Fast & free

I didn't think there was that much of a difference in internet speed from US & China, but wow, I really do notice a difference. At this 5 times faster here. And of course, the ability to roam the internet freely is a nice change.

Home sweet home

After 20+ hours of travel, I'm finally home in Buffalo. It feels good. I felt really weird when I was in Chicago, seeing so many people, that weren't Chinese. I also got to experience my first taste of home "hospitality" ... as I asked a woman working at one of the ticket counters in Chicago ... "can you tell me what terminal flight X is leaving from?" ... "No, I can't!" ... "Thanks so much for your help." So, that was nice.

First meal...BBQ chicken finger sub. First drink...MILK.

Hope to get some sleep tonight. Then it's off to Tony's in the morning for a haircut and then some friends from Raleigh are flying in for my brother's stag this weekend.

Goin' home!

Well, after 8 months in China, I'm finally making a trip back to the US. Hard to believe it's already been 8 months, seems like it's only been a couple.

So, off to Buffalo, NY tomorrow. 10 days there. My older brother is getting married on May 5. Stag (bachelor party) this coming Saturday. It's been more than 8 months since I've seen most of my family & friends, so I'm really looking forward to it. I've also got my liver nice and primed for the amount of alcohol consumption that will occur.

After the craziness in Buffalo, I'm heading down to Raleigh, NC for 4 days. More family and friends to see there & I'll finally get to see the new Lenovo campus there (wonder if I'll have a desk...likely not). Have a round of golf planned with some friends and people from work too.

So, after 2 weeks in the US, I'm off to India for a few days for work. Then finally, back to Beijing.

It'll be nice to get away from here for a while, but I'm sure I'll miss it!

Biking in Beijing

Yesterday was another great day in Beijing (the weather, that is). Saturday was golf and Sunday was biking around the death trap roads in Beijing. I didn't have a bike, until yesterday. I went to one of 1000 bike shops around Beijing and tried a few out. They don't really have any monster size bikes around here, but the one I got is big enough. A GIANT mountain bike with front shocks...very important for riding around Beijing.

So, after the purchase, a friend of mine and me headed off for a ride around the city. Started off at Ho Hai, then through the Forbidden City and back home. Was great. Almost got ran over a few times, but that's part of the experience.

Birthday in Beijing

Saturday was my bday, getting older. On Friday, my team had a little surprise for me. A cake & a video. Here's the video...sorry, can't share the cake.

MILK

I have not had a glass of milk since August 15, 2006. I can't remember a time before that when I've gone more than one day without a glass of milk, let alone 8 months without. I would say that I had averaged at least a gallon every two, maybe three days. Growing up, we lived on milk. Milk with every meal, including pizza. My parents probably spent more on milk than anything else.

In China, I do have milk. I put it in cereal and coffee, that's it. The taste isn't horrible, but it's just a lot different. I won't drink a glass of milk here.

I'm heading back to the States next week. People keep asking me what I miss most. MILK. A weird answer, yes...but I miss it. Of course, family and friends too...but as far is the non-important stuff goes, it's milk.

Get the milk ready mom & dad, I'm coming home!

‘Mayor of Seneca Street’ dies at 60

‘Mayor of Seneca Street’ dies at 60

I can't say I remember Joey all that much, but I do remember him at block parties around South Buffalo. I'm sure he'll make some more people smile wherever he ends up.

The driver

I have a guy that takes me too and from work each day. A friend of mine in Beijing hooked me up with him, his company uses this guy and his friends as their drivers too.

His name is Shi (pronounced - Shir). He's a short, balding guy. He drives like a maniac and has come close to head on collisions many times, but I don't mind...he gets me where I need to go as fast as he can.

The funniest part of my day typically happens around 7am when he picks me up. Most days, he's passed out in the driver seat waiting for me. I open the back door...he whips his seat back up in place, throws the pillow to the passenger seat, starts the car and drives off. All of this before I even have the car door closed.

We gave him the nick-name, "Dale." He could probably be a pretty good race car driver. I don't know anyone who could navigate the roads of Beijing as well as this guy can.

My friend and I have been looking for a NASCAR jacket for a while now, but have yet to come across one. So, last weekend, we did come across something close. It's a Kappa jacket (Kappa - logo with two girls, back-to-back). It says "Speed Racer" on it, among other things.

My friend presented him with the jacket yesterday, and explained why we got it for him. This morning, he was all smiles...picked me up proudly sporting the new jacket. Wait...maybe he was all smiles because of the pretty girl sitting in the front seat....that's a story for another day.

Lenovo FY 2008 Kick-Off meeting - Beijing

Last week, Lenovo China had their FY2008 kick off meeting. My first "all hands" meeting in China. I've been to tons with IBM and a few with Lenovo in Raleigh, but those don't compare to this.

