China III

We woke up early and got to the airport with little problems. We found the security in China to be a lot quicker and nicer. I had a 20oz bottle of Coke Lite and instead of throwing it away, she merely opened it, took a sniff and handed back when she was sure it was an explosive chemical compound.

We were met by a dimunitive girl named Shopia who was holding a sign with our names. The island paradise of Hainan was awesome. The warm humidity hit us like a wall when we got off the plane. The natives were at the gate with flower leis, like Hawaii.

Everything is green and the people are pretty rural for the most part. Lots of farms, lifestock and old buildings. Despite it being a popular destination spot, it is an economic recovering area due to extreme poverty. Hainan is also known for having the worst record for aborting female fetuses. The birth ratio is 118 boys to 100 girls. There are going to be a lot of lonely boys in China in the years to come.

We were taken to a resort for the first night as a welcome gift. We were right on the coast in a nice resort and spa. We soaked in a large hot pool in this weird building. Actually there were several pools with different temperatures and one with little fish that would eat the dead skin off your feet. Yes, you heard me. Little fish. Millions of them. They really tore into our feet for a while and then moved up knees and elbows and one took a bit off my nip. Not a fun event.

After the spa, we went to a nice, 15 course meal. the web isn't working i'll post more later

online chat with B' about Mom, Dad and childhood

Mook: she used jello powder in a bottle for Adam

B: ?

for juice?

Mook: yeah

ha

B: goodness

Mook: lucky bastard

i was always jealous :P

i used to love jello

when Nick and I would drive around with my dad, invariably we would be in the back of the pickup, and everytime the brake lights would come on, we would pretend the red ground was red jello and act like we were eating it

Sent at 11:46 AM on Wednesday

B: ha

that is really cute!

Mook: I probably logged about 5,000 miles in the back of that truck. We drove everywhere in the back. Everytime we went backpacking

B: yikes

yeah

I probably logged that many hours on the floor of the cadi

Mook: On dirt roads, Andy would stand up with his arms accross the cab and hold on to each window and nick and I would hold on to his arms. It was fun to go around corners like that. my favorite part is when he would sing Ted Nugent songs to us.

B: ha

britany spears would like to raise her kids with you!

good lord what was your dad thinking?!?!

I can see sitting in back...sort of

China pt. 2: Beijing and the Great Wall

Ok, so I left you as we finished our first full day in China with an exciting visit to the Forbidden City.

The rest of the week was pretty uneventful. We worked all day, ate lunch at the community cafeteria in the tech center where our client was located. We were on the very edge of Beijing. Beijing is organized with what is called the "ring roads". Basically, as the city has grown over the centuries, they add a road that circumscribes the city. It takes about 50 minutes to drive from the center to the 5th ring road, where we were.

We were even farther out than that. We had open fields where we were... and lots of cranes and new buildings going up everywhere. We did have a Subway Sandwhich place near our hotel, which was nice. Not for the sandwiches, those were nasty. But they had a nice supply of Diet Coke, which is hard to come by that far away from the center and I bought their entire supply.

We had a good time working wtih the Chinese auditors. They were very nice and took us to dinner every night. We enjoyed a Hot Pot dinner the first night. They bring a huge pot of boiling water with herbs and spices and you dip raw meat and vegetables and then put it in a dip. It was darn tastey. The dip was really good and the CFO, bought a bunch of lamb, which I think is pretty rare and expensive in China. She also learned that we had not had Peking Duck, and ordered one. It was not good. The Chinese girls didn't even eat any.

The next night we ate at a Japanese place and it was an amazing meal. It was actually Korean and Japanese. They dropped the hot charcoal into the table and then brought out tons of meat and vegetables (reoccuring theme?) only this time the servers would cook the food for us. Again the sauce was amazing. We had some susi. My compadre, Mark, had never tried any. We all ate some with the fresh Wasabi they provided. We all nearly choked to death on the wasabi. It wasn't a matter of heat. I can handle all the heat you can dish out. This stuff made it impossible to BREATH. The fumes coming off this stuff made it impossible to breath from mouth and nose. I had to spit it out. It was embarassing that the girls handled it and I couldn't.

The next night we went to Subway and, as I said, not that great. It was nice to get in and out in short time. Dinner in China is a 2-3 hour event. Which gets frustrating when you are trying to get work done.

One night I noticed a shop "Blind Massage Therapy". I insisted on going and found a shop of blind massuers and massueses that only charged $11 for a one hour massage. Mark and I stripped down to the waste and let them at us. It was nice.

The auditors finished up on Friday and we weren't leaving until Sunday, so we decided to go see the Great Wall. After our disaster in the Forbidden City, the CFO insisted on sending us with two auditors and the company driver to make sure we didn't get lost or killed or robbed. The day was beautiful and sunny, but quite cold and windy. Waiting in line to get the tickets nearly killed us. Luckily there were people hocking their goods to the tourists and I was able to get a scarf and hat. Once on the wall, the ramparts actually cut the wind and the 50 degree inclines made the hiking difficult enough that I got quite warm.

