Delayed embarrassment

We had dinner with our good friends tonight. He is from Switzerland, she is from Taiwan and we ate at the Tex-Mex restaurant. Seemed fitting :) We were very happy to see their son who is now 4 months old and he's a big, strong guy. Quite cute, too.

During dinner I mentioned all the bats we'd seen flying around outside. I went right to the Chinese word as I enjoy saying it, responded to Swiss quizzical look with English, and then remembered fledermaus, which he caught right away. I was quite proud that I know bat in three languages.

Well, turns out I learned a little different than I thought. When I first learned Chinese "bat", I looked in my PDA and it said "bian fu". Pronounce it about like it looks. I surprised GP with it one time and she immediately said, good job, and then "bian fu xia". Oh, ok I learned only part of it, turns out the real word (and my PDA dictionary is sometimes incorrect) has "xia" on the end.

So, for 6 months I've been saying "bian fu xia" and the locals smile at the fact that I know the words. I thought that's why they smile.

Tonight, after all these months, Gao Ping tells me "bian fu xia" is not bat. It is the Chinese name for Batman. Thus, the grinning locals are explained. And I remain humble.

It was a good day, today

I had a "meeting" this afternoon, so I decided to take the whole day off from work. Such a day usually begins by sleeping in, and I did . . until about 6am. Better than my usual 5:30, but not quite what I wanted.

GP and I spent a leisurely morning, I guess that's typical for her. We went out to buy some eggs and veg across the street and hurried home to watch more swimming. Ayi made lunch (very tasty) and then I dressed up (suit, no tie) and drove East.

The interview went well (yes, I had my first job interview) and the best part was how I felt about the process. Talking about my skills, etc., made me feel good about myself and my career. I don't know if this company is high on my list, but it was still a great interview. GP's particularly excited as one of the possible locations is not *too* far from Las Vegas.

Details for anyone who is interested.

Happy Birthday and trip planning

Happy Birthday to Breanna! She celebrates August 14th and we send her happy wishes from China :)

I've got many things lined up for my trip in 10 days. I'm still waiting for feedback from the family (hint, hint) about Sunday brunch, but I'm sure they are up for it.

I ordered gift cards, Amazon goodies, and made hotel and car reservations. Adjusted my airplane seats (exit aisle the whole way!) and I am making a shopping list of goodies to bring back to Suzhou. GP and I are shopping this Saturday in Shanghai and I hope to get some goodies to take to the US. It's always hard to decide what someone might like.

We've been watching the Olympics and the parts I've seen have been pretty exciting. It's fun to have two teams to root for and we have yet to come to blows when it's China vs. US. When all is said and done, it doesn't matter to us who wins, we enjoy watching the athletes do their best.

Happy Birthday and Olympics

Happy Birthday to Emily! I hope it was a great day and you have a fantastic weekend planned.

We had a comfortably full house last night to watch the Olympics opening ceremony. GP and I with four of her friends you have met before: GQQ, WYD, XHM, ZXL. I'm too lazy to spell them out, though I could.

The a yi made extra food before she left and it was my first time to eat some of her cooking. She is a very good cook. We had to wait for GQQ so things were cold when we ate, but still delicious.

At 8 o'clock we settled on the couches to watch the ceremony. It was spectacular with wonderful Chinese influences. The 2008 drummers where almost overwhelming and the artistry of the people painting on a huge scale was impressive. Every part of it was great.

It was difficult for all of us to keep our eyes open for the full 4 hours, so there was some dozing during the march of the athletes and we fit our showers in then, too. ZXL had to leave, but the other 3 slept over. They did it before when I was in Shanghai for training, so they knew the way. Luckily they are small girls as it was 3 in a queen bed.

Now it's time to watch some of the events. I need to highlight my schedule.

I also need to plan for my US trip. It's official - I will arrive in Omaha Aug 23rd night and stay for a few days. I'm very happy to see the family after too long!

Good thing it's Friday

With all the developments this week, I'm ready for a weekend. I might just spend the whole weekend in my local bar playing pool. Damned life anyway.

There won't be details, so don't ask.

seeking the technophiles

I'm interested in expanding my desk drawer of electronics and adding something new to the collection. I like my Dell Axim PDA, though I don't use it for much except reading e-books, playing some small games and keeping contacts/calendar.

I was looking at newer PDAs, sticking with Win Mobile as I have so much software, but sometimes want an easier way to do remote email and webbrowsing. My BlackBerry (well, my company's BB) is great for email and not bad for chat, but stinks for browsing. So I started looking at UltraMobile PCs like the Asus Eee.

Any opinions from the three electronic prosumers (and pros) out there? GP's also interested in a new laptop and we think the Mac Book would be nice for her, so feel free to pipe up on that, too.

What a happy Monday

Eh, I'm delirious as I've had no coffee yet. But it isn't a bad Monday by any means.

I am at work early to miss the crazy traffic. It's not that there is so much of it, it's just that half of the people are crazy and it doesn't help that most of the routes are closed or half-closed.

One of the things I'm doing now that I'm in early is search for a baby car seat/carrier, the infant only ones that you can carry. We won't have a car for at least the first 3 months, so we'd like to find one that doesn't have a detachable base to keep it lighter. Those are not so easy to find anymore.

Especially hard to find in Suzhou where very few people strap babies or children in to the car. Most people carry the baby around town (few strollers) and then hold the baby on their lap in the car. It's not just the driver behind the wheel that is crazy here :P.

So, I'm at work early and decide to check Amazon at least for options. I get to the Amazon home page and put "infant car seat" into the search engine. *POP* the next screen is from our company's firewall (or summat) and says:


I will admit that I've seen various pron over the years, but never any Japanese car seat stuff. I'm guessing it's really freaky.

Our guardian software has also classified www.jesusandmo.net (cartoon) as "Pornography (Malay)" and cited gmail for having "Proxies, Pornogaphy". Gizmodo's "unlock your phone for international travel" article was also categorized as pron.

Damn, I'm more straight-laced than I thought.