Notice: Escalator Temporarily Stairs...sorry for the convenience

Top 10 Movies of 2008

2008-12-30T11:34:00.007-08:00

I'm participating in a "Top 10 Movies of 2008" Blogroll that my Bro-in-law organized.

One caveat, I'm not a huge movie watcher, so there are still a few "must watch" movies that I haven't seen yet, therefore are not on the list. I'm sure, there still quite good.

10) Jumper
I know, I know, the plot was pretty weak, it left a lot of questions unanswered. But, still a cool idea for a movie, I enjoyed it.

9) Cloverfield
Definitely a much anticipated movie for me. A bit of a letdown in some ways, but still kept me on the edge of my seat the entire time. It did feel really realistic, with the amateur camera shots, no name actors. It all worked well, and didn't feel cheesy.

8) Tropic Thunder
7) Step Brothers
6) Forgetting Sarah Marshall
I'm combining these 3 movies, because they all kind of fit the same category: they won't win any awards, don't have anything intelligent to offer, but really made me laugh my ass off the entire movie. I can't say that about most comedies.

5) Burn After Reading
Also made me laugh a lot. But, this one was definitely a smarter comedy; much drier, but very funny.

4) The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian
What can I say...very glad they put the Narnia series into quality feature-length films. C.S. Lewis's stories are timeless and inspiring, but he's not actually that great of a fiction writer. The films are taking his great stories telling them better on screen than in the book. Prince Caspian was no exception.

3) Wanted
While not entirely a unique story line, this Matrix meets Fight Club movie is still well done and exciting, touching upon themes of masculinity and fate. Pretty good review of the movie from Christian point of view.

2) Iron Man
Another great super hero movie with great spiritual themes of repentance and a changed heart. Here's another good review.

1) The Dark Knight
It's nearly unanimous that this was the best film of the year. And this is saying a lot for me, who has never liked any of the Batman movies. Excellent action, excellent acting. Aptly named, it is a dark movie and makes you think while keeping you glued to the action. My church has monthly viewings of popular films followed my discussion. I think I might go to the showing of The Dark Knight they will host on January 23rd.

Other Top Ten Lists:
Cam's at Camknows
Joel's at The Mayward Blog
Carlos' at The Carlos Word
Jason's at The LaFavorites
Charlie's at My Stupid Thoughts
Brian's at The Humphreys Blog

Sorry to interrupt

2008-10-02T21:48:00.002-07:00

We are far too polite. We're taught that it's rude to interrupt people and to wait our turn. I'm sure that many of you, like me, are tired of watching debates that are anything but....debates. No matter whom you support in this election, I'm sure you'll agree that no one is consistently answering the questions directly and rarely are directly addressing and countering on a point-by-point basis claims and arguments by their opponent. Isn't that what a "debate" is supposed to be?

I put the blame squarely on the moderator. Too much emphasis is placed upon them asking clever questions (which by the way are always the same easily predictable questions) and barely any emphasis on actually moderating. I want to see them interrupt the candidates and same "no, you may not change the topic...you did not answer the question...please respond to your opponents claims...and beat them over the head until they do so!

I don't need another opportunity to hear them tell me their positions, which we're already acquanited with!

Repatriation - 1 step at a time

2008-04-12T21:25:00.005-07:00

I just completed an important step in becoming an American again: I bought a car!

It's interesting, I've only been out of the country for two years. But, it was surprising how much I forgot about the car buying process, logistics of getting insurance and how much, the little things of taking care of a car. These are some of the things that are unique to life in America; or at least life outside of Hong Kong. Life as an expat in Hong Kong can be...too easy in some ways. You don't have a car to take care of, wash on a regular basis. Labor is cheap, so you pay people to wash your clothes, clean your house, drive you from point A to point B. It makes you a bit lazy in many ways. Although, I recognize that there were many unique chores and hardships to that lifestyle as well.

On to the next steps: 1) start my new job as Business Systems Analyst on Monday 2) Find and move into a new apartment! I'm strongly leaning towards West Seattle and have a couple places there I really like.

500 Miles

2008-04-10T13:59:00.002-07:00

Thanks to the power of spreadsheets, I know that I have just passed 500 miles run! I started my new life of running at the end of April, last year. I am planning on a long run of 9 miles this Saturday. The weather is supposed to be great, high 60's! I'm progressing well on my plan towards running the North Olympic Discovery 1/2 marathon in early June!

Wish me luck!

In America

2007-12-18T22:40:00.000-08:00

Yes, I'm in America now...visiting the family for Christmas. I had special incentive to see my niece, Juliana. She is as cute as her pictures portrayed her...still quite small for her age. She makes the funniest faces when she's falling asleep!

I always wonder what will "be different" when I go back to the US, new trends, new styles I wasn't aware of living overseas. Generally there isn't much I miss, I stay well on top of the news with CNN and MSNBC.COM, even check the local seattletimes.com page for local news....but was unaware of the fact that pomegranate is now all the rage...totally missed that one. It's now got it's own 7-up, saw it as a margarita flavor at Olive Garden and am told that it has worked it's way into other products....crazy americans...

Riddle

2007-12-16T21:53:00.000-08:00

What "part of me" did I see yesterday that I haven't see in nearly 2 years? No, it's not my feet...I hadn't gotten that fat. I am down to about 180 now, though, a total of over 35lbs lost. I bought a size 32 jeans today, down from a 34 a month ago, which was down from 36 at my biggest.

Back to the riddle...the answer has to do with where I currently am...or more importantly, where I am not...

8k

2007-10-27T02:00:00.000-07:00

My history with running goes back to the 6th grade. For some strange reason, I decided to join the track team. On the team we could choose whatever event we wanted to compete in. I chose the 100 meter dash because it involved the least amount of running. I was, however, not very fast and always came well in last place. I didn't stay on the track team very long and didn't do much running after that point.

Fast forward to Jr. High. As I'm sure most of you can relate, one of the painful transitions from elementary school to Jr. High was gym. From what I can recall, elementary school gym class pretty much consisted of lifting up and running underneath that giant parachute thingy and the occasional kickball. I think we all got more exercise at recess than at gym. Jr. High gym, however, was a different story: Fun runs on Monday and lines on Friday. "Fun Runs" were less than a mile long, but felt like hell. I was hardly ever able to run the entire thing. In the 9th grade, tired of never completing the entire run, non-stop, I decided to get serious about it and try harder. I was eventually able to run the entire thing, and felt great about my accomplishment.

The summer after 9th grade (or maybe 10th... my memory is fuzzy), I decided to take on running as a challenge. I easily worked my way up to 2 miles, then 3, averaging out a typical run at 4 miles. I competed in a 5k and eventually ran a 10k as well. I was truly "into" running. I generally looked forward to my runs, enjoyed a bit of runner's high, subscribed to Runner's World, the works. My Junior year in high school, I joined the Cross Country team. I was, without a doubt, the slowest guy on the team...and probably slower than half the girls. Racing all out on these 2.5 - 3 mile courses through the woods was killer, but I tried my best... probably tried too hard. I easily got shin splints and and at the end of one of my races, I noticed a sharp pain in my lower right leg. I told my coach, who gave me the brilliant advice all coaches give: "walk it off." The next day or two, still in pain I went to the doctor who diagnosed a stress fracture.

The result of over-training, a stress fracture is not a complete break, but a hairline fracture in the bone. I was ordered on crutches for the next several weeks, and of course running was out of the question for quite a while. This was tough because I really did like running, as bad as I was at it. I was out of running for the rest of the cross country season. I was determined to get back on the road, though, as I had already committed myself to running the Seattle Half Marathon in November of that year. I didn't really have the appropriate time to train properly, but I gave it my best. The pain in my leg was somewhat reoccurring. I never really did the leg rehabilitation exercises the doctor gave me to do, so one leg was a little weaker than the other. Come race day, however, I was ready to go. It was tough, but I was able to run the entire 13.1 miles, slower than I planned, but completed it, nevertheless. It still stands out as own of my proudest accomplishments. However, my running pretty much stopped after crossing that finish line.

My first couple of attempts at running again just ended in frustration with pain in my leg. I put away my running shoes for many years, as I got involved in other hobbies. Years passed, the pounds slowly added on and I made several half-assed efforts to get back into running. I was usually not able to get over 20-25 minutes of running and quickly gave up.

The funny thing is, for the past 3 or 4 years, I've been a fairly regular gym-goer, sticking to walking on the treadmill or cross-trainer and doing a few weights...and, of course, seeing no progress in weight loss as I generally continued eating whatever I wanted, with a couple of diets thrown in the mix here and there. I realize it sometimes surprising for people to hear that I'm trying to lose weight. I generally wear my weight well...in clothes at least. With my shirt off, there's no argument that I could stand to lose a few lbs.

Earlier this year, Beth, in her own battle against the bulge, decided to take up running. Whenever I hear about someone taking up running, I instantly become the expert: "I know all about that; I've read the books; I know how it's done; I've run a half marathon!" It's been 10 years since I've done any running to speak of and yet I was still living off of accomplishments I wasn't even close to being able to repeat. With Beth's running efforts I was quickly amazed at how fast she progressed, easily breaking through barriers in distance and speed that had kept my previous come-back attempts at bay. I realized that I needed to get back in the game and not be such a pussy about putting in the necessary effort. It worked. It was tough, but I was able to increase my running time past previous efforts. I was generally conservative about increases in running times, but always pushed through to complete what I had planned for myself.

As this took place mostly over the late spring and summertime...and this is Hong Kong, my runs took place all at the gym on the treadmill. It is quite hot and humid in Hong Kong and generally difficult to find easily accessible running routes. In late July we had a trip to Seattle planned and Beth and I thought it would be a fun idea to run in a local race while there. We set our sights on the Seafair Torchlight 8k run. I focused my training on being able to run that distance...on the treadmill. I didn't quite achieve that, but I came close, figured it wouldn't be too difficult to eek out the extra distance required. I was wrong. Running only on the treadmill poorly prepared me for the realities of running outdoors. I was only able to run about half the distance. And that wasn't even non-stop. I ran about the first 20 minutes and then a couple short runs over the rest of the race. It was a discouraging reflection that perhaps I hadn't made as much progress as I had thought.

I took a couple of weeks off of running when we got back to Hong Kong. I decided to start over with my training. I had previously been running fairly slowing, about 8.3 km/h on treadmill (I'll let you do the math on that). I was determined that I was going to run 10 minute miles. I started over at that speed and slowly worked my mileage up. As the weather was starting to improve, I decided I had to start doing some of my runs outdoors. As mentioned previously, I was recently able to do about 4 miles outdoors. I told myself I was going to run outside every Saturday, with treadmill runs during the week at the gym. Last weekend was a little too busy, so I didn't get out during the daylight, so just did a late night run at the gym. Yesterday, I was determined to get back on track. I decided to run at Bowen Road, Hong Kong's most famous running route. It starts in the mid-levels area and is popular with HK's generally wealthy expats. It's closed to cars and offers great views of the island and is mostly well-shaded by trees. It's 4k each way and has distance markers along the route. Although it was difficult towards the end and I did get slightly turned around at one point, I was able to complete the entire 8k (4.96 miles) in 50 minutes, 13 seconds. I think I'll now be able to handle that Seafair 8k next year if I'm in town! :)

I'm no longer resting on the pride of my previous accomplishments. I'll take that half-marathon and double it to a full marathon, one year from now. (more or less, subject to race availability!)

I lost 17 pounds to become a XXL

2007-10-14T22:18:00.000-07:00

As Beth mentioned on her blog, we are both getting serious about getting in shape. This morning at the gym, I found out that I stand on the precipice of a new milestone: the 200lb mark. Once I lost 1 more pound (or technically half a pound), I will officially be sub-200lbs! This will be big for me as it's been several years since I've been on that side of the scale.

Last Saturday also marked a big achievement for me: I ran 40min OUTSIDE. And at a 10:04 minute mile no less (or so reports my Nike+ Ipod sensor, I hope it's right). Due to the harsh HK summer and general lack of good running routes close enough to our home, I've been primarily running at the gym on the treadmill. I had ventured outdoors for a run on two other occasions, managing to eek out 7 minutes the first time and 25 the next. Any peception that running on a treadmill and outdoors were of equal effort were shattered when we attempted to run an 8k during our trip back to Seattle. I had run almost that distance on the treadmill, so thought I could eek out the entire 8k no problem. I probably only ran 3 miles, tops. And that was in bits and pieces as it was. So, to manage the same distance outdoors as I am now running on the treadmill was a big achievement for me. I'm sure it helped that the weather is darn near perfect right now.

So, on my lunch break I decide I need a new running shirt. I wanted something a bit more stylish as well as light and breathable. I find a cool looking orange and grey tank-top at Nike. I assume an XL will fit me just fine. I try it on and it fits fine...mostly. It's a little short, though, so I opt for the XXL. I just had to laugh as this is probably the biggest "size" clothing I've ever owned, purchased at my smallest size in years. I'm telling myself it's due to my bulging pecs and ripped abs.