I will put some picture of the great wall on the gallery for you enjoyment. It was staggering how big the structure was. It was basically a castle wall that extended up impossible hills and mountains over miles and miles. Every quarter mile or so, there was a guard station with windows and rooms and usually stairs up to the roof and sometimes stairs down to the ground. It was cool to see the walls and the barracks and the defensible wall. The crazy thing is the location of the wall, at least where we were. It must have been tough to build that wall on such steep hills.

dyspeptic old woman

But savages are strange beings; at times you do not know exactly how to take them. At first they are overawing; their calm self-collectedness of simplicity seems a Socratic wisdom. I had noticed also that Queequeg never consorted at all, or but very little, with the other seamen in the inn. He made no advances whatever; appeared to have no desire to enlarge the circle of his acquaintances. All this struck me as mighty singular; yet, upon second thoughts, there was something almost sublime in it. Here was a man some twenty thousand miles from home, by the way of Cape Horn, that is - which was the only way he could get there - thrown among people as strange to him as though he were in the planet Jupiter; and yet he seemed entirely at his ease; preserving the utmost serenity; content with his own companionship; always equal to himself. Surely this was a touch of fine philosophy; though no doubt he had never heard there was such a thing as that. But, perhaps, to be true philosophers, we mortals should not be conscious of so living or so striving. So soon as I hear that such or such a man gives himself out for a philosopher, I conclude that, like the dyspeptic old woman, he must have "broken his digester."

Herman Melville - Moby Dick

China #1

This trip to China started Friday, January 26 and started at 4am. When that day was over, I will have spent 22 hours in airport and on airplanes, flown over Alaska on the way to Tokyo and then on to Beijing and crossed a date line which put us in Beijing at 10pm on Saturday night.

I was able to sleep through most of the travel with the help of Diphenhydramine and some Ambien. I find the flying relaxing and easy. I rarely get to sit there and do nothing and sleep and watch movies. I recommend the Airbus when flying long distance. Individual tv screens with dozens of movies makes it really easy.

Since Sunday was our first day, we didn't work. We decided we would try and go see the Forbidden City which was in downtown. We were in a hotel on the outskirts of the city (past the 5th ring road; Beijing is organized in rings as it has continuely grown over the centuries. The 5th ring road takes nearly an hour to get to from the center.)

When we arrived, we were surrounded by rikshaw bike riders. The taxi driver shook his head and indicated we shouldn't take a ride. I figured it was because it was a rip off. I had no idea. So we stepped out and I finally asked how much a ride was. "Two" was teh answer. "Two yuan?" I asked which was about 20 cents. The guy said yes. So we climbed on. I was with a colleague from work, a staff auditor who is a little younger than me and had never been to China.

The promise was a ride around the Forbidden City, but ended up being down a back alley of run down, old houses. I kept asking, "Why are we going this way?" The answer was, "Old building, good picture, you be happy!" followed by a call on the cell phone. Yep, sure enough. The alley lead finally to a friend of there's who stepped out and backed up their collection of their fee. They held out their price card, Y300 or roughly $44.... each. Not knowing if the wingman had a knife or was some kind of kung fu expert, I got a little nervous. We argued a bit, nose to nose. I ended up giving them 200 each, figuring it was worth the cost to not get hurt and be able to tell one hell of a story when I got home. I like to tell myself that they had children at home that really needed the money. But in reality, I still daydream about just punching them in the nose and running.

So, feeling really stupid and slightly poorer, we walked the rest of the way to the Forbidden City. Entrance was pretty cheap, about $5. There were a bunch of Chinese there offering a guided tour, but we weren't trusting anyone at this point and thought their Y150 price tag as a little steep. So we went in on our own. It was a cold day and we didn't want to spend 4 hours, so we didn't even rent the Y40 guided tape.

We did run into a college student who did explain some of the symbolism of the name, right before he told us about a "New" section of the City, which was open because many of the buildings were being renovated for the Olympics. We went to this area, which turned out to be pretty boring, except for a new museum and a little shop where the college student was selling art and calligraphy and stone stamps with personalized names. We ended up getting stamps and felt a little used and ripped off, and continued on poorer and a little more leery of the Chinese people.

The City was awesome. Back in my kung fu, Chinese is cool era, at age 15, it would have been amazing to be there. I was able to tap into a little of that old passion, but not much. It was basically a bunch of old buildings. A LOT of old buildings. The city is a kilometer long and about half of one wide. It has hundreds of buildings that took care of every need of the Emperor and his thousands of servants.

We ended up later in the trop eating an Emperor's 15 course meal. More on that later. We ended the day eating a bucket of Cup o'noodle and drinking Coke Light (the word "Diet" doesn't really translate well. It makes it sound like you ONLY drink Sugar Free Coke -which we basically did- and happened to be the only Chinese I learned while there: "Tiang Yi Ka Co Ka La". It became an mission, an obsession, a purpose, a way of life, the search for Coke Light. One well worth all the effort.