I can't say it was strange...but it was weird. At the beginning, the company song was placed. I've been here for almost 8 months, and I think that was the first time I've heard it. The first thing that caught me a bit off guard was that most of the meeting (almost 4 hours) was in Chinese. I should have assumed that going in, but Amelio and some other non-Chinese Sr. VPs were on the agenda too. We were handed headsets when we came in, used for an English translation during the meeting.

The translators were not good, at all. I'm sure it's not easy to interpret, real time, but it was bad. There were two interpreters switching on and off. They would come in and out of the booth, forgetting to close the door. Shuffling papers around, not able to keep up, skipping entire sentences, etc.... That part of the event just was not a good experience. I have a couple English majors on my team who could have done a much better job, I'm sure.

It was interesting to see how excited the employees here in China got. The employee recognition here also seems pretty good. I believe they had over 100 employees recognized at the event. All received flowers, a plaque or trophy and likely some cash too.

At the beginning of the meeting, I noticed some sections had large flags rolled up. I had no idea what they were going to do with them. At the end of the meeting, the leaders of each organization in China got up on stage one-by-one, chanted some stuff, rolled out some small signs in Chinese (I believe they were stating their commitments for FY2008). Then, they asked their teams to stand up in the crowd and repeat after them. That's when the flags came out (Lenovo flags) and people shouted back the statements to the people on the stage. Very interesting, never saw anything like that before.

The last part of the event had Chairman Yang and Bill Amelio on stage, in F1 racing jackets. They grabbed a couple of "gas pumps" and began pumping blue liquid into a clear Lenovo glass tank. When the tank was full, race car sounds began and a car appeared on the big screen. Finally, an F1 race car (AT&T/Williams car - Lenovo sponsored) came crashing through a paper wall and revved its engine for a while. Kind of cool, got people excited.

I'll get to experience a few more of these here, I'm sure the next will be more interesting than the last.

Beijing Construction Team

A friend of mine here in Beijing had a great idea over the weekend.

In most cases, every construction worker has a very specific job around here. One guy has a small phillips head screw driver, one has the big one, one has the hammer, on the drill, etc.... They use that one tool pretty much all day. So, on their next job, they can say "I'm an expert with the medium size flat head screw driver." We see these guys every day and it gets more and more hilarious every time we see them.

So, what are we going to do? Picture time! We're creating a collection of the Beijing construction workers. Over the weekend we captured one guy with 3 shovels! I think we got one with a welding mask too. Collection will end up on flickr. Stay tuned.

Beijing Paddy's Day - one of my favorite pictures

This is a picture I took of my cousin in the Forbidden City, on Paddy's day. It's a great shot. I need to get this one blown up and framed. I've got another picture of the same cousin, a couple hours after midnight on this Paddy's day...it's another favorite, though I'm sure his mother wouldn't be happy with the shot ;-). It'll make its way onto the blog or flickr account sooner or later.


I've got 3 months worth of posts and pictures to talk about up here... they'll come out one at time, maybe a few at a time, if I get really ambitious.

The duck saga, continued...

Sad news today, the ducks perished in the vehicle trunk yesterday evening. The burial is being held today at the Beijing Da Dong Roast Duck restaurant in Chaoyang District.

Lesson learned...ducks can only live in a trunk for 24 hours, no longer.

Pet ducks...who does that?

I heard a story today that almost made me pee my pants. Over the weekend, someone in Beijing purchased some pet ducks (I think for their kid). First off, who does that? Maybe farmers, but not people who live in a city, right? I do recall a Friend's episode when Joey had a pet duck.

Anyway, as the story goes, this person purchased two ducks, put them in the trunk of the car and proceeded home. I assume maybe this person was excited to break out the ducks and present them to the child...or maybe, just excited to get home and have some dinner. Well, the ducks remained in the trunk of the car, probably just chatting away to each other...all night. Yes, they remained in the trunk of the car through the night and into the morning. Did this person recall the purchase from the previous day? Nope.

Have you ever been driving down the road and hear a sound coming from your car? Usually the sound is a flat tire, something you ran over, etc... how about quacking? I guess this person couldn't hear the quacking, until he arrived at work in the morning. They weren't dead! Could you imagine the "duh, you dumb ass" feeling you would get if you did this? I guess someone or some ducks could probably survive in a trunk for at least a couple days. And hey, if one of the ducks dies, the other one could snack on it. Beijing Duck!

So, what would you do? Turn around and take them home? Let them go? Give them to one of the cleaning people or parking attendants? Nah, let's ask someone else if they can take care of the problem for you....

"Hey, would you mind putting a couple ducks in your car and taking them home for me?" " Sure, no problem, I love duck poop. "

Well, that didn't work either. So, now, these ducks are just chilling out in the parking garage, making a mess of this person's trunk. Probably time for a trade in.

Moral of the story...don't buy pet ducks.