I'm an Uncle!

2007-10-03T18:17:00.000-07:00

Say hello to Juliana Joyce Stone! My baby sister, Bethany gave birth on Tuesday to a healthy, 5 lb, 15.6 oz baby girl! Congratulations to the new parents! :) For more pictures, you can check out Cam's Blog

Seen Today

2007-09-22T02:10:00.000-07:00

At the gym:

T-shirt with a guy listening to an mp3 player while sitting on the toilet. The caption?...ipood
A Japanese show that featured strange athletic competitions such as rowing what looked like a giant teacup through an obstacle course pool. The teacup was very sensitive to being tipped over, that's why it was difficult. Another competition was walking on stilts through another bizarre obstacle course. The competitor had to walk over a pile of logs, avoid large swinging mallets, walk on a very skinny curved beam, etc..

On the way home from the gym:

Old man with a pink shirt. Caption read: Playboy Club

Hong Kong's Own Wedding Crasher

2007-09-05T18:54:00.000-07:00

I know I'll catch some flak from Beth about reposting a story instead of coming up with my own original material, but I couldn't help in on this one:

"Wedding bells prove too much for Tsang

Thursday, September 06, 2007

Hong Kong's very own wedding crasher has said sorry.

Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen yesterday apologized for stealing the spotlight from a couple by sneaking into their wedding ceremony as an uninvited guest.

Evidently, Tsang was entranced by the Gothic-style church in Jilin City, Jilin province, where he spent part of his summer holiday with wife Selina.

The 63-year-old devout Catholic said in his blog it was the first time he was able to witness a church wedding in the mainland so he sneaked in.

"But as soon as I took a seat, I was recognized by a guest. Then more and more people came over to greet us and asked for my signature. In order not to create a further nuisance, I quickly left the scene," he said.

A happy ending then."

What I find most interesting is....Donald Tsang has his own blog??

Uncharacteristic

2007-09-01T01:58:00.000-07:00

Today Beth and I did something out of the ordinary for us. We went hiking. As part of my newly revamped desire to lose weight, I decided that the key to lifelong fitness is for us to become "outdoor people" We'll see how long this lasts (starting the timer ....now!) I've long known that Hong Kong is supposed to be great for hiking, lots of great trails, views, all within close distance to the city. Hong Kong loves to surprise people that think it's just a sprawling, polluted metropolis (it's that too), by stating that 40% of the territory is country parks.

So, I set about to do a little research on where to hike and settled on one called "the Dragon's Back." It's ranked as "the Best Urban Hike in Asia" by Time Magazine. (It wouldn't be very Hong Kong-ish if it didn't top some sort of list) So, this morning we packed our backpacks, grabbed the dog and hailed a cab to our hike. Getting there was difficult by taxi. By MTR and bus, it would have been simple, but having the dog required using a taxi. After a few wrong turns we arrived.

The hike starts off relatively easy, fairly cool due to being shaded by trees. Just as we're remarking on this, we turn onto the actual "Dragon's Back" part of the trail. It's called the dragon's back because it involves a lot of going up and down hills that vaguely look like a dragon's back. On the plus side, this presents some really great views.

The hardest part was dealing with Zoe. I don't know if this is her finally getting old, if it was just too hot and long for her to handle, or if she was just being a drama queen (probably all of the above) But she did get quite tired and hot requiring several stops and we near ran out of water for the 3 of us. Zoe even whined when lying down whether on the trail or in the taxi and so we'll probably leave her out of the next hike. Perhaps she can handle another track in the fall or winter, when the heat dies down.

Here's a couple pictures:

One of the steep climbs on the Dragon's Back (is steeper than it looks)

View from the highest peak of the dragon's back:

And the obligatory 'proof that we actually did this hike' picture:

I would like to point out it is very Hong Kong to have the umbrella with 24/7. Rain or shine, people here like to be protected from the elements above. Though regardless of Beth's use of the umbrella we both finished with quite bad sunburns.

8 Things You Don't Know About Me

2007-08-16T00:26:00.000-07:00

I've been tagged to post a list of 8 things you don't know about me. Here goes:

I repeated kindergarten. Yep, that's right, I failed a class that consisted mostly of coloring and trying not to wet your pants.
For a brief time in the 80's I had the back of my hair grown out and permed...and no, I wasn't in an 80's pop band.
I have owned a pair of "Michael Jackson" parachute pants with zippers all over them.
I have never had a broken bone.
For the longest time, I thought spinning classes consisted of people spinning around...wouldn't that make them dizzy?
I have never read any of the Harry Potter books nor seen any of the movies. I know, I know...I'm missing out, so sue me
I used to have the entire script to "It's Christmas Time Charlie Brown" and "The Grinch that Stole Christmas" memorized. I wholly blame my obsessive little sister over that. She probably still has it memorized.
I wish I had an eyesight problem, so I'd have an excuse to wear glasses. I think they look good on me.

The Modern Equivalent of Posting on the Refrigerator

2007-07-12T18:24:00.000-07:00

"Hi Beth,

Comments on your oral exam - speech on 10 July 2007:

Beth has demonstrated persistence and great effort in learning Putonghua.
Beth is very interested in learning Chinese culture and pratice the language
when she travelling to China. She is a keen learner and try very best to
attend the class, she also actively participate class activities. Her oral
exam was excellent in organizing thoughts/ideas and put them into menaingful
Chinese expression. She exceeded my expectaion as an English speaker at this
level. Overall, she is very hardworking and committed student. I really
appeciate her effort and learning attitude.

Warm regards"

Happy Birthday to Me!

2007-07-10T21:10:00.000-07:00

Yes, yesterday was my birthday. I am 29 now and have begun the dreaded countown to 30. How can I be almost that old? You know how in 1999 all those know-it-alls loved to state that the millenium doesn't start until 2001, not 2000? Well, I'm going to claim that I'm not in my thirties until I'm 31. 30 will be my "transitional year." No longer a young punk, not quite a mature adult.

Beth did a great job helping me feel special on my day. Sorry, we don't have any pictures to share. We forgot to bring the camera along on our celebrations. We both worked yesterday and went out to Outback Steakhouse for dinner. Despite the fact that we knew there were several Outback's in Hong Kong, we have never been to one here, so that made it a more special treat. We gorged ourselves with Aussie Cheese fries, a Bloomin' Onion, a 14oz steak (me) and caeser salad (beth) and of course several tropical drinks. Somehow, we managed to squeeze ourselves out of the booth and roll towards a taxi to get home. I say, it's not your birthday unless you eat 'till it hurts!

We get home to discover that Beth had come home in the middle of the day to bring in birthday balloons, Godiva truffles, champagne and other decorations. She outdid me once again!

For my present, my lovely wife bought me a nice watch from amazon.com It's a solar-powered watch that you can use scuba diving. Water resistant to 200 meters and has a depth sensor to record how deep under water you are. I don't have it yet, because we had it shipped to my parent's house. We'll pick it up when we visit washington in a couple of weeks.

Thanks Beth!

No fireworks here

2007-07-04T00:51:00.000-07:00

No, we don't get off work for the 4th of July in Hong Kong. I'd imagine we'll get this as soon as Chinese-americans get a week off for Chinese New Year!

But, most importantly...Happy Birthday, Bethany! :)

If you need to bail me out of jail, I'll be the one with the blood soaked umbrella

2007-06-27T18:38:00.000-07:00

Be forewarned, this is the time of year that I start to get pissy. If it's not the humidity drenching you in sweat in a too-crowded, poorly ventilated elevator....before you've even left your apartment....then it's pouring down rain every where you go.

Lately it's the rain that's the culprit. In my best effort to survive the elements, I have a large golf umbrella that I use when I think it's going to rain. A regular umbrella is an absolute joke here...it does no good. Even the golf umbrella isn't as effective as you'd think. For one, rain rarely falls straight down...it is usually accompanied by wind which blows it every which way. Secondly, walking with an oversized umbrella in Hong Kong is like driving a semi on a sidewalk. It's too crowded with other umbrella users, forcing one of us to raise or lower our umbrella to avoid collision; trying not to hit it against the ubiquitous low-hanging signs and ever-present bamboo scaffolding.

What the umbrella does do, however, is a good job of mimicking a sword or a baseball bat...that is, when I'm not using it in a feeble attempt to keep rain off. As I struggle through the streets, fighting for a taxi or trying to get to the gym on my lunch break I have to fight off the urge to whack people with my umbrella. And I mean whack in the Soprano's sense of the word, not just a light slap on the tush. And I'm not just talking about the old, slow people whom you have to navigate around (who always insist on walking side by side and taking up more room). No, I'm talking about fellow pedestrians, likely as frustrated as I am. What's their great crime?

Existing.

I have but one request, don't just die on the street...that would certainly cause more of a stir...and more traffic. Perhaps even lasting until my commute home...doubling the length of my taxi trip. No, no....if you want to do me a favor my departing this earth, you can fall off of the next ferry you happen to be on. Don't make a special trip to do so...that will only add to the ferry wait. And make sure no one sees you...the last thing I need is a search & rescue team jamming things up further.

Really...I'm not a bad person. I view all human life as precious...even those who seem most unlovable. And I have no problem reconciling that high-minded value with my morning commute, murderous tendencies...perfectly rational in my book.

They should really have a warning label on these umbrellas.

Eye in the Sky

2007-06-24T19:29:00.000-07:00

Beth and I saw our first Hong Kong movie yesterday. We saw "Eye in the Sky" (cantonese, with english subtitiles) which was filmed entirely in Hong Kong, most of it on the island in places we are regularly around. As we've mentioned before, we often see movies being filmed here, so we were interested in seeing the end result of one of them. On one of our first days out after arriving in HK, we witnessed a jewlery store robbery, which turned out to be a filming of a movie. Beth wrote about it here. About a month later, we also happened upon another movie being filmed. Well...it turns out that these were both scenes from Eye in the Sky! What's interesting, is that when both these scenes were being filmed, they appeared to be from a fairly low-budget, small film. The crew was fairly small, the roads generally weren't closed off, etc. Eye in the Sky was a fairly well produced movie and got a fair amount of publicity in HK. I don't think it will be coming soon to a theatre near you or win an Oscar, but it was entertaining. If you want to get a good picture of HK and get the chance to see it, I do recommend it.

What's it actually about? Good question! It's about the "Survelience Unit" (i don't know if this actually exists) whose job it is to track and follow suspected criminals. They utilize a network of CCTV feeds, fancy spy equipment and good old fashioned stalking. They are the people who are just hanging around on the streets: young kids, a beggar, a business man...all covertly operating as spys on the street.

Warning...may not be suitable for all viewers

2007-06-01T05:30:00.000-07:00

Believe it or not, I haven't seen Passion of the Christ, yet. I picked up a VCD copy at the mall here in KL this evening. Very interesting warning label, wouldn't you say?:

When The Passion opened in theaters, the government only allowed it to be viewed by Christians. Tickets could only be purchased through churches.

Interesting article...

2007-05-30T19:26:00.000-07:00

to read while in Malaysia. In case you haven't read Beth's blog, I have been going to Malaysia a lot lately for business. While I knew it was a Muslim country (meaning that Islam is the official religion), I also heard that there was a fair amount of religious tolerance. I guess that tolerance only exists if you're the 'right' ethnicity.

Here's a link to the article:

"Malaysia rejects bid for Christian convert to remove Islam ID tag

Ian MacKinnon, south-east Asia correspondent
Thursday May 31, 2007
The Guardian

The highest court in Malaysia yesterday rejected a Muslim-born woman's appeal to be recognised as a Christian, ending a six-year legal battle that will heighten concerns over discrimination of the country's religious minorities.

Lina Joy, 42, had fought the decisions of Malaysia's lower courts in an effort to have the word "Islam" removed from her identity card, arguing that the constitution guaranteed her religious freedom.

But the panel of three judges decided, in a majority verdict, that it had no power to intervene in cases of apostasy. These cases fall under the jurisdiction of Malaysia's Sharia courts, which run in tandem with the country's civil courts.

However, it has never been made clear which branch of the court takes precedence. The Malaysian constitution guarantees freedom of worship, but ethnic Malays must be Muslim by law. "She cannot simply, at her own whim, enter or leave her religion," Judge Ahmad Fairuz said during yesterday's ruling. "She must follow rules."

But Judge Richard Malanjum, the only non-Muslim on the panel, said it was "unreasonable" to ask Ms Joy to turn to the Sharia court as she could face criminal prosecution because abandoning Islam is punishable by a fine or jail. Critics of the verdict expressed dismay and said it failed to uphold the legal rights of Malaysians.

Two-hundred Muslim protesters who gathered in a prayer vigil outside the court yesterday greeted the verdict with cries of "Allahu Akbar" (God is great).

Islam is the official religion in Malaysia, where 60% of the country's 27 million people are ethnic Malay.

The woman, born Azlina Jailani, started attending church in 1990 and was baptised eight years later. She was given permission to change her name, but "Islam" remained as her religion on her identity card."