On our way back to where we knew taxis to be waiting, two Chinese girls approached us asking if we spoke English, asked us where we were from, etc. They started walking with us on our way from the Forbidden City to Tianamen Square. At the same time, hordes of people started selling us hats and scarfs and other crap. The temperature had just dropped, so I was actually glad for the hat, which said Beijing Olympics 2008. It cost me about $1.30. As we walked, Shirley, one of the girls talked me up, told me I looked like Tom Cruise and made me feel like I was about get robbed again. The other girl had cornered my compadre and was talking him up as well. Finally they asked us to walk with them a mile way to some old street where there was an ancient tea ceremony going on....

I just stopped and stared at them. Looked around. Not sure what to say and finally said, "I think we'll go to KFC." She saw my hesitation and quickly said, "Oh, i'm sorry, I didn't mean to impose. I just thought we could talk, I like practicing English and I thought you would want to see some interesting things in Beijing. Bye." and grabbed her friends arm and hurried off. I stood there feeling really stupid, like I had offended a nice person and missed out on an opportunity to see some cool stuff, but ultimately didn't want to chance being lead down yet ANOTHER alley where her brothers and uncles were waiting to take more money away from a dumb American.

We ate a nasty abomination of a chicken sandwhich at KFC and went back to the hotel.

Dream House - by Orson Scott Card

My wife and I have always had better taste in houses than we could afford -- but then, who doesn't? Still, we had a dream house in mind, a Queen Anne style frame house with a turret and steep gables, porches all around, clapboard siding, surrounded by old trees. Inside there would be wonderful, one-of-a-kind rooms with amazing little nooks and crannies to thrill the heart of any child, and the eye of anyone who loves proud houses that have secrets.

The day arrived when we realized we could finally afford to build that house.

We had already been through the tumultuous decision not to move closer to my teaching job in Virginia -- we realized, to our surprise, that after twenty-three years even I, the man with the wandering foot, had accidentally put down roots here in Greensboro.

But the house we're in is, well, boring. We like the federal style well enough, but such houses are so ... so rectangular. And brick. Brick is fine. But it's so solid. It really didn't feel like us to us. We've spent fifteen years bumping into the walls of this federal-style brick house, which is missing a couple of rooms that we really need.

Also, this is a house that was built by a local builder that knew how to put up something that looked grand, but didn't care about getting the details right. So there are tiny annoyances, like corners that don't meet right, and sloppy workmanship and faulty planning -- and some that weren't so tiny, like the fact that the house was built on a bog and yet fifteen years later we had to have a drainage system installed around the house so it didn't float and sag and split any more than it already had.

We have gone to a lot of Parade of Homes shows in town, looking for a builder who cares about the details, but we gradually came to realize that most of the builders we saw were best at putting up a house in a hurry, and most of their "nice touches" were whatever had already been a fad in the DC or Atlanta area five years ago. Where was the builder who had his own eye for real grace in a house? More to the point, where was the builder who cared about quality even where people wouldn't notice it till they'd lived in a house for a year or so?

This past summer, we found that builder. His name is Scott Stalker, and his company is Stonefield Homes. We discovered him because we went to visit the new Hartman Farms development on Archergate, which connects Church Street and Yanceyville Road on the other side of Lake Townsend.

There were gorgeous wooded lots, but what took our breath away were the houses. Two builders are partnered in this development, and both do good work, but the one whose houses blew us away was Stonefield Homes. The interiors of the houses were full of light. Transoms over the interior doors had an amazing brightening effect. I looked at precisely the kind of detail work that was sloppily done in our present home, and there were no mistakes. We also looked at a house under construction and saw that nobody was cutting corners, at least not in the ways I've been (sadly) trained to look for. Someone cared.

We picked our lot. We put money down to hold it. My wife went online and found several designs, but there was one that was so close to what we wanted that we could hardly believe it. We bought the full set of plans, and then sat down with Scott Stalker and a designer he often works with, Patricia McLemore of On Eagle's Wings Design and Drafting Services. Scott told us that Patricia was the right designer to help us make the changes we needed in the plans, and he was right.

We talked to them about what each room was for, and what we hoped for. There was an attic space that we wanted to use. We knew that much of it was needed for mechanical things in the house, but we still wanted the space broken up into many levels, to be the ideal play room and sleepover room and pillowfight room. There was a bedroom with a turret -- we wanted the ceiling broken open and a cone-shaped loft space made available, so a hanging chair could dangle in the middle and be our daughter's ideal spot for computer games.

We talked about the movie-viewing space in the basement, the office and library space we need (because books threaten to crowd us out of our present house at any moment). Patricia McLemore caught the vision better than we did ourselves -- what she brought us was better than our dreams.

But a funny thing happened just two days before the meeting where they showed us the plans.

