. I'll be updating those photos throughout the day and I'll add the narration  here every morning to explain the pics.

Here's the link, happy flickring

http://www.flickr.com/photos/35793320@N07/

Day one

I guess this is more like the first 24 of the trip rather than day one. I never thought I would travel so many consecutive hours in my life. It doesn't help that I have a head cold as well. 

The flight from Chicago to Shanghai wasn't terrible.  The longest flight I've been on previsou to that one was just the 4 hour trip to L.A. So about 5 hours into the Shanghai flight I started to freak out, then I fell asleep, and then freak out again at about hour 11. When we finally landed in Shanghai, I felt like my leg muscles had atrophied over the 15 hours, but I still had some traveling to do, an hour busride to another Shanghai airport, another 1.5 hour flight to Fuzhou and then the 1.5 hour drive from Fuzhou to Putian.

Not much to mention yet, other than I've learned 2 things about the Chinese.

1. They have much smaller personal space bubbles than Americans. They don't mind standing so close to you they are touching, especially in line. Which brings me to No. 2

2. There seems to be little concept of lines or taking turns here. This pretty much amounts to bottlenecking, and me about to pee myself waiting in line for the restroom, because people have no problem jumping in front of me. 

I'm going to go work on my boxing out skills now.

Some pics.

Shanghai Airport

My bed. I'm pretty sure it has a sleep number of 1000

You can see into the shower and bath from the bed, how.....interesting

Place to drink tea

Nee How

I am making my first trip to China on Monday. I will try to update the blog everyday while I'm there. I'm also considering setting up a flickr account. Stay tuned

Bright Idea

I would love to meet the dim wit person who came up the current concept for lightbulb packaging. I would punch that person in the mouth....

Last night I went to Home Depot and purchased among other things, a 6 pack of lightbulbs. As I walked toward the checkout counter the bulbs slid out of the packing and shattered onto the floor. The cashier just stood there and shook her head.

Why isn't there some strip of carboard or something there to prevent such a disaster? I'm not talking action figure style packaging, but a little more protection for something so fragile....

Apartment Therapy

This is a pretty great idea for keeping your floors dry in the winter . I hate walking around the house in my socks just to step in a sludge puddle and get them wet.

It's just a tray with some decorative rocks. Your shoes drip dry and the water drains to the bottom of the tray.

I wish I knew

I wish I knew what draws me to this shoe. I don't think I would ever wear it, but it is strangely beautiful in its simplicity.

Add this to the list decorating ideas I'm stealing...

2D/3D Coat rack



Off the chain!

New Tees!

I know I've neglected this sweet little blog lately, I promise I'll be better.... Please don't break up with me!....

I completed couple of t-shirt idea recently and they'll both be going to print next week.  get at me if you want one.

Go Cards!

Samsung Triumph

It's been awhile since I've posted, but I think this is very worthy of the comeback.

I recently purchased a sweet Samsung 40" lcd TV, the ln40a550 to be exact. I got a great deal on it from Amazon for $929 shipped with white glove delivery. 

The first thing I wantedto do was hook it up to my Sony Laptop so I could stream movies from my hard drive.

I followed the instruction in the samsung owners manual to the letter, but the television didn't recognize the PC source.

After reading many posts in multiple forums on this problem I thought i was doomed. This seems to be a specific problem with linking Sony laptops with Samsung TVs.

I messed around with the computer's settings for about 2 hours and finally stumbled on the solution.

FN F7, that's all it is, hold down the function key, and hit the F7 key a couple of times until the monitor icon is highlighted. Then go back to the televison The PC source should now be available for use. Voila! PC on your TV.

I hope this saves someone a ton of time down the road.