This is too funny!

2007-05-04T01:38:00.000-07:00

David Blaine Street Magic 2

Vertigo Remixed

2007-05-03T20:40:00.000-07:00

Scuba Diving

2007-04-23T02:08:00.000-07:00

Although, Beth did a great job writing about it here and here, I thought I'd write a bit about our scuba adventure.

The first thing to know: it was fun. The second thing to know: it wasn't easy. The easiest part of the whole thing was probably being underwater; everything else was difficult.

The hard part starts with getting out to the dive site. The Great Barrier Reef isn't exactly just off the shore. I think we were a bit spoiled by snorkeling in Hanauma Bay in Hawaii:

To get to our dive site, we had to take a hour and a half boat ride in pretty choppy waters. This pretty much guarenteed seasickness by most on the boat. Earlier in the week, we went on a similar trip, this time to snorkel, not to dive. Nearly everyone on the boat hurled at some point. Some got so sick that they didn't even go out in the water to dive or snorkel! I held off puking on the ride out to the reef. However, after enjoying my first snorkeling session, I came back to the ladder on the boat, removing my snorkel before I was safely out of the water (such a rookie mistake); the choppy water delivered me a mouthful of sea water. Added to my already queay stomach, this was too much. I ralfed like 5 times right there on the back of the boat...lovely.

So, by the time it came to our scuba dives, we both had a bit better of a sea stomach...but not by much. The other difficult part was being in the water (at the surface) with the scuba gear on.
As mentioned, the water was pretty choppy, so we were bobbing around quite a bit (adding to the nausea); trying to listen to our instructor's shouts as to which way to swim to, when to begin our descent, trying to make sure I stayed with my buddy, Beth, who looks eerily similar to everyone else in full gear!

The last difficult part (for me) was the actual descent. On the first day of our dive adventure, I didn't really have any problems descending. However, on the second day, I had problems staying underwater. Confused? Allow me to explain. A critical component of scuba diving is maintaining proper buyouancy. You wear weights around your weights to compensate for the fact that your body does not naturally sink in water (especially if you have a little extra fat on your body, as I do!) Plus, you have strapped on your back, a big hurkin' tank filled with air. I don't think you have to play David Letterman's "Will it Float?" in order to figure out that that will keep you at the surface unless you add some weight!

So, on the second day, I had as many weights on me as the previous day. We begin our descent down the descent line that is tied to the boat down to the bottom of the dive site. This is difficult to hold onto as the rocking boat keeps tugging it up and down. When we near the bottom, our instructor has us let go and swim the rest of the way down. For some reason I start floating up to the top! I try swimming downward, but it's no use and I just keep floating up to the surface! This is generally not a good thing, as you are supposed to ascend at a slow rate, due to the nitrogen you've absorbed into your body through breathing the compressed air. The next day I increased the weight on my belt and that helped a bit, but I still had some problems controlling my buyouancy, though.

The other difficult part about getting scuba certifed, is that you have to perform a number of skills underwater (we were 18 metres under). You have to let your regulator (the thing that allows you to breath) out of your mouth, drop to your side, and then find it again and place it back in your mouth. All without accidently breathing in any water.

You have to remove your mask for 30 seconds and replace it, and clear the water out from your mask. You do this by blowing air through your nose while tilting your head up, allowing the water to be blown out of the bottom of your mask.

Also occasionaly difficult is the fact that descending underwater puts great pressure on your ears. You know how your ears plug up while ascending and descending in a plane? The effect is much, much greater underwater. You begin to feel pressure in just a few feet underwater. You have to "equalize" your ears to reduce the pressure. This is done by plugging your nose and trying to blow through your nose, forcing air through your ears. You have to do this every couple of feet as you descend and as you ascend.

So, it's lots of work...but, was it worth it? Absolutely! It is lots of fun being underwater and floating around, seeing the fishes and the coral. I highly recommend it! I just wish that I could dive off a dock somewhere and not have to take the vomit comet out to sea next time!

How Cute is She?

2007-04-02T02:01:00.000-07:00

Let me count the ways....

Happy Birthday Bethe! :)

Chinese New Year

2007-03-28T02:43:00.000-07:00

Even though it's been quite a while since CNY, and some of you may have seen these pics already on our photobucket, I thought I'd blog a bit about it here. I've been a neglectful blogger lately, so I'm trying to make up for lost time!

So, what's there to say about Chinese New Year (or CNY as "those in the know" call it)? In many ways it was a bit anticlimatic, things really slow down during CNY and a lot of people leave HK. They say that during CNY, the world's biggest mass migration takes place, because Chinese from all over the world return home to mainland China to be with family. Even still, there were still some interesting things to see.

These are all over the city during CNY. I think there tangerine trees. They line the streets and people purchase them for their homes. I don't exactly know the cultural significance of this, but I think it has to do with showing that you are prosperous. Prosperity is very important to the Chinese. It's also possible that the word for tangerine rhymes with something that is lucky. That's the case with fish, which they eat a lot during CNY. Words that rhyme or sound like good or bad words is very significant to the Chinese. For example the word for "four", which is "sap" rhymes with the word for death. For that reason buildings don't have a 4th floor, 14th floor, 24th floor, etc...

You see a lot of these as well...the tree with red envelopes, not the cute girl in front of it! Red envelopes (with money inside) are given to single people and children from married people as well as from bosses to employees.

Don't have much to say abou this...the stuff is red, which is a common CNY color

Red lanterns, common to see all year, but more so during CNY

During Christmas and CNY many of the buildings aligning both sides of the harbor are decorated with festive lights, much like houses are decorated during Christmas....cool, huh?

Okay...this isn't CNY related, but we did see it during CNY. Every night at 8pm buildings along the harbor on HK island participate in "A Symphony of Lights"
Basically, a laser show, set to music that is piped into various hotel bars, restaurants and even along the waterfront. It doesn't get any cooler than this! This picture doesn't even do it justice...there's a lot more lasers and other light affects that stretch along the harbor.

Diving into it!

2007-03-25T19:36:00.000-07:00

Beth and I are going on holiday to Australia next month! We decided to take advantage of the Easter and Ching Ming Festival holidays running together this year, giving us a 5 day weekend. IN total our 9 day vacation will only 'cost' us 4 vacation days which is a plus. Originally we'd thought about heading to Sydney, Hunter Wine Valley and North Queensland, but after going through the options it was clear what we really wanted was more than a few days on the beach. Even though Sydney is something to see, sometimes time away from the big cities is most preferred. Specifically, we'll be going to Cairns, the most common jumping off point for the Great Barrier Reef. I think Beth mentioned in an earlier blog post, how we went snorkeling in Hawaii and had a great time. We loved the idea of going snorkeling at the reef, as we're told there are lots of unique creatures to see that only live in that area.

In thinking about how visiting the reef may be a once in a lifetime opportunity, we decided to take our experience to the next level and try scuba diving! In order to be fully prepared and not have to spend any holiday time in a classroom, we took a scuba course this past weekend which involved coursework, tests and scuba dives in a swimming pool only 3 metres deep.

Scuba diving it turns out is much more complex and a bit more stressful than we probably thought, but it is also lots of fun! In the middle of our first dive, I remember wondering whether I was going to be able to handle this for real once in open water. I had trouble - a few times t ook water into my mouth when removing and reinserting my regulator (breathing device); I had to come up to the top to remove excess water. However, by the end of the day, I felt like a natural and am looking forward to diving in the open water in Cairns! Hopefully, we'll find a way to get a water proof camera down there to take pictures!

Honestly, scuba diving isn't something I ever thought I would be interested in, but can totally see this being something we get into and look to do when we go on holiday. Apparently there are lots of good places to dive in Southeast Asia. One exception to that is Hong Kong -- not too many places with good visibility here due to the pollution, I'm sure.

We'll keep you posted on our adventures!

Is Asia's bad air stirring storms in West?

2007-03-06T02:34:00.000-08:00

Sorry about this! For the record, the pollution in Hong Kong mostly comes from mainland Chinese factory...and we're as peeved about it as anyone. Not only does it ruin our great view (#1 skyline in the world!), it keeps us sick! Both Beth and I have had more colds this winter than ever in our lives...one right after the other!

We'll do our best to keep the pollution down!

Valentine's Day

2007-02-14T18:25:00.000-08:00

For my love, my one, my only: Thanks for a great Valentine's day, but more importantly for making every day with you both a joy and an adventure!

I love you!!

My Job

2007-01-02T23:11:00.000-08:00

Yes, as several of you have pointed out, I have yet to tell you about my new job. This is mostly due to the fact that I don't have as much free time available thanks to...that's right, the new job...

I've had this job for over 2 months now. It's for a small IT company, located in Central, Hong Kong. It's basically a project management position, with the work changing as new projects come up. For the first 6 weeks I was working out of the Hong Kong airport. Now I am gearing up ( i.e. doing lots of reading and research) for another project that should in gear by the time we get back from our vacation in Hawaii.

The project at the airport was to install over a hundred check-in workstations in a new terminal. Due to many delays, this part never actually happened by the time my part of the project came to an end. However, I did get to do the following:

Installed servers, switches, kvm's into 2 server rooms. This involved the frustrating and sometimes painful job of reconfiguring the racks to fit equipment of various sizes. If you've ever worked with caged nuts, you know what I mean. It's basically like putting together Ikea furniture in hell.
Helped to prepare and image over 100 workstations, involving installing over 100 pci cards.
Moved heavy equipment back and forth and back and forth again...to different areas of the airport as well as the server rooms in the new terminal, which was still a construction site, by the way.
I had the pleasure of having to coordinate deliveries and work done by contractors...both of whom usually spoke very little english and didn't have a good sense of time management/time estimation.

The new project I'm gearing up for will be configuration and installation of a new POS software system for a retailer in Malaysia. It's fun to involved in ERP/SCM systems again...should be a good project!

Happy New Year!

2006-12-31T19:23:00.000-08:00

For New Year's Eve, Beth & I celebrated at Hong Kong Disneyland. The park is definitely smaller than the US one, but we had fun anyways. We rode Space Mountain twice as well as a couple of other fun rides. You can view are pictures here.

Consider this a Public Service Announcement:

2006-12-27T16:20:00.000-08:00

And, in case you're wondering how I made this post...google is fairing pretty well during this outage, don't know how they do it, perhaps they have distributed servers around the globe...although, anything we can access is at glacially slow speeds. I feel like it's 1992 and I'm on dial-up with my 9600baud modem!

So, google products (gmail, google, blogger) work as does skype I believe...and, of course anything hosted in HK, such as: thestandard.com.hk, from which I copied this story:

Earthquake pulls plug on local businesses

JonathanChengandagencies

Thursday, December 28, 2006

Hong Kong struggled to cope Wednesday without access to large swaths of the Internet and the regional phone network, fearing the implications of a telecommunications slowdown that could drag on for weeks.

The tie-up, triggered by a 7.1-magnitude earthquake late Tuesday night off the southeast coast of Taiwan, sent ripple effects through the heavily wired and technology-reliant territory.

Financial traders worked without up-to-date stock prices and travelers were unable to call home, while ordinary Internet users were left without the staples of modern life, like access to Google and Yahoo.

Leng Tai-feng, president of international business for Chunghwa Telecom, Taiwan's largest phone operator, said two of its undersea cables were cut, with repairs likely to take two to three weeks.

Crews fixing the cables would have to pull the cables up and transfer them to a ship for repair, the company said, while Lin Jen-hung, Chunghwa's vice general manager, added: "Quality will improve day by day."

Voice calls to the United States were down to 40 percent of normal capacity in Taiwan, while Singapore Telecommunications, the largest phone company in Southeast Asia, reported a slowdown in Internet traffic in its area.

PCCW, whose local telecom services rely heavily on those damaged cables, warned users to expect "congestion over the next several days."

PCCW said the damage had slashed data capacity in half, while an upsurge in usage of Internet sites in the region added to the congestion problem.

"We are in the process of diverting the data and are monitoring the restoration of the cables," the company said.

Hutchison Telecom Hong Kong also issued a brief statement Wednesday, saying it had contacted and followed up with the suppliers of the undersea cables.

"Immediate actions have also been taken to provide limited telecommunications service to affected areas," the statement read.

SmarTone-Vodafone, the mobile service provider, sent a message to its Hong Kong users in the afternoon, promising service would be back to normal as soon as possible.

Internet access in Beijing was reported to be slow.

But officials there declined to give further details.

Vinh Tran, a spokeswoman for HSBC, said that there was no access for its online banking service in Taiwan, Hong Kong and the mainland.

Both the Hong Kong stock exchange and the Securities and Futures Commission reported no disruptions to operations.

Some telecom companies were working Wednesday to reroute their service by other channels, including through Australia, the Indian Ocean or by satellite.

Meanwhile, Ng Nam, director of the computer center at Hong Kong University, said service may not reach normal standards as those cables are not accustomed to handling so much traffic.