I had caught bacterial pneumonia three weeks earlier, and was still in the realm of the coughing dead. My wife has only finally come back fully from her stress-related heart attack of last fall. I had also just turned fifty-five. Maybe it was the combination of these things, showing us that we were not young anymore. Maybe it was just realizing that we were really going to do this.

But it dawned on both of us, quite separately, that we were about to build the wrong dream house. We were shy about saying it to each other, because up to that moment we had both been so excited. Here's what we realized:

We were preparing to build the house we wish we had raised our children in.

All those marvelous spaces -- how I wish we'd had them when our two oldest were still little. Oh, the memories they would have!

But we didn't have that house then. Instead, we lived in a spacious condo in Guilford Colony that we rented from the most patient and generous landlord in the world. Seven years we were there, when our oldest kids were little. Then we moved to our present house just as they moved into their teens. And this is the only house that our youngest has ever lived in. Most of our older kids' memories, and all of our youngest's, are here.

The new house we were about to build, beautiful as it was, perfect as it was, would not feel like coming home to them when they brought the grandkids to visit us over the years.

More to the point, it wouldn't feel like coming home to us, either. Not really.

Because the house we're in is the one where I can walk into any room and see, in memory, the younger versions of my children. Now our family room is dominated by a big screen tv. But I can walk in there and see the waterbed where our handicapped son used to sleep, and picture our youngest as a three-year-old, bringing books down to sit on the bed beside him and "read" to him.

Our living room has seen fifteen Christmases; our country kitchen has seen fifteen Thanksgivings with various collections of friends and family gathered there.

Our music room (which in other people's houses would have been a dining room) shows me memories of my kids playing the piano, my oldest daughter singing as she first took lessons and realized she was a soprano and could soar, my oldest son playing a favorite song from memory.

In the library (a bedroom where the closets became computer carrels and the floor is covered with islands of bookshelves) -- I can see our oldest son, now a game designer, playing intensely at the newest computer game when he was in high school and all his game-playing was stolen from homework time. I can see our older daughter when she would write scraps of stories and then walk away, stories that were so funny my wife and I would print them out whenever we found them, and read them to each other.

Our new house was going to have a bigger, better version of all these rooms. But there wouldn't be any of the memories in it.

What's the point, at age fifty-five, of taking on a mortgage that won't be paid off till I'm in my eighties, in order to have a house that is beautiful and big but has no memories of when our children were young and still intensely involved in the family's life?

The house we're in is still smaller than we need. There are still little annoyances and some big things that must be changed. So we'll change them.

The house that Patricia planned for us and that Scott Stalker would have made so beautiful and strong -- how I wish it could exist. But Scott will build great houses and Patricia will design wonderful spaces for other people -- and we'll be happy just knowing that there are people who still care about creating homes that are so gracious and sturdy. Someone else will buy that perfect lot in Hartman Farms. (We promise not to drive by and sigh too often.)

We'll keep puttering about in a house that was never what we wanted -- we bought it because it was big enough and it was all we could afford at the time we needed it. But it's the house where our third child lived the last nine years of his life, where our grown-up children lived when they started dating and went to proms, where our youngest has spent her entire life. When they come visit us, they'll be coming home.

That's a kind of dream house, too, isn't it?

News from Chistmastown

We just got back from 10 days (or so) of Disneyland. I took some time off for a gaming convention in Anaheim and B'Andra took the opportunity to go down early with her sister and start the marathon early. She and Gidian bought annual passes and proceded to go every day from that Saturday until the following Saturday. I drove down that Wednesday and geeked out for a few days and spent evenings with them in the Park. It was pretty fun and very, unseasonable warm. I believe records were broken.

I then spent 3 days doing audit work for 2 clients in Southern California, which allowed for 3 more days of Disneyland for B' and G. I ended up not having work on Wednesday and instead spent the day with Gidain in the park running around Tom Sawyer Island and Pirates of the Carribean and a few other rides, while B'Andra spent some quite, prayful moments in Mecca er Main Street USA.

We decided to make Thanksgiving at Gordon's house, instead of eating a buffet at Las Vegas with Cousin Eddie. This required leaving at 6 or 7pm and with the entirety of So Cal having the same idea, we were in stop and go traffic for 3 hours, traveling about 50 miles. It finally opened up and I filled my tank with energy sodas and drove as long as I could. B'Andra then took over and somehow managed to make it to St. George by 3:30am. It was ugly, but we were able to break bread with Gordon before he went to work at 1:30pm.

It also allowed us to drive home that night and get to B's sister, DeLys, and spend some time eating pie and stuffing there. Finally it allowed us extra time to hang with CJ, Lisa, Ty and Slone and Boo. We had a good time hanging out. We ended up going swiming at the Zermott where CJ was staying. They have a cool pool with a sky-blue ceiling with lights that slowly switch between blue and red, so the sun rises and sets every 5 minutes. There is also a little channel where you can go outside and swim in the cold. There is a little hot tub out there and one inside, complete with massaging waterfall.

It was nice. B'Andra and I intended to take dad up on the offer and stay up there this week or next. It isn't free, but cheap for how nice it is.