The long-distance telephone service was cut off from Hong Kong to 19 places, including the United States, South Korea, Japan and New Zealand.

Experts were hesitant Wednesday to attach a price tag on the shutdown, but warned that delays could persist for some time.

"A lot of people are definitely going to be seriously affected," said Gary Chan Sheung-han, a professor of computer science and engineering at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

Those people included traders like David Leong of First State Investments in Singapore, who told a reporter: "I can't trade if I don't know the prices."

Diego Wittlin, managing director of the Hong Kong office of a small German toy exporter, said the telecom meltdown meant that business - and all means of contact with head office - has come to a crashing halt.

"I tried to call Europe about 20 times today," Wittlin said. "But the phone and Internet are both down, so we can't even fax."

For the time being, he is taking solace in the fact that his competitors are down as well - and that business is in the traditional Christmas season lull.

Still, Wittlin added: "It's a very uncomfortable situation. It just shows how vulnerable our systems are." Should the outage continue, Wittlin said he will resort to more basic means of conducting business - using courier services for important documents, burning data on to CDs and mailing them through the post, and trying to fax as much possible.

"You just have to redial 20 or 30 times, that's all," he said. "When e-mail's gone, these days, unfortunately everything stands still."

Wittlin's headaches highlighted a troubling point for IT experts trying to prevent a repeat of the incident: that global communications in the region, now more vital than ever, rely on a surprisingly small number of cables under the sea.

Charles Mok Nai-kwong, a former head of the Hong Kong Internet Service Providers' Association and current chairman of the local chapter of the US- based Internet Society, said he hoped the situation will be fixed quickly.

But he admitted there are only "very limited things" that local telecom providers can do.

"Some people may be asking what Hong Kong can do to prevent this from happening again, but the question is: what can the world do?" Mok said.

He called on the consortiums that own and operate undersea cables to "re- evaluate the situation" by diversifying traffic and placing cables in different locations.

But it will cost money: up to US$500,000 (HK$3.9 million) per kilometer, according to a report earlier this year by Paul Budde, a telecommunications analyst in Australia.

"Planning an undersea cable, we're talking about billions of dollars and years and years of time," Mok said.

One of the two cables that were broken is owned by a consortium that includes Singapore Telecom, France Telecom and Pakistan Telecommunication.

The other is partly owned by China Unicom, StarHub and Telekom Malaysia.

Great new song, cool new video

2006-12-21T15:43:00.000-08:00

by U2

8 Months in Hong Kong

2006-11-10T23:15:00.000-08:00

As you may already know, Beth is in the states right now on a little vacation. I wasn't able to go with her, because I recently started a new job and can't take vacation right now (more on the job in a later post). We wanted Beth to take with her a DVD of some of the footage we've shot in Hong Kong and our other trips in Southesat Asia these past 8 months. So, I scrambled to put one together. The work on it went up to the last minute, whereby I discovered that whenever I tried to burn the DVD, my computer shut down...so, no DVD to bring :( So, I did the next best thing and hosted the video on youtube. I had to break it into 5 parts and reduce the quality in order to upload it, but hopefully it is still enjoyable. Also, my apologies for not having titles or captions that explain where certain scenes were taken. We originally were planning on having Beth narrate the film. So, unless you have the pleasure of her lovely company while viewing these clips, you may be a little lost....sorry!

Part 1 of 5

Part 2 of 5

Part 3 of 5

Part 4 of 5

Part 5 of 5

Do you remember how I always said...

2006-10-17T01:07:00.000-07:00

I wanted my one beer keg that could fit in my fridge? Well...I got that too:

Signs of Life

2006-10-16T23:45:00.000-07:00

I haven't blogged in a while. There just hasn't been all that much new or different going on to report on. And I'm not like my uber-talented wife, Beth, who can take even the most mundane details of the day and turn them into a blog post that's both funny and insightful. That's probably why she has a career that involves writing and I have a career that involves...oh wait, I don't have a career. So, anyways...things are good. And here's more proof that the Nordbergs are settling into life in their new home:

You've Got Radio - Can you believe it's been 8 months since I've listened to the radio? Technically I get to hear the radio in the taxis, but I don't really count that since I don't get to choose the station and most often I can't understand what's being said. We had shipped over from the states our surround sound/dvd/radio system. Unfortunately it was a 120 volt unit and Hong Kong supplies 220 volt electricity. This system requires 280 watts of electricity, which meant that we'd need more than the typical travel convertor. On Monday, I finally bucked up and paid the HK$330 required to buy a 300 watt transformer. So, I hooked up the system and surfed the Hong Kong radio waves! Of course, I was only able to find one station in English! At least now, though, we'll be able to watch movies without having to listen to the audio through the puny speakers in our projector!

She's a City Dog - Zoe's adapting quite well to city life. She now understands how elevators work. While waiting for the elevator, she hears the beep indicating that the elevator has arrived on our floor and before she sees the doors open, she lurches toward the door waiting for it to open. This proves she's learned what that beep means! Same thing when in the elevator she sits patiently while it descends until the doors open on the ground floor. Also, while on walks she has learned to adapt to her city environment. Those of you with dogs know that they prefer grass to, uhh...do their "business." Unfortunately there's not a lot of grass to be found here. She doesn't mind doing #2 on the sidewalk, but I've noticed that she doesn't like to do #1 on the sidewalk...perhaps she's embarassed by the attention in draws to her (she's very aware of other people). So, she found a good solution, allow me to explain ... Our favorite place to walk her is down by the ferry terminals at Victoria Harbour. Along the walkway is a long sewer grate. When we walk there, she deliberately walks along the sewer grate and we've discovered one reason why is that she likes to stop on it and do her "business" (both #1 and #2) as she has figured out that the "droppings" will then dissapear into the sewer grate, nice and descrete-like. How she figured this out, I don't know. But, I'm greateful that it's one less turd I have to poop and scoop!

Hail Thy Cab - We've gotten quite good at hailing cabs. And no, this doesn't involve sticking your fingeres in your mouth and whistling very loudly...I can't even do that. But, it does involve strategic thinking. The key is to go upstream to where the taxis are coming from and not just wait for one to come by where you are at. Plus, you also need to think about where you are trying to get to and which streets head in that direction (most streets here are one-way). The slightest difference in where the taxi picks you up can double the time (and possibly cost) it takes to get you there.

You Can't Just Give it Away

2006-09-23T00:15:00.000-07:00

From this point forward, I will no longer be posting my pictures on this blog. If you want to see my pictures, you'll have to purchase them from istockphoto.com

istockphoto is a website that sells stock photographs to companies needing images for the websites, brochures, etc... I'm kidding, of course, about no longer posting my pictures here. In reality, a lot of the pictures I'd post on my blog wouldn't really be stock-appropriate pictures. They are pretty strict in terms of what the accept, both in terms of the 'stock worthiness' of a picture and the technical quality of the image. It took me a while to be accepted and I've had quite a few images rejected already, but have built up a portfolio of 5 images at this point. The image below was initially rejected for having at least 5 different branded logos showing. I was successful at removing them via photoshop, so they accepted it.

You can view my portfolio here.

Man...I sure do know my wife

2006-09-19T00:59:00.000-07:00

As you have no doubt read in Beths blog, she recently had a question she wrote published in a local Hong Kong magazine. What you don't know is how this was discovered:

I was reading this particular magazine and this guy's column, "Mr. Know it All". I read the question from "Clare" and automatically knew that she had written it, even though she never told me that she sent in a question to this guy. How did I know that she had written this?:

Beth is clearly working on a fiction novel, which isn't her preferred method of writing, but she has gotten positive feedback on it from those around her (including myself)
The story is about 25 pages currently.
Her little humours quip: "the overwhelming pressure (I mean joy from their continual positive feedback) keeps me...."
"Clare" Daines is one of Beth's favourite actresses, at least until she acted in this movie.

So, I ask her "did you submit a question to Mr. KIA? "yes...." she says. "Well, I think they published it!" See, I told you I knew my wife!

While Mr. KIA, must think that I am one of her "indulgent friends with nary a hint of literary appreciation abilities", I can safely say that I am married to a future bestselling author and her book will do quite well, thank you very much! And yes, I do have more than a "hint of literary appreciation abilities" I am quite well-read, FYI.

But, I do have to admit to pressuring her to finish writing this book...and why? Cuz, I want to know how it ends! It's a page-turner..can't put it down!

Letter from Birmingham Jail

2006-09-14T02:01:00.000-07:00

One of the readings assigned to us in my philosophy course, many years ago, was "Letter from Birmingham Jail" my Martin Luther King Jr. It is a fantastic read, not only relevant to the civil rights issues he was fighting in his day, but also to people everywhere: the oppressed, the opressor, those fighting oppression and those just standing by.

The letter was written to 8 clergymen from Alabama who had criticized King for coming to Alabama to peacefully protest the social injustices occuring there. They called his actions "unwise and untimely." You can read the full text of the letter here.

Here are just a few of the quotes that stood out to me:

"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. "

"We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed."

"We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people."

"So often the contemporary church is a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. So often it is an archdefender of the status quo. Par from being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the church's silent and often even vocal sanction of things as they are.
But the judgment of God is upon the church as never before. If today's church does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it vi lose its authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twentieth century. Every day I meet young people whose disappointment with the church has turned into outright disgust."

I'm sure may who have read this letter, like me, have looked with disgust upon the clergymen who wrote the letter of disaproval to King. Who are these men, whom history has surely forgot? I did some research and wasn't able to find information about very many of them, save one: Joseph Aloysius Durick. At the time of the letter to King he was a catholic bishop in Birmingham. What happened to Mr. Durick after he got the response from Dr. King?...He changed Joseph Durick became an outspoken advocate for civil rights in the South. How did his congregation thank him? By branding him as a communist and a heretic.

Warning...actual opinion ahead!:

2006-08-29T00:55:00.000-07:00

I'm sure most of you Americans got the luxury of watching the Emmys on Sunday. I have, as of yet, not been able to *ahem* acquire said episode. I did acquire the first 15 minutes of the show, which I will watch tonight. From what I read, Conan did a great job and was his usual hillarious self. I was surprised to read this article on MSNBC. Apparently, the opening skit had spoofs from several television shows this season, one of which showed Conan in a plane crash on a desert island...a spoof on Lost. Now, a bunch of people are offended because this aired on the same day as a plane crashed in Kentucky, killing 50 people. This is crazy! How can people be so easily offended? The skit was filmed well in advance of that crash! It was a spoof on Lost for crying out loud!

Now, bear in mind, I am not one of those people who is constantly complaining about America being "too politically correct" I fashion myself to be a pretty sensitive person, what others my term as "politically correct" But, this is just ridiculus. And I'm even skeptical that those who complained were even really offended, so much as just looking for something to complain about. What's worse, the media is referring to this as the "Conan skit"...basically defaming Conan for participating in such an offensive and insesitive act! Hello...it was taped in advance, he had no idea a plane was going to crash! And even if you think it shouldn't have been aired, it's not like Conan would have much control over that...he's just the host! Poor Conan...I guess that's the price you pay for having a sense of humor.

I said 'hey'

2006-08-24T19:11:00.000-07:00

As is often a case when there is a major news event the public is obsessed with, all other events get pushed out of the way. One can remember how the death of Mother Teresa was quickly eclipsed by the death of Princess Diana. Or how, when the Rwandan Genocide (which went on to kill a million people in 100 days) broke out, it wasn't was newsworthy as the suicide of Kurt Cobain. News, unfortunately, is the result of what sells easily to the public.

As we all know, the John Michael Karr is the media's latest obsession...this morning Beth and I got to see the very newsorthy coverage of a live video feed of the plane carrying Karr from LA to Colorado...I was on pins and needles...a great use of the media's time...not...

As I checked the news on MSNBC this morning, I did notice a headline, buried down in the front page and replaced the next hour: "Trumpeter Maynard Ferguson, dead at 78" I'm sure most don't recognize that name. He never achived the popular following of say Miles Davis or Dizzy Gillespie, and was mostly dismissed by jazz purists, but among his fans (primarily other trumpet players, I'm sure) he was magical.

What made him so good? He could play very high notes. Well, it's more than that...but it is what he's most known for. For those who haven't played the trumpet or other brass instruments, this is probably hard to appreciate. Playing exceptionally high notes, especially in a controlled manner is quite difficult to do. I still remember listening to him with my fellow trumpet players in high school. We'd pass the tape player back and forth on the bus on our way to different schools to play in the pep band. We were awestruck. Trumpet players, especially, are a cocky bunch, always trying to one-up one another by playing higher notes...but, there is no competing with Maynard...listening to him knocks the wind out of you. I was fortunate enough to see Maynard in concert a few years ago and was again awestruck at his talent.