Gidian is getting excited about Christmas. He is enjoying the speacials on tv and on DVD that we have. He likes the decorations and baby Jesus, but really doesn't 'get it'. For all cognitive and practical purposes, this is his first Christmas and should be fun to wake up with him.

B'Andra has outdone herself with the decorations. We have a little magical kingdom of Christmasland here. It makes it fun and festive. It is really beautiful. We even have lights and garland on our headboard. We have the house lights on both a sun-activated lighting system (so it will be one when we get home) and a remote (to turn them off without having to go outside). It is pretty slick.

I'm of the mind that an annual pass and 10 days of Disneyland is as much of a Christmas that anyone needs and therefore have no plans to do any shopping whatsoever. I'm sure this plan will not go over well and will be vetoed shortly.

We watched Glenn Beck do his Christmas show yesterday at Kingsberry Hall. It was nice. He told Christmas stories and used some gospel music to build up to his main point, which was that Christmas was not about TV Specials, Food, or even family, but is about the redemption provided by the Savior. His mother had killed herself when he was 13 after a divorce and battle with alcohol and poverty and felt the world was better without her. Glenn, was on a similar track and after a lot of success in radio, lost his job, wife and kids and finally ended up joining the Mormon church and though he felt equally worthless, he discovered that he was able to be relieved of that burdon by following God.

Ultimately he shared his conversion story and the fact that he really feared the storm that was coming and thought we all ought to listen to prophets, living and dead, and gets things in order: financially, food storagely and spiritually so we can weather out that chaos that will be coming whether it be WWIII or terrorists attacks or more naturaly calamaties and the effects on the economy. I have been felling similarly worried lately (probably from listening to his radio show).

I'm still teaching the high priests once a month. I'm excited about the new year, which will be on Spencer W. Kimball. Someone, I actually remember. Pres. Woodruff was cool, but a little harsh. It will interesting to see the difference between someone who crossed the plans and someone of our own generation and what kind of lessons they extract from his talks.

With home prices in the valley, we have felt pressure to upgrade and move into a bigger or newer home. We have decided, for at least another few years, that we will stay here. I really like our little house (not a good time for more debt, I'm thinking). Not much for parties, but who has time anyway. This area is recovering rapidly and the houses are selling for a lot. There are not a lot of cities with nice neighborhoods this close to downtown.

I was recently in Seattle for training and told them how close I lived to where the Jazz play their games. They said, you can live that close to the Seattle NBA games, but you will pay $400,000 for an 800 sq. ft house. Crazy. (not that anyone in their right mind would ever want to live in Seattle).

Innocense lost

Driving through Midway alwasy gives me a sick feeling in my stomach. The haunting, lonely, helpless feeling of watching good things go away never to return like childhood, an infatuation-based love or a delicious cheese burger, one depressing bite at a time.

Everywhere you look, fields are being subdivided into half-million dollar homes. Where are these people getting their money? Who knows?

B'Andra made a good point. Where we live, the only change is for the better. Tear down old building and put in new, restore houses and yards that have been neglected. We never have to mourne the loss of beautiful things, only be excited when we see ugliness removed and watch our home value increase.

Blog entry: 17485

Back by popular demand, I approach the keyboard once again. You good people are very fortunate. I’m almost jealous of you… Almost.

So, where do I begin? Work, work, blah, blah, sick, church, work, sick, D&D, work, play my guitar. That’s about it.

Gidian has become a three year old in every evil and misbehaving connotation that phrase can communicate. I have always heard of the terrible twos, but two was a blissful walk in the park compared to this stuff. I miss my old, sweet, happy Bubba. In his place is a whiney, mouthy, slap-happy, little shit. But we are working with him and based on his older nephew, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. We hope to get their soon. For our sanity and his life’s sake.

My computer started acting up, but luckily I have a friend who runs the customer service department at eMachines, which was recently bought by Gateway. So, I called him and he extended my warranty and after a few disastrous phone calls, and a total of nearly 2 hours, I became a sort of ‘secret shopper’ telling him how his team was working and things that were not quite working, like the hold music (it was so splotchy, it sounded like listening to a radio in the mountains, when you only hear 1 out of every 3 seconds). So, he took mercy on my soul and upgraded my computer. Now I have a super fast computing machine [3 gig processor, 3 gigs of RAM, 200 gig hard-drive, 2 gig video card, DVD burner, etc.]. I’m grateful and gleeful.

So, with my new computer and new speed and memory, I now download TV shows and movies. I do this with a free software called uTorrent. I recommend it. Just go to www.utorrent.com and download the application. Then you use their search function, which is just a web-based torrent search (there are many) that will find your desired file. Then you download it into uTorrent and leave your computer over night.

They way it works is people prepare ‘Torrents’. A Torrent is a file: music, movie, game, whatever, that is divided into small pieces and labeled individually. This allows for files to be downloaded small pieces at a time and from multiple sources. This in turn allows for much larger files to be downloaded. For instance, I can download the entire music catalog of AC/DC which is 2 gigs. Normally, it would tough to get a file that big because the person you downloading it from, turns off their machine or something else interrupts it. But now you can download pieces from all over. In fact, someone might be downloading pieces from you before your download is even complete.

So far, and it has only been a week, I have every song written and recorded by Iron Maiden, AC/DC, Judas Priest (the trifecta of heavy metal), the movie CARS, Scooby Doo cartoons, He-Man cartoons (for B’Andra), the first season of MY NAME IS EARL and the first two seasons of THE OFFICE-BBC. So, as you can see there is no limit to what you can get. I highly recommend it. Oh, the tv shows are commercial free, so that makes it even better. I’m going to download STAR TREK: ENTERPRISE – all four seasons next, since I missed that one. It sure beats wading through commercials, being chained to the tv at a certain time every week, or even setting your tivo. Happy hunting.

In other news, I have been playing guitar a little with some friends. My old friend Jason, and some a couple of fellow Mormon, returned missionary, married metal heads like myself. It is really just a fun way to play some brainless music we all like and to use our expensive guitars for something other than playing alone and dreaming about becoming rock stars someday. I’ll be sure to record some, once we get good enough and pass it along. I know how you all love my taste in music. J

The best thing we did this summer is buy an above the ground pool from WalMart. One of those lame, inflate the rim, fill it with water and let the sun warm it up. It is just the right height for Gidian to stand in and what I thought was a silly, wading pool became the highlight of our backyard and summertime play once it got hot. We look forward to using it next year. Without central AC, it is nice to have an escape from the heat. Sadly, even though it is only early august, it is already cool enough that we're no longer as desperate for the cooling waters. But hopefully we can use it for another month or so.

Finally, Gidian is fully potty trained. A big day for us. Strangely, it happened very quickly. B’Andra spent 20 minutes with him reading books to him while he sat there until it happened. Once it did, he has been consistent ever since. Like magic. With the money I will save in diapers, I’m going to buy more little plastic miniatures.

Everything I know about Parenting, I learned from owning a dog

Lesson: First of all, don't take a dog into an environment that is going to create situations where the dog is going to 'misbehave' by simply being a dog. This is frustrating to the owner and ends up with a dog that gets disciplined over and over. You end up with a confused dob with a sore butt and a frustrated owner who wonders why he tries to spend time for such a naughty dog.

Case in point:
I had to plant flowers in my yard. Knowing my dog is sorely neglected, I let her out to run around and spend some quality time with the old man. Every time I dug a hole, the dog would jump the carefully sculpted mound of dirt, stick its nose in the hole and smash the flowers that I had pulled which had been previously pulled from their plastic, protective shell.

After swatting the bitch a few dozen times, I finally had the presence of mind to lock her up until I was finished and then played ball with her. The act of locking her up may have seemed cruel, but I was clearly doing both of us a favor and then could focus on her and have fun.

Lesson: Discipline quickly and often over small things and establish clear boundaries of behavior. Micromanage has negative connotations in this world of ours, but that is the adult world. Dogs love micromanagement and crave the attention and they will be understand their role in the world well before they perform an act so heinous that there is no recourse.

Case in Point:
The first time my dog started barking at night, I went on patrol and kept my shoes by the bed and my shorts and t-shirt on. Every time she barked, I went out and said in a loud, menancing whisper, "Shutup". After three times, I grabbed a broom a put it to dog flesh. Rapped her right on the rump and yelled "shutup", then I hit the broom on the ground next to her head three times and yelled "shutup" each time. It only took one more trip out that night before she got it. And though she has barked a few times, it has been infrequent and usually for something very disturbing to her like fireworks, firetrucks, other dogs, etc. And she knows very well what 'shutup' means.

I found a few items of mine chewed up one day. I wanted to put an end to it and made a big deal. I kept yelling no, show the glove, throw it down right in front of her face, yelled no again. Threw it AT her a few times; chased her around the yard yelling no, then put her in the dog run. She ended up chewing only a few more things, with accompanying displays of anger and outrage by me, until she was done. Just this past week, I felt comfortable and safely left out my work gloves and $130 leather boots and she doesn't touch them.

I similarly took precautions against her jumping up on me. Though this one is not as refined, because I sometimes let her lean against me when I'm in work clothes. So what she does now is give me a 2 second window when she rears up and when she puts her feet on me. If I'm in good clothes, that is enough time to say no and back up. A puppy that barks, chews and jumps around at will is soon to be a dog that nobody wants to have around. A 4 year old kid who tells his dad to shutup and punches him without a slightest reprimand or correction will turn into a teenager who tells his dad to F@(*0ff and gets his girlfriend pregnant.

More photos

Just remembered that it might be easier to upload pictures on the web photo album, so go there.

http://www.cool-larsens.com/v-web/gallery/

Easter Egg Hunt

Gidian had an Easter Egg hunt today at his daycare place. They went across the street to Liberty Park and found them. There were loads of eggs and he walked away with way more candy than he should ever eat. Luckily I stepped in to help and ate most of it.