I've long since given up playing the trumpet...I sold my crappy, old student model for $100 to someone just picking up the instrument. I don't even listen to Maynard that often, I really couldn't say that he's among my favorite musicians. When his songs come up on my iPod, I usually skip past them, on to the rock/pop choices that dominate my playlists...I'm a lyrics guy, what can I say? And honestly, a lot of his songs are fairly cheesy, musically speaking. A lot of them are jazzed up versions of 70's disco music. He is well known for his rendition of the Rocky theme song "Gonna Fly Now" He has also played the theme to the original Star Trek and the theme song to the movie "Shaft" Like I said...cheesy. But, the way he plays those trumpet solos still get me excited.

Like I said, I got the privilige of seeing Maynard perform a couple of years ago. Beth and I went to see him at Jazz Alley in Seattle. We weren't able to get great seats up front, so we sat towards the back, near the bar. While waiting for the show to begin, watching some no name group on stage, I'm sure, I notice a door to the side of the club open and an older, portly man enter and walk towards the back. I realized that this is Maynard himself, from the few pictures I have seen. He passes right by where we are sitting. Casually I say "hey"...he said "hey" back. The performance was great, of course, an answer to a childhood dream tucked away but not forgotten.

I remember talking to my former boss upon learning that he used to play the trumpet in college. I asked him if he had heard of Maynard Ferguson so I could share my story of seeing him in concert. He said that he and his friends liked to listen to him and were amazed at his talent. As I listened to Maynard on my iPod, the first time in a while, I realized that he may never be very well known, there will always be young trumpet players listening, floored my this man's "chops" I know that for a couple of band-geeks in the mid-90's, he was a magician.

Sweet & Sour Chicken Recipe

2006-08-22T21:31:00.000-07:00

If you've read either Beth or I's blog or talked to us about things we miss from back home, you no doubt know that we have been unable to find good Chinese food here in Hong Kong. So...we have taken upon ourselves to recreate those longed-for dishes in our own, tiney kitchen.

Our first dish to tackle was Sweet & Sour Chicken. We scoured the internet for a sauce recipe that looked good. The recipe below is a modification to what we found. We reduced the vinegar, reduced the cornstarch and increased the water. Enjoy!:

1/8 cup white vinegar
2 tsp. soy sauce
1 1/2 tbl. cornstarch
1/2 cup white sugar
1/4 cup pineapple juice
3/8 cup water

combine and boil. simmer gently for 5 minutes.

what's that? you need a recipe for the chicken? Oh, come on...it's chicken, you can figure it out!

Next dish to tackle? General Tsao's Chicken...mmm!

It's easy breezy...stream of consciousness style

2006-08-21T21:56:00.000-07:00

The weather seems to be improving, slightly. The temperature is the same, but there is a slight breeze in the air lately, which helps considerably. Beth recently bought me new headphones for my iPod. I had lost my original earbuds in the move and the only other headphones I had were the big, chunky, over the ear ones...which, I love, but aren't really best for taking to the gym or walking around the street in, unless you want to be stared at a lot, and i have... So, the new headpones are the kind that you stick into your ear canal like an earplug, I was hesitant about trying these because I thought they would be uncomfortable...but, they're not, they're great! And they do a great job cancelling the external noise, you can have the volume much lower than normal and still hear the music great! So...i'm now taking my iPod to the gym in the morning, which is great, because they have a pretty bad music selection. Some of it isn't so bad, typical American pop music. There are a couple of pretty lame choices, though. One is this song that includes the line "You're Easy Breezy and I'm Japaneesy" you can read the rest of the lyrics here, if you're intrigued. There's another one that's bizzare. It's techo and features a voice that I think is supposed to sound like George W. Bush, Beth disagrees. Anyways, all the voice says is "Destroy..." and then the names of all these musicians...like "Destroy: Madonna, Destroy: Prince, Destroy Houie Louis" very bizzare indeed! And then there's this Eminem song they play...now, I admit, I do enjoy an Eminem song from time to time...this is coming from a guy with a very eclectic musical taste. My iPod contains: U2, Miles Davis, Nirvana, Green Day, Eminem, Gustav Holst (orchestral music), & Celine Dion (only 1 song!)...I really don't think many of those musicians would appreciate being in each other's company! so, anyways, even though I can appreciate Eminem..this song is so vulgar it's not even funny! However, every time it's played, someone stops the song midway through...I guess either someone complained or some staff person with enough English skills to pick out the vulgarities Marshall Mathers is laying out while he's bustin' his rhymes. Oh, and whoever is in control of the music often will skip past songs for no reason! They treat it like it's their own personal iPod that we all get to listen to!

that is all...and yes, I did start writing this before Beth posted on a similar topic...little blog stealer!

I usually don't do this...

2006-08-16T23:02:00.000-07:00

but...these were too funny not to shrare:

Very funny Star Wars video...thanks, Cam!:

Funny t.v. pilot created by Ben Stiller...thanks, Dan!:

Engagement Anniversary

2006-08-11T20:27:00.000-07:00

Some may find it odd, but Beth and I like to still celebrate our engagement anniversary and our dating anniversary. Our engagement anniversary was this Friday (yesterday). Here is Beth, holding the boquet that I had delivered to her office. I'm told there was much oohing and ahhing...that's right, I'm the man...Beth, who always has a way with words, wrote me this wonderful letter. She said I could share it with you:

Dear Nick,

Please let me begin this note by first apologizing for the fact that the contents of the last card I gave you was drafted ‘last minute’; in fact so ‘last minute’ that allegedly you observed me drafting my sentiments. I’ve often been advised ‘the fresher the better’, but I’ve learned this pertains more to Japanese seafood than greeting cards. In this case fresh (inked) simply meant unprepared-ness and perhaps perceived insincerity.

While I did not intend to communicate lackadaisical-ness; I do admit I was at fault and deserved to be scolded (as you tactfully did). However, all that said, I would like to point out how much more difficult it is to obtain a proper card in Hong Kong than in say, Washington state where stores actually sell the things people want.

You may wonder why it is this time you’re receiving a typed note. You may judge me, or this note, as being less personal because it is typed rather than hand-scripted. But let me explain. I’ve chosen to draft my thoughts now via Word a good 60* hours before our anniversary dinner because I’ve not yet landed what I think is a great card. In fact, in light of the last shopping trip where I purchased a card for you, I don’t expect to land a ‘great’ card at all, but rather an acceptable one. Please, upon receipt of the mediocre card I will soon acquire, do not assess our relationship or my thoughts on our relationship based upon the text, appearance or otherwise of the said card.

Please note that I’ve yet to see greeting cards sold elsewhere than in a 3rd level store in the IFC mall (which I want to point out is VERY inconvenient) and furthermore, the selection in said store is limited to about 20 choices. Personally I’d rather make my own card than give you one that goes on to explain how I wish you all the best ‘the year of the dog’ has to offer; but I do know machine-folded pieces of very thick paper for which you paid $4US dollars have their place in the world of romance.

And so, I will continue my search for a card. And my search may take me right up and until Friday when before our dinner (conveniently scheduled at the IFC) I may ask to be excused for a minute in order to obtain a very thick piece of paper which I could not procure anywhere near my office during my work-week lunch breaks. And then, you may observe me returning with a bag and observe me pull out a card and you’ll initially judge me, thinking ‘How could she be so unprepared, AGAIN?!’

But, I will then pull out this note, my pre-typed thoughts and beg you to accept it as proof that I did indeed think of you and our engagement anniversary prior to 15 minutes before our celebratory dinner. Yes, truthfully I’ve thought about you all week. Wishing we could wisk ourselves away for a quick weekend in WA state, eat at a favorite place, walk around the pier in Seattle, drive up north to Canada and eat at the restaurant where you first proposed, all of that.

We know that is all not easily done, and so we’re celebrating in Hong Kong for the first time and that is OK with me. In some ways I’d argue HK is more like Canada than WA, so perhaps we’re more on the mark in terms of recreating the atmosphere present when you asked me to marry you.

I remember the first time we’d gone to that restaurant. It was a month or two after we’d started dating. I remember after we’d finished eating, while walking to the car you’d asked me what to do when you feel like sharing something with someone though your not sure how they’ll respond. After asking a few qualifier questions which you couldn’t answer easily I replied with “well, you might as well say it--get it out.”

And so then and there you told me you loved me. Looking back I’m curious on what exactly illuminated those feelings for you that night. Was it seeing me rapidly consume a massive plate of pasta? I don’t think so.

I remember feeling a bit afraid when you first began the conversation. I guess I had a lil’ ego cuz I thought you were heading toward asking THE question. I felt the train that was our relationship moving very fast from the time we met and was nervous it’d keep speeding along. But alas your words were a simple, but important, ‘I Love You’ which I accepted without much fear.

Back to the marriage proposal. And so, based on the Canadian “I love you incident” you drove me back to share a much bigger declaration of love.

And here we are six years later still chugging along. As our wedding invitation said, “Love is a choice and a commitment” one which has been tested a time or two in our six years. But we’re still having fun despite the challenges. I love the fact that most often when vacationing we’re asked whether we’re honeymooning. How neat it is that though we are most definitely not newlyweds we appear to others as very much ‘into” each other.

You and I have had the luxury, especially in the past few months, of spending many nights and weekends together, just the two of us, casually cuddling while watching movies, hanging out, or whatever else we please, when we please. Those are my favorite times. You know from referencing the manual on maintaining me (J/k, bet you wish you had one) that I need my alone time here and there. But when I am not needing alone time there is no single individual I’d want to be with more. I love hangin’ out with you; we are very compatible when in that mode.

This year especially it’s astounded me how much alike our thoughts are. Many times we’ll be watching a movie, reading an article, choosing a restaurant, etc. and one of us will make a comment and the other says; “That’s JUST what I was thinking--exactly!

Well Nicke, thanks for another year of loving me. Thanks for all the times you’ve rubbed my back or washed my feet or given me what I wanted perhaps without anything in return. Thanks for truly liking me and wanting to be around me. Thanks for the spontaneous excitement you show over us and our relationship from time to time. Your comments to me do not go unnoticed and are always appreciated. Thanks for enjoying making me happy and all that you do to do so.

I enjoy you as well and as far as any other sentiments I feel toward you, well if you need this card and it’s contents to know what I think and feel then I haven’t done my job. I’ll quiz you over dinner on the top 10 things I like about you just to make sure you’re getting enough positive feedback from me!

With Love,

Beth Nordberg
Wife of Nicholas Nordberg
Former Fiancé of Nicholas Nordberg
Former Girlfriend of Nicholas Nordberg
Daytime Proposal Writer
Chief Cuddler, Nights and Weekends

*Approximate estimate, give or take a few dozen hours; just kidding. But seriously estimate is not guaranteed.

Krispy Kreme is here!...almost

2006-08-06T21:31:00.000-07:00

Krispy Kreme opens tomorrow! For a fun and inspirational video click here

Thank goodness the donuts look 'normal' I was afraid they were going to confuse the donuts with those Chinese buns used in dim sum and stuff them with pork or something worse. And it doesn't look like there are any 'Bird's Nest surprise' donuts or glazed sharks fin donuts.

oh boy, now i'm never going to lose weight....good thing it's in causeway bay and somewhat out of the way!

Singapore Sling, Anyone?

2006-07-27T09:31:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday Beth left for Singapore for a business trip. This is me seeing her off at the Airport Express station. It's a pretty cool concept. They have a station in the middle of downtown Hong Kong where you can check in to your airlines, get your boarding pass, check you bags, and then take an express train to the airport on Lamma Island.

That means I've had the past few days to myself. It was, in a word: boring...very boring. I know what you're thinking: you don't work anyways, so haven't you already figured out ways to keep occupied? Yeah, but it's a lot more boring knowing that at the end of the day I won't get to be with Beth. So, my days consisted pretty much of eating pizza and playing Super Mario Kart...I'm getting quite good, btw...I unlocked 2 more secret cars! I did, however, drag my butt to the gym every day, and the kitchen is now clean...so, I was somewhat productive.

Tomorrow (Friday) I leave in the morning for Singapore to join Beth for about 5 days while we explore Singapore and perhaps some of Malaysia and/or Indonesia, which are close by. We'll be sure to report back as soon as we return!

Protests

2006-07-23T17:41:00.000-07:00

One thing that is interesting about living Hong Kong is that it is both the major (actually only) city and the center of government for the entire country. It's like living in a combination of New York and Washington D.C. That means that if I'm in Central, near the government offices there are very often small protests occuring. Small as in 10-20 people. What has been frustrating is that the signs and protest chants are all in Chinese. Now, I'm not about to insist that they protest in English just for my benefit, but it would at least be nice to have the signs be bilingual so I can have an idea about what they are protesting. I like to be informed...maybe I'll joing them in their fight..but, first I have to know what the issue is.

However, just the other day, I can across the protestors above who where mostly African and protesting in English. They were protesting the fact that Hong Kong does not have an asylum policy. A little research into this showed that there are currently 1500 asylum seekers in Hong Kong, most of them from Africa or South Asia. More than 150 of them are being detained (i.e. in prison) or have to report weekly to the police.

So, thanks to protests in English, I'm now better informed!

Things that peeve me off: #4812

2006-07-23T17:24:00.000-07:00

Online shopping:

Due to the inability to find certain things in Hong Kong and the high prices of that we can find...I've tried to turn to online shopping to get those hard to find items...mostly eBay and Amazon.com. The problem with Amazon is the only items they will ship overseas are books, cd's and dvd's...and those, of course, come with higher shipping costs because the goods are coming from the states. Oh...but, amazon.com is a smart, international company, you say...and yes, indeed they have several different regional sites, including China....well, guess what happens when you go to their China sites....it's only in Chinese! Doesn't really help me! Same thing with eBay's Hong Kong site. Now, I'm not trying to be insensitive and demand that everyone speak English for my benefit...I just think that amazon and eBay must not have fully thought out their internationalization plans here. These are American based companies...they could have easily created English translated pages for their regional sites. Heck, every web page I've been to for Hong Kong based companies have a little link for the English translated pages!

That's all...I'm done ranting now.

Where's the Salmon?

2006-07-22T00:07:00.000-07:00

I so need to win this contest. First prize is some sort of camera phone and second prize is a year's worth of free pizza. However, they said that it's valued at HK$888...there's no way that's a years worth of pizza, that's like barely 8 pizzas!

New camera...yea!!

2006-07-20T17:56:00.000-07:00

This is a picture of my new Canon digital Rebel XT SLR camera...this picture was taken with said camera...how'd I do that? Any guesses?? Thanks go out to my mom and Susie for their help with the procurement and expedited shipping of my new toy. I'll be able to take it on our trip to Singapore next week!!

BTW, I added more photos to Photobucket and added the links to the right of this page. Pictures From Around Hong Kong and Pictures of Hong Kong Island were both taken with the new camera, whereas most of the photos in Nick's 'Artistic' pictures and Pictures of our Zoe! were taken with our older camera.

Have fun!

Happy Birthday to Me!

2006-07-10T23:28:00.000-07:00

Thanks to all who sent me birthday greetings! I did, indeed, have a happy birthday. My lovely wife, Beth, did a great job spoiling me over the past couple of days. Pictured above is the delicious ice cream cake she got from Haagen-Daazs for me! It was good, and we do have leftovers should you be in the neighborhood.

I've now got 2 years left on the countdown until I turn 30...yikes!

F.A.Q.

2006-07-03T18:33:00.000-07:00

In an effort to avoid answering the same mundane questions, I've compiled a list of frequently asked questions regarding our experiences in Hong Kong. Please consult this list prior to conversation with me. If you violate this rule and ask a question contained within the FAQ list, there will be trouble. Actually, I'll most likely just sigh, roll my eyes and answer the question anyways. Now, to the list:

So, how's the weather?:

It sucks. It's raining now...5 minutes ago, it looked great. That's how it is here, you never know when torrential rain will break out. Unless, I actually consulted the weather forcasts, that is. The weather was actually rather decent when we first arrived, but quickly turned bad, then worse. And it's supposed to get even worse this month and in August. September and onward, however, are supposed to be quite nice, cooler temperatures, lower humidity and no rain. And let's not even talk about the horrendous thunder and lightening we are often treated to...conveniently in the middle of the night when trying to sleep.

Isn't it terrible living in Communist China? Aren't people there restricted to one child? Won't you be jailed if people know you're a Christian? Uggh, I'm so worried about you!

Chill out. Yes, Hong Kong is now a part of China, but it is governed far differently. Prior to the handover in 1997, China and the UK signed the Sino-British Joint Declaration which basically states that "In accordance with the "One Country, Two Systems" Principle agreed between the UK and the PRC, the socialism system of PRC shall not be practised in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR), and Hong Kong's previous capitalist system and its way of life shall remain unchanged for a period of 50 years. The Joint Declaration provides that these basic policies shall be stipulated in the Hong Kong Basic Law."

So, there you have it, this is very different from China. There is definate religious freedom. Beth and I attend Evangelical Community Church here. It is very much like churches we have attended in the US, except for the fact that they have no permanent building and meet in a different location each week. Despite the fact that Christianity is definately the minority religion here, I have seen no evidence that there is any less religous freedom here than there is in the US.

Same thing goes for interet censorship. You've probably heard about how Google is agreeing to censor certain topics for Chinese internet users, such as Tianeman square, Taiwanese independence, etc.... That doesn't apply here, we can search for those topics.

Are you working?

No.

That's all you have to say?

Ok, I'll say more. Yes, it has been 4 months since we've arrived and no, I haven't found a job yet. Yes, I've applied for many jobs. In fact, on my favorite job board, jobsdb.com, I've applied for about 400 jobs. I've been on 4 interviews, one of them went very well, and yet I never heard from them again, despite emailing them to see where they were at in the process. 2 of the 4 were last week and they went ok, so we'll see if i hear from them this week.

It seems at least half of the jobs out there require Cantonese language skills, many also requiring Mandarin. I do not possess either. It takes quite a while to become fluent in Cantonese.

Are you okay with not working? How are you feeling about it?

I would definately like to be working. I've spent the last 10 years of my life as a working professional for the same company, not working is new for me. I like knowing I'm accomplishing something useful for a company and bringing in money at the same time. Honestly, sometimes it's very difficult knowing I'm not working and not being successful finding a job, sometimes I'm okay with it. Some days I wake up thinking "I gave up a good job, a house with a yard, a decent sized kitchen with an oven, an oven! a game room with a pool table, a projector with a 72 in screen, just for this!" And then I think "Oh wait, I didn't give up the projector, I brought it with me...I think I'll go play Spiderman 2 on the Game Cube"

It is convenient for me to be at home during the day, I am able to get things done that would either have to be done by Beth or I in the evening or eat up our weekends if both of us were working. I'm able to keep the apartment relatively clean, spend time with the dog, make sure we have food to eat, etc... We're still able to make ends meet on Beth's salary, so the need isn't urgent, but, yes, I would like a job. Bottom line, I don't regret making the decision to move here, even though it has meant be being out of work for a while. I was fully aware that it would be difficult for me to get a job here, it's all part of the risk I was willing to take.

So, wait a second, here....you expect us to feel sorry for you because you don't have to work, aren't financially hurting, get to explore a foreign culture, have an apartment with a great view, can take naps in the middle of the day, can pretty much do whatever you want during the day, as long as you keep the apartment relatively clean and the fridge stocked with food? You pathetic, ungrateful twit!! I'd love to trade places with you!!

Well, when you put it like that, it doesn't sound so bad. I know what your saying, I should be grateful...it's hard to explain. This is stressing me out, I'm going to go eat some oreos and take my 10:30am nap now.

How's Zoe?

She's good! She's her same, hyper-energetic self! Before shipping her over, we heard some horror stories about pets being psychologically traumatized by long flights in a pet carrier stuck in the baggage compartment. Not, our Zoe, though! While I'm sure it wasn't fun for her, she didn't seem to notice once she arrived. Of course, there was that little incident with her alleric reaction to the rabies vaccine they gave her upon arrival, but that cleared up quickly.

Yes, you may have heard us say that Hong Kong isn't very pet friendly and most of the city parks don't allow dogs. It works out alright, though. There is plenty of sidewalks to walk her on, until her or us gets tired. There aren't very many places where we can have her unleashed, but honestly, we rarely let her off the leash back home, either. She isn't exactly trustworthy when it comes to being unleashed in public. She thinks it's a game to run off and not let us catch her.

You live on the 40th floor, right? So, isn't it hugely inconvenient to take her outside to do her business?

They're called puppy pee pads and they work great...usually....if you can get her to, uh, aim properly. And you need to make sure to clean the poo off on a regular basis.

Aren't you worried that the elevator door will open, but no elevator will be there, and you'll step into it and fall to your death? I'm worried about that!!

No, I'm not worried about that. For one, I'm not usually in the habit of closing my eyes and entering an elevator. Call me crazy, but that's just me. Secondly, our elevator, like many has a mirrored backing, to which I have grown accustomed. If the elevator doors opened and I did not see my reflection, I would immediately know something is amiss, and most likely not step into an empty eleavator shaft.

So, quit your worrying, mother.

I bet your eating Chinese food all the time, huh?

You're kidding me, right? What you call Chinese food is so radically different from "real" Chinese food, it's not even funny. It's probably the most successful joke Chinese immigrants to the US ever played on their new country: "Hey, when they ask us to make food from our home country, let's not make the real stuff, let's instead cook for them fried meats, without the skin, and bones and baste it in sweet sauces, they'll hate it! Hahahahahahahaha!!" Well, it turns out we love the stuff and it is not to be found in Hong Kong, with the exception of some mediocre attempts.

Authentic Chinese food is more like: chicken feet, fatty meat with skin and bones still attached, cooked in strange sauces, soups made with stuff you'd see on Fear Factor, shark fin's soup, bird's nest soup (yes, this means actual bird's nest)...no sweet and sour or General Tso's chicken, I bet there wasn't even such a person as General Tso.

However, if we do want to experience good, authentic, Asian meals, we do have the option of Thai food. Thai food here is quite good and is very close to Thai food in Thailand, which we have had.

How are you able to manage without knowing Chinese??

The official languages of Hong Kong are Cantonese and English. So, pretty much all signs, menus, etc. are written in both Chinese and English. Plus, knowing english is necessary for most jobs, so most people we come into contact know, at least some, english. Granted, sometimes theire level of english skills is very low, but we usually manage to figure things out.

The limited english skills sometimes results in some interesting and humorous situations. It's common to see people on the streets with shirts on that have english writing on them. Sometimes the shirts say some rather provocative and inappropriate things. You might be thinking "well maybe they just have different standards there" well, that may be it, but often just from looking at the person, you get the feeling that they just have no idea what their shirt says. Take the grandmother wearing the shirt with the Playboy bunny character on it...I really don't think she knows what that represents, she probably just thinks it's a cute bunny. Or the old man wearing a shirt that says "Stupid" I'm thinking that was an accident.

Does Beth like her job? Doesn't she hate the long hours? How does she communicate with her co-workers?

Hmm...why don't I let Beth answer that:

"I do enjoy my job. Yes, we took a leap moving to Hong Kong for me to begin working for an entirely new employer with a new group of people I'd never met before. But despite all the risks my intution turned out to be accurate and the role I have at Citigroup is very, very similar to the role I had at Russell which made it quite easy to settle into.

Additional to that, you'd be surprised how diverse the office is. I will admit that I myself pictured an office where the majority of the staff we're middle age local folks who were more accustomed to conversing in Cantonese than English. This is not the reality of the office environment. Soon after moving to Hong Kong I quickly realized there is a dramatic difference between those in the business world and those who well, have lower paying jobs. Here at work, EVERYONE speaks English. Not to mention I work with an Australian, a New Zealander, an American, and a Canadian.

A few are a bit rusty with English and have heavy accents and writing English is a challenge for many. But the majority of my co-workers were educated in the US, Canada, London, Australia, etc.. You'll find most in the business world have spent 5-10 years living abroad and this makes them very different from what we Hong Konger's call the "local locals."

Many people here do work horrible hours. Horrendous hours. I have several co-workers who are known to not leave the office until 10pm 3 or 4 days out of the week. The general rule here is: "If it's Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday or Friday and you're awake--you should be at work." However, the locals (meaning those who've lived in HK more than a year) do not see this scenario as being a slave to the employer as folks would in the US. The ultra dedicated people I work with stay late because they want to (not just because it's the cultural norm)... These are people who forgo vacation time because working gives them satisfaction more so than other liesurely activities. (seriously, I have 2 co-workers that gave up vacay time last year) and I can only chalk that up to cultural upbringing and influence.

I however, do as all ex-pats do here. I've managed to forge a different routine for myself and I tend to leave around 6:30. Yes, this is late in comparison to my early departure days at Russell where no one batted an eye if you wanted to leave between 4 and 4:30 and putting in OT was working til 6. However, keep in mind that in the US I called my boss with a head's up if I couldn't make it in by 8:15, where as here I can show up between 9 and 9:15 and still get in before my co-workers (though I often keep to my old habits and show up in the 8 o'clock hour.

Additionally, one hour lunches are not had here. If I wanna shop or have a glass or two of wine over lunch, I can. Ninety minute, even two-hour lunches are very common here. On average I work about 45 hours a week, maybe every other week I work 50. Saturday's are not work days. Yes, some companies do count Saturday morning as part of the work week, but my employer is not one of them. So, yea, the hours are a bit long and I do suffer from time to time when I wanna leave the office and it's 6:45 and everyone else is typing away. They notice, but I leave anyway and this seems to be the routine of every expat I know...

I think Nick has covered everything else so I will leave it at that."

So, to sum it up here: the weather sucks, you don't have a job, your dog poops in your apartment, the food sucks, the locals unknowingly wear obscene t-shirts...you basically hate it right?! Ha ha! That'll teach you to take risks and leave America!! Score 1, for the good ol' USA!! Don't come back, commie!