Here are some photos of the action.

Fine, I'll post something

Got back from China. Had a good time and meant to blog about it, but I couldn't access this website from there. Apparently the Great Firewall of China prohibits the use of Blogs as it creates political unrest when people can write anything they want.

I read the local paper there, The China Daily. It was funny it was so self-congratuatory and full of propaganda.

Here are some email posts I wrote about the dinning experiences:

Today was just some simple Indian Chicken.

Came with some great chili/bean puree mix and some red chili pepper infused

with soy sauce over rice.

Tasty stuff.

I think I'm going Korean tonight.

I love Korean anyway, so here in the center of the best food I have ever

found, I'm expecting good things.

Last nights hits were the skewered chicken with peanut sauce. I could have

eaten the peanut sauce like a soup and been happy!

The actual soup was brimming with shell fish. Big crab, shrimp, muscles

and scallops. They are the big white shells that

they use in bathrooms and such. Anywho, the actual soup was orange with

more spices than I can image. I ate bowl after bowl. Disneyland for the

tongue.

Heavily seasoned beef cubes were amazing. Breaded and fried fish with a

small bowl of seasoned salt which she squeezed a lemon into for dipping.

I'm not a fish eater, but I could have eaten that stuff all night long.

The appetizer course had spring rolls: fried and boiled with Oyster Sauce.

I could eat a stick if I had oyster sauce to dip. I don't know what it

is, but it is Go-OOD! Also a small piece of chicken wrapped in a banana

leaf. Wow.

There was a salad with iceberg, cabbage and chicken. Any other attempt at

an 'oriental salad' will fall tragically short.....

Oh and my beverage was mashed up watermelon. Prepared on the spot. The

decoration and table settings were amazing. I'm not usually impressed by

such things, but this was cool. The pottery was excellent and cool.

Yet another meal report, since all I really did was eat and fly and sit in meetings:

Korean was a disappointment as far as the cuisine goes.

But the table setting and colors and presentation were worth all the money.

And on top of that was the fact that they cooked our meal right at our table. They lifted a metal lid out of the middle of the table and this old dude, (see pictures, if I can find them) brought out these rocks that were so damn hot, they were glowing red and kicked out heat a good 3 feet away. On that, they dropped a frying pan type cover and brought out veggies and plates of meat with various seasonings and gave us dips and seasonings of our own to use.

Of course there was the Saum Jaun, pepper and bean curd puree which I have loved for years. The stuff in the states comes in a can and is AMAZING, but this stuff was freshly made and very tasty.

So, they cooked everything and we wrapped fresh lettuce around them and ate until we were sick. :)

Tonight, I'm in Hainan province, Haikou city. Well, I'm on the plane now, leaving Haikou. Long day of traveling. We are on our way to Cheng Du. Anyway, we were treated like royalty by one of our clients and treated to a 10 course meal, complete with private room, 4-5 serving girls, tons of good food. First course, chicken feet. Bob wouldn't touch it. I nibbled as much skin and meat as I could get and then noticed everyone else and realized they were eating the whole damn thing. Bones and all. I bit one toe off at the knuckle and chewed away, but that was all I could handle.

Duck with a tropical fruit chutney. Awesome.

Boiled chicken served cold with a sauce.

Fresh celery and a vegetable only found on Hainan that is kind of starchy. The only think I can compare it to is the root that is served with Polynesian food, but I don't know the name. So kind of like a potato but not really.

Breaded eggplant with an amazing sweet/hot sauce.

Chicken/Fish soup. Very, very tasty. And the fish melted in one's mouth.

Main course was 5 year old mushroom imported from the mountain region in the mainland. It was an inch think was the consistency and texture of liver and was served with a very unique sauce. Never tasted anything like it. But it was so good, one dude poured it over his bowl of rice and chowed down. Another guy poured his rice into the fish/chicken soup. That was good.

I made the mistake of asking (since Hainan is China's Hawaii) if pineapple was grown there. A quick battery of Chinese to the serving girls and bam, we had a plate of fresh pineapple complete with small dipping dish of sea salt. No, the salt didn't show up, but I asked for it and the president of the company, a lady, was very impressed with me for asking for salt. Like a native.

I was on top of my game. Witty. I had them laughing. I'd throw out the very little Chinese that I do know at the perfect time. When we left dinner for the plane, she said, 'You are very welcome next time.' So, I guess I'll be going back to the island paradise. It is a really good company and they are making tons of cash. Pretty cool.

Took pictures of the entire Korean menu. The smallest menu so far. And a picture of the urinal and sink. They seemed cool. The other urinal: bit of an oxymoron....

Other pictures are of client, Shanghai airport and me eating duck stomach on the air plane 5 minutes ago. Given to me by the Shanghai partner in a foil, small package. You know I can pass up meat stored at room temperature...

One more. Last one, I promise:

Ok.