Well, that was a little melodramatic. No, we don't hate it here, not at all. Like a lot of things in life, it has it's up and downs. But, we definately don't regret our decision to move here. We are getting exactly what we were looking for: something new
==================================================================

So, there you have it. If you have any questions not contained in this list, feel free to ask away. But, if it is asked more than once, it will need to be added to the list!

New Lost Theory

2006-07-03T18:28:00.000-07:00

Here's my new Lost theory, I swear it's the truth:

"The island was originally artificially constructed in 1955 by a secretive group of international arms dealers and used as a military base. It was later used as a test site for cutting edge developments in mind control techniques and zoology.

The group ultimately hoped to develop a drug which would enable a test subject to develop psychic abilities.

The crash of flight 815 was caused by a swarm of remotely operated Dharma nanobots. The survivors of flight 815 are being monitored to gauge their responses to the mysteries on the island and the 'monster' in the jungle is an experimental force field controlled by the Hanso Foundation.

The Others are synthetic humans developed as part of the Dharma initiative.

The 'incident' mentioned in the orientation film was a massive explosion caused by a huge build up of electromagnetic energy and when the button is not pressed it will simply signify the end of the experiment.

Sawyer is Jin's imaginary friend.

The numbers are a coded reference to an ancient religious text which prophecises the end of the world."

What?? You don't like it? Well, don't blame me...blame the Lost Theory Generator

You've Got Photos...new addition to blog

2006-06-22T01:52:00.000-07:00

If you look to your right-hand side of the screen...no, your other right...underneath 'Links' I've added a section for links to my photobucket site where I have and will continute to, post pictures from our various adventures and outings.

So...check it out!

how rude...

2006-06-21T03:48:00.000-07:00

Hong Kong is

Apparently Hong Kong is considered to be one of the rudest cities in the world....no comment...no comment.

Oh great, we just moved to Hong Kong...

2006-06-16T08:32:00.000-07:00

...and now I'm expected to move to the moon!

in Hong Kong news this week, professor Stephen Hawking, visited our little country, where he was received a "rock star" welcome. In his lecture at HKUST, he said that humans should have a permanent base on the moon in 20 years and on Mars in 40 years. He states this because "Life on Earth is at the ever-increasing risk of being wiped out by a disaster, such as sudden global warming, nuclear war, a genetically engineered virus or other dangers we have not yet thought of."

Actually, I think this would be really cool...as a kid I read this series of books about these kids and teenagers who were chosen to colonize Mars, I never finished the series, though...they may have stopped writing them actually. I left off just as they arrived on Mars...but, I don't know how things faired for these intrepid colonists.

Hey, maybe I can find a job on Mars, less competition, right? I better moving on that!

It's true what they say

2006-06-08T21:10:00.000-07:00

Soccer is hugely popular overseas (as in, everyplace but America) Hong Kongers are abuzz about the World Cup and marketers are cashing in with several World Cup related advertising:

*If you spend HK$17 at McDonald's you get a commerative card as shown above. If that team wins the World Cup, you get a little prize!

*At California Fitness, if you bring a friend in, you both get a little gym bag with the colors for either England, Brazil, or Portugal.

*Of course, this wouldn't be complete without involving sex. As you check out at the grocery store, you find that you can purchase condoms that have the names and colors of your favorite soccer team. I won't tell you what I thought when I first saw "England Supportor" condoms in line at the grocery store.

Do you like my new haircut?

2006-06-05T02:27:00.000-07:00

It only cost me HK$48 with a HK$30 tip because the guy worked really hard (it took about an hour, I think). That's $10 USD total.

That's compared to this, which cost me HK$250:

Hong Kong Remembers 6/4

2006-06-04T19:54:00.000-07:00

6/4 is the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre in Beijing in 1989. Organizers estimate that 44,000 gathered in Victoria Park in Hong Kong on Sunday to remember the massaacre that left 400-800 civilans dead and 7,000-10,000 injured. Thousands turn out for this event every year. This is the only place in China where the Massacre is publicly commemorated. Discussion of 6/4 is taboo in China outside of Hong Kong and Macau.

This article discusses the gathering and has quotes from those who attended.

Hong Kong Dancers

2006-05-29T17:56:00.000-07:00

If you go anywhere in Central on a Sunday you will no doubt see a lot of women sitting around, shoes off, eating with their friends, playing cards, doing each other's hair, etc... These are Hong Kong's domestic workers, enjoying their day off. They work long hours, 6 days a week, often with cramped living conditions, so when they get a day off, they like to relax with their friends. This past Sunday, we saw a couple of them putting on a little dance that they had obviously rehearsed for a while. We thought it was pretty unique until we turned the corner and saw another group doing the same thing...a new trend, perhaps??

Here's the video we shot:

My Lost Theory

2006-05-28T20:25:00.000-07:00

Okay, here is what I think Season 3 will bring:Michael and Walt will succesfully sail away from the island and find rescue, making it back to civilization. Michael, feeling guilty, will try and bring rescue to those left on the island. This will prove quite challenging, however, because no one can "see" the island or find the island. No one will really believe his story. In fact, when he tries to tell them he was on flight 815, he won't be able to prove it, because DHARMA will have his name removed from the list of passengers. Everyone will think he's crazy.But, he won't give up, he'll start tracking down the friends and family of the others on the plane, trying to enlist their help. Maybe he'll be able to tell them things about their loved ones that will prove he knows them. While meeting with these people, he will be able to see the various connections between people that only we have known about. This will somehow lead to the truth about what's really going on.What do you think??

See what the other Lost fanatics think!

Mood=disapointed

2006-05-25T01:40:00.000-07:00

I just finished watching the series finale for Alias and must say I am disapointed. I had expected the finale to give me hope that J.J. Abrams would be able to successfully bring Lost to a close and answer all the unanswered questions when it came time for the show to end, which it will eventually have to do.

I'm not saying that the finale was terrible, it had its good points...Sloane's final punishment, not being death, but the eternal life he was trying to attain, but has to spend it trapped inside a tomb. But, let's face it: in Alias world he'd be out of the tomb in 2 episodes, tops. Another cool part was that Sydney's final mission and fight takes place in....Hong Kong!:

I think the building Beth works in might be in this shot, although I don't think our apartment is. I think you might be able to see it in the shot where Sydney is beating the crap out of her mom, or maybe when her mom is being the crap out of her, I'm not sure.

But, other than those 2 highlights, it didn't deliver what I expected it to after 5 years of build-up. Granted, it is not a show like Lost that is based entirely off one unanswerable question: "what the heck is gowing on here?!" Nevertheless, we were expecting it to go out with more of a bang. I mean, you're telling me that Rambaldi's final endgame and what Sloane was searching for was just eternal life? That's it?! That plot has been done a thousand times...I thought it was interesting when they did and episode of Duck Tales about that, but come on, I expected more.

I remember thinking that I would be disapointed if they did something totally unexpected, like making Sydney or Vaughn bad in the end...but that would have almost been better than this!

Lost fans: beware....all this waiting and watching may result in a lame payoff: The plane crashed on a deserted part of Australia, they just needed to go on a hike that was longer than a "day and a half." Maybe if they didn't constantly stop for breaks on their hikes they would have discovered this earlier. What is the Dharma Initiative really about?...doesn't matter, we're safe now!

Mr. Abrams...you have a reputation to protect, don't let us down!

Another joke

2006-05-20T17:32:00.000-07:00

"I have a king-sized bed. I don't know any kings, but if one ever needed to sleep over, I guess he'd be comfortable. "Oh, you're a king, you say? Wait until you see what I have in store for you! It is to your exact specifications...I did not know you guys were all the same size. I think I can set your lady up too!" When I was a kid, I used to lie awake in my twin-sized bed wonderin' where my brother was... "

I'm sure those of you who've lived overseas can relate:

2006-05-08T18:16:00.000-07:00

Today, like I've had to do a couple times since moving to Hong Kong, I had to call the US to take care of some business. The lady I'm talking to asks for my number to call back in case there are any problems. I tell her it is: "country code 852 and the number is 5555-1234"

She says, confused "Oh, I'm afraid I don't know how to call that kind of number!"

This has happened to me a couple of times already. For some reason, people are instantly confused and afraid of any number that doesn't have the typical (253) 555-1234 pattern. And I'll be the first to admit that I didn't know how to call an international number either before our move to Hong Kong. But, at least I wouldn't have made myself look so dumb by saying that I didn't know how to call it, I would take the number down and do a little internet research and figure it out. It's almost as if I asked her to call me with smoke signals and dialing: 83zY$%& what you don't know how to do that??

So, I tell this lady, well, you first have to enter a number to call an international number from the US. Of course, me being dumb, I didn't remember waht is was.

As a public service annoncement for anyone needing to call internationally from the US, here is how you dial:

011-(country code)-(area code, if applicable)-(phone number)

of course, dialing a 9 first, if needed to get an outside line.

If you think you'll forget, please bookmark this page.

And please also utilize this page, so you don't call me at 3am.

Thank you for your time.

I played soccer with an elephant (Thailand trip report)

2006-05-07T23:58:00.001-07:00

It was a tie game, 1-1. She actually kicked the ball pretty hard for a girl.

Afterwards, she and his friend gave me a massage. It was...gross. They kissed me on the face with their trunks. It was smelly!

In Bangkok, Beth was able to find some of the little asian miniatures she's been collecting. Here she is posing with them in the 3 Fat Greeks Restaraunt. Isn't she adorable?

Beth mentioned that she took a cooking class in Koh Samui. But, she didn't mention how good the food was....well, it was great! And that's coming from someone who isn't the biggest Thai food fan, or at least I wasn't a fan until now! The soup was very spicy, but good. Dad, you would have liked it, it makes your scalp sweat just like you like it! :) And while pictures don't do it justice...

One thing that was interesting about our trip is that all flights (except the one leaving Bangkok to Macau) didn't utilize runway ramps. We took little buses that ran from the terminal to the plane.

Hey, when you depart a plane by walking down those stairs, do you ever pretend you're the president, getting out of Air Force One and waving to the crowds?

Oh...neither do I

The airport at Koh Samui is small, really small. Not only do they bus you from the plan to the arrivals terminal, the terminal itself has no walls, it's just a hut. You know how when you go to the baggage claim area to collect your luggage from the carousel? And it's kind of a mystery as to how it got there? Like there must be an extensive system of belts that carry the luggage from the carts that get the luggage out of the plane and then deliver it to your specific carousel?

Well, it's no mystery in this airport! They just take your bags out of the plane, cart them over to the hut and toss them on the belt!

That's all for now!

Planes, Trains and Automobiles (well, no planes, but there was a bus)

2006-05-07T17:57:00.000-07:00

I'm sure many of you envision Hong Kong as one large, overcrowded metropolis...I know I did. While this is certainly a part of Hong Kong, there are definately rural, less crowded areas, as I found out today.

As you may know, Beth and I were on holiday (that's vacations to you Americans) this past week. As a result, we had to have Zoe stay at a Kennel. Before we left on holiday, we had the kennel pick her up from our apartment, for a small fee. However, they don't offer the delivery service on Sundays which was when we returned and of course wanted to see her again. So, I decided, I would go and pick her up mysef and bring her home.

This involved quite the trek which gave me an idea of just how rural Hong Kong can be:

First, I took the MTR (subway) on the Island line to the Admiralty station, then took the Tseun Wan line to the Yau Ma Tei station, then took the Kwun Tong line to the Diamond hill station. This was the easiest part and only took about 15-20 minutes. For the unfamiliar, here is a map of the MTR routes:

From the Diamond hill station I exited to the bus terminal and took bus 92 to the Sai Kung bus station, which was the end of the line for that bus and took about 30 minutes. Thankfully, during this trek, I had a good book to keep me company. From there, I had to get a taxi to the kennel. The first taxi I asked told me he couldn't go there, and that I needed a green taxi. Aparently this far out, they have red taxis and green taxis, only green taxis can service the local area, I guess. So, I go find the green taxis, the first guy I ask has know idea how to get the address I have written down on a piece of paper. Thankfully, the next guy does, though. Sai Kung is a nice little area, by the way, I made a mental note to visit again.

The green taxi drives maybe 20 minutes or so, going further and further away from civilization, dropping me off at a trail that has a sign for the the Kennel. I get out, pay the fare, and look at the trail, not knowing just how long my trek by foot will be before I reach the kennel.

Thankfully, it is not too far on the trail, which takes me first past another kennel then past some cows, not fenced in mind you, just out there. I'm such a city boy, that I'm not entirely sure whether out not I'm in any danger being so close to the cows. I know there obviously not aggressive animals or cow-tipping would not be such a successful sport. However, I did notice that there was a calf off to the right of the trail and the older cows to the left. I couldn't help but worry that coming in between the calf and it's mother would cause trouble....or wait, is that bears, that you're not supposed to do that with? I pass without trouble, expect the wonderful experience of seeing a cow pee. It's not a tinke or a drizzle, mind you, these cows have exceptional urinary strength, you could put out a fire with that stream!

OK, so I'm at the kennel now, I pick up Zoe and her large heavy crate, by the way, and ask the kennel staff how I can get back to Hong Kong Island. They help me out by calling a taxi for me, which will arrive shortly. Another guy, drives me and Zoe in his van to where we can meet the taxi. We get in the taxi near where the other kennel is. Because the taxi had to drive up the skinny dirt trail, she is having a tough time getting turned around. The guy with the van tries to help her out, shouting various directions. So, we hve Zoe panting because she's thristy, the dogs in the kennel barking bloody murder and this guy yelling at the taxi driver as if we're about to drive off a cliff if she makes the slighest wrong move. Eventually, we make it out. Oh, wait, did I mention this was a green taxi? Of course, it was, so it can't take me back home. And, in case you're wondering, I have to take a taxi back home, because Zoe can't go on the bus or the subway.

So, she drives me to a red taxi which we transfer to and that taxi is finally able to take us home.

The cost of the do-it-yourself method of dog retrieval?:

MTR trips: HK$9.80
Bus trip: HK$5.50
Taxi ride to kennel: HK$38.90
Green taxi ride back from kennel: HK$70
Red taxi ride back to apartment: HK$200

Total cost? HK$324.20 ($41.83 USD)

The cost of having Zoe stay another day and have her delivered on Monday? HK$260 ($33.55 USD).

The cost of having your dog that you missed back early AND have an interesting story to tell? Priceless.

2 jokes for the price of one

2006-05-07T05:52:00.000-07:00

"I get the Reese's candy bar. If you read that name 'Reese's', that's an apostrophe S. Reese's apostrophe S at the end of that name. That means the candy bar is his. I didn't know that. Next time you're eating a Reese's candy bar and a guy name Reese comes by and says, 'Let me have that,' you better hand it over. 'I'm sorry, Reese. I didn't think I'd ever run into you. You're a bully, man. Let me at least have a piece.'"

"I wanna hang a map of the world in my house. Then I'm gonna put pins into all the locations that I've traveled to. But first, I'm gonna have to travel to the top two corners of the map so it won't fall down."

-Mitch Hedberg

Mitch Hedberg joke of the week

2006-04-26T17:37:00.000-07:00

As mentioned previously, several people are finding my blog when googling for information about the late, great comedian, Mitch Hedberg. In fact, it's usually about 2 people per day! They are pretty much making up about half of my traffic!

In an effort not to disapoint these googlers, I am going to start a "Mitch Hedberg joke of the week (or whenever Nick remembers to post a joke (but not more than once a week)).

Here is this weeks joke, and the inspiration for the title of my blog is:

"I like an escalator because an escalator can never break. It can only become stairs. You would never see an "Escalator temporarily out-of-order" sign. Just "Escalator temporarily stairs. Sorry for the convenience." We apologize for the fact that you can still get up there."

And, what did Nick happen to see just the other day, in the Sheung Wan MTR station?:

Grandpa needs a new pair of shoes...

2006-04-08T23:59:00.000-07:00

Beth made a post mentioning Ching Ming day--I thought I'd go a little more in depth, explaining this intriguing (perhaps more accurately, baffling) Chinese holiday to you.

On Ching Ming day the Chinese visit the graves of their anscestors. In addition to making sure the grave is swept clean they burn paper money, houses, luxury cars, pets, even mobile phones!

Think I'm making this up? Check it out. (They also perform similar acts on "Hungry Ghost Festival.") I've learned the majority of Hong Kong residents practice ancestor worship due to the strong Confucian influence in the country. Burning paper items for the dead is an element of this practice.

OK, so here's what I'm wondering...I can accept that their view of the afterlife is not like a traditional Christian view where the deceased would not really need any earthly posessions. And let's take another leap and accept that they believe they can beqeath money and things by burning objects at their graves...but...mobile phones?? Do the dead really need them? Money, maybe... or sure, the latest iPod to pass the time? But do the deceased really make use of the microwaves and cars?

And, I'm curious: do they plan ahead by first burning paper mobile phone towers to set up the proper infrastructure? I mean, if you're going to go there--you've got to think about these details here! And if we're really serious about making sure our dearly departed have the latest afterlife bling, let's burn the real thing, not paper imitations! Grandpa may be dead, but he's not stupid!

So, there you have it! Near our new apartment, there are a couple of little shops selling incense and paper objects as I mentioned....here are some pictures I took:

My Visit to See the Big Bronze Buddha

2006-04-04T08:05:00.000-07:00

Today I went to see the Tian Tan Buddha which is the world's tallest outdoor seated bronze buddha...a niche category for sure, but nonetheless impressive.

The trip started with a 50 minute ferry ride from Central, Hong Kong Island to Mui Wo on Lantau Island. From there I took a bus to the Po Lin Monestary in Ngong Ping (randm cantonese lesson: to learn to pronounce words starting with 'ng' say the word 'sing' and then remove the 'si')

View of HK Island from the ferry:

I had to walk up many steps to get there. Once at the top, I went inside to learn interesting facts...one of which is that after Buddha reached perinirvana, he cremated himself. His cremated remains were scattered around the globe, inside the statue there are supposedly two pieces of those remains on display. They are as small as a grain of rice and behind glass, so I couldn't get a very good look. They say that each person who looks at it sees a different color. Seeing as how I couldn't even see it, I saw no color, I wonder what the person next to me saw

Another interesting fact that I just now learned, thanks to Wikipedia, is that inside the Buddha, there is a bell that rings every 7 minutes...108 times a day, "symbolizing the release of 108 kinds of human vexations." You Lost fans will understand and build this into your next theory.

This is what Buddha gets to look at every day:

It was interesting to see people praying to the Buddha statues. I didn't think Buddhists really worshiped Buddha, but just revered him as a great teacher, not a god or a deity. I guess I was wrong, there was lots of praying and burning of incense. Incense is pretty big here in Hong Kong, I'll have to explain more later.

I here this guy plays a mean banjo:

This was funny, this is called a "lucky pan" You're supposed to rub the sides and if you're lucky, you'll get the water to bubble up. This guy got it to work, but others didn't. I'm guessing it works because the rubbing creates vibrations that cause the water to bubble up.

And this was my lunch, Chinese tea and chicken fried rice. Not too bad.

All in all, a fun and interesting day!

My legs don't hurt nearly as much...

2006-03-30T16:13:00.000-08:00

Happy Birthday to my wifee!

We're now in our new apartment in Sheung Wan. It definately feels like a different part of the city from Soho/Central, but in reality it's only a 15 minute walk away. One of things I appreciate about our new place is how I can go out and about and return to the apartment without climbing any hills or stairs..yes!

Of course, all good things are not without their downfalls, one of which is that the primary product of the local economy appears to be gross smelling dried food. And it feels like there are two or three shops selling them on every street corner. How is it that they each manage to turn a profit?? This stuff looks and smells like stuff we give the dog to chew on and keep her occupied for an hour! But, I doubt that she would like it either.

In Soho, it was a ton of small (as in no more than 10 people can fit in) restaraunts that were everywhere, here it's the smelly food stores, hopefully the restaraunts aren't buying there food from here. Gross, dry food is still gross even when rehydrated.

Anyway, here are some pictures from our new place...all the shots were taken from inside our new apartment, on the 40th floor (actually more like 34th floor, there are several floors 'missing')

These two were taking from our study:

Just for fun...

This one was taken from our living room:

And now, for something completely different...

Random silliness from Hong Kong

2006-03-14T23:38:00.000-08:00

This was found in one of our favorite grocery stores...funny thing is this is a product exported from the US:

"Pastabilities...I love it!"

Zoe...what exactly do you do when we leave you alone in the apartment?:

If it's no good...feed it to the dog:

That's one cool race horse:

The next time you see me my thighs will be the size of tree trunks!

2006-03-07T00:28:00.000-08:00

This is the view I see as soon as entering our apartment building...no elevator, so this begins my trek up to our 5th floor apartment...yes, Chris, you can now laugh at me for never taking the stairs at work!

Amongst my other daily routines is the regular trek to get water. We haven't figured out yet if this is one of those "don't drink the water" places. So, in the mean time, we're playing it safe. I saw a program on the Discovery chnnel the other day that showed these women living in the desert who had to travel 3 hours every day to get water. While my trek is only about 10 minutes away, including the use of a convenient escalator, somehow I can relate! So, needless to say, I'm treking up and down those stairs on a fairly regular basis with water jugs and other grocery items in hand! Of course, Zoe doesn't seem to mind.

This is one of the many great views in Hong Kong, this one from the HK Botanical Gardens:

The Botanical Gardens also has a small, free zoo which contains some monkeys, orangutans and a jaguar:

And finally, you've heard the music, gone to the show, now wear the clothes!*:

*U2 clothes has no affiliation with U2 the band, any resemblance is purely coincidental.

Beth's Art

2006-03-05T02:47:00.000-08:00

Random pictures from HK

2006-03-02T15:13:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, I walked Beth to work. On the way back, I passed this building. I had read earlier that this building was supposed to have a really unique design, but it doesn't look that different to me. I guess it was the most expensive building in the world at the time it was built:

In Hong Kong they put statues of lions outside all of there building to symbolize their dominance over their competitors...ok, I made that up, but you would have believed me, right?

I don't know what it says, but it looks like fun!:

Hong Kong

2006-02-28T05:05:00.000-08:00

We finally got internet access in our apartment so I can post some pictures!

Remember how I always said I wanted an apartment with access to the roof, so I can have a bbq and get a great view of the city...well, I got that too. Okay, so the view isn't that great...

How about this:

Or this:

One cool thing about HK is that they have a really nice mall called Pacific Place. It makes the Pacific Place in Seattle look like K-Mart:

Last, but not least...this one's for you, mom:

Maybe you should get that on a shirt: "Joyce...give way!"

Free Mitch Hedberg Information

2006-02-08T10:50:00.000-08:00

According to my new friend, Tracksy, a number of people have found my blog by searching for phrases such as: "sorry for the convenience", "sorry for the convenience escalator" & "escalator temporarily stairs" They were no doubt searching for one of Mitch Hedberg's funniest jokes, only to find my lame, updated twice a month, blog...sorry for the inconvenience....

So, I decided to at least post some links to Mitch Hedberg information who might have landed at my blog by mistake:

http://www.mitchhedberg.net/ (Official Website)

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mitch_Hedberg (This is cool, it's like a collection of all his jokes, you can make your own Mitch Hedberg stand-up hour "welcome to my half hour special")

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitch_Hedberg (Good bio about Mitch)

Have fun...blog temporarily mitch hedberg portal...sorry for the convenience.

bada, ba ba ba...I'm lovin' it...

2006-01-29T18:42:00.000-08:00

As many of you know (that is the few of you, that read this blog) my wife and I will be moving to Hong Kong soon. Everytime I tell someone new about our move, I get the same reaction: "wow...huh...Hong Kong?" I try and tell people that it's not a 3rd world country, it's actually very developed. From as far as I can tell, it will have just about all the western conveniences we're used to...McDonald's for example. As I was thinking about this, I remember hearing how McDonald's in different countries serves different menu choices. So, I decided to check this out, to see what would be available in HK (thank you, internet) :

I'm eager to try these (and yes, this is in HK$, price is more like $1.30 for 4 piece):

This looks kind of interesting...they really like there flat bread, I guess:

Thank goodness, now I don't have to have them shipped to me...

Okay...so they can't all be winners:

For other non-HK McDonald's...I couldn't help sharing the following:

McDonald's Pakistan:

McDonald's Germany..."Big Rosti" Is that a burger with bacon and a hash brown pattie? Cam, you've got to tell me if that's it and if so, is it any good?:

Very funny joke

2006-01-27T14:09:00.000-08:00

This has got to be the funniest blond joke I've ever read!

My Beautiful Wife

2006-01-24T07:15:00.000-08:00

Beth has been getting on me for not posting to the blog for a while...so, it's only fair that I post a picture of her. This is still one of my favorite photos of her! Despite the fact that there's a line running through the picture due to the crappy camera I was using at the time.

Photo Editing - Before and After

2005-12-30T14:46:00.000-08:00

I didn't take this picture, but wanted to post this as my first attempt at serious photo editing:

Before:

After:

Picard is the coolest

2005-12-30T14:17:00.000-08:00

Ok...so this isn't a photo of mine, but I couldn't resist posting this...it is too funny! I wish I knew how to create videos like this:

Eiffel Tower - Paris

2005-12-21T18:45:00.000-08:00

It's a Tree

2005-12-19T07:00:00.000-08:00

2005-12-08T07:02:00.000-08:00

The Troll

2005-12-07T07:08:00.000-08:00

Tacoma Dome in the Fall

2005-12-05T19:08:00.000-08:00

A Window on Tacoma

2005-12-02T21:35:00.000-08:00

Vertigo

2005-11-29T18:58:00.000-08:00

Fish out of Water

2005-11-29T06:59:00.000-08:00

Taken in downtown Tacoma recently...

New York City - Times Square

2005-11-28T12:33:00.000-08:00