Final food report.

Here were the menu items:

o Pigeon. Very tasty. The strange part was that the plate was covered with heads. I asked the CFO how one eats a pigeon and head and he grabbed one and said, “first you do this” and pulled the beak apart and started munching. The heads were fried, so the beaks were chewable, but I didn’t try it. I figured the leg was enough.

o Pig feet. Here we go again. Gnawing skin and fat off a nasty animal foot. Damn thing was so slippery, I had a hard time eating it. The best thing about Chinese dinning is the COMPLETE lack of table manners. Slurp, chomp, hold the plate up to your mouth-shovel food in, suck noodles up, whatever you want. The weird part, that KILLS the germ freak in me, but I have already grown accustom to is the fact that nobody really as a plate of food. What you have are about 10 plates of food on a round piece of glass on a wheel and you just wheel it around the eat off those. So, yes, double dipping is a way of life here. Not bad when you are with cute Asian girls, but a little freaky when with nasty, old, smoking men. J

o Beef knee soup. Just soup with potatoes and large bones. But Henry, the Shanghai partner grabbed a big bone and put it on his plate and started sucking marrow out, I was a little shocked.

o Shredded root in soupy sauce. Kind of potato.

o Green, slippery noodles made with some root. Strange stuff. I had a hard time holding on to this stuff. It looked and felt like seaweed and served with peppers. Actually the entire meal took place in Sichuan, so you can correctly imagine that nearly every dish was loaded with spices.

o Fried greens

o Slow roasted bacon. Imagine thickly sliced bacon, roasted in spices with some sort of vegetable. The quivering chunks of fat were delicious.

o Fish and eyuta. Big fish with small potato like balls. The resulting mouth full of tiny bones made enjoying this dish difficult.

o Cold chicken in sauce.

o Cold bacon – barely cooked.

o Fried breaded tofu

o Mushroom sauté – long. Some sort of seaweed looking dish. Very long, difficult to chew mushrooms with peppers. I coughed a little after eating a pepper and nearly choked when the pepper nearly went up my sinus. Very hot, but I ate so much of the hot stuff, the CEO sent his driver out for 4 bottles of local/ Sichaun spices in a bottle.

o Rice

o celery carrots

o soy milk with honey for the drink, served warm

o beef soup with noodles

o peanut, seaweed mushroom.

As you can see, these are large fests. 2-3 hours long. With dish after dish coming in and everyone spinning them around and picking at them. We cam no where near eating it all. I didn’t have my camera, so can’t send a picture, but it was impressive.

The culture seems to be what may have been in America during the 20’s with the industrialists being wealthy. All of these businessmen and few women are having the time of their lives. They are respected and feared. The CEO today kept getting saluted by his security guards like they are his own private army. They smoke, drink, drive BMWs and Audis and Volvos. They do what they want; get special treatment from the government and everyone around them. They are loving life. And now, seeking additional funding from US markets to expand their companies. The rest of the country is quite poor, but since everyone is better off, nobody is complaining about the unequal wealth.

Today I’m in Kun Ming. The weather here is amazing. They call it the city of spring because it always feels like spring. They grow tobacco here, but it is actually quite dry. They landscape looks much like south central Utah, but more like Italy and northern California. High mountains, temperate, Mediterranean climate. And they are near the sea and equator so the temperature is the same all year, but high in the mountains 5,000 feet, so it is cool and dry. It is beautiful. I wish I could live here.

Update

It is 8:30 pm and I'm in the office, so this is going to be quick. I miss my buddy and bubba.

Christmas was fun, though we still have recovered financially :)

Gidian is a great kid. He learns new words everyday. He is daycare full time now as B'Andra is doing taxes for my firm 40 hours a week. It is funny because we work at the same place, but I never see her as I am always, and I mean always, out of the office doing audit work in the offices of clients.

We finally have got Gidian to stop sleeping with us and B'Andra's brother is living in an apartment next door, so that has been a relief.

B'Andra just bought a His and Her beach bike set. HUGE handlebars and big fat tires and wheels. It will be fun to ride them around the park when it gets warmer. We will need to get a trailer for Gidian.

That's about it for now.
Peace out.

Old post that never made it online

Gidian is going through a really daddy bonding period. I'm not sure why. But when I walk through the door, he yells my name with delight and runs over to me and grabs my hand and takes me off to play. Maybe because I'm actually willing to play toys with him.

Last night, he found one of his Christmas presents, a $5 hot wheel track with a little crash canyon with rubber bands, so you can send two cars into each other and have them blow up the cliffs.

I figured it will be better to open this one by itself and get a few weeks of hard core use out of it, rather than have it be cast aside when compared to all the other loot he is bound to get on Christmas proper.

He has a great sense of humor and can get silly. Sometimes, he'll start singing and do a little arm flipping dance while staring you in the eyes. It is really quite funny.

Last night, while in the tub, he started humming Pirates of the Caribbean, so hummed it too, only I used my finger to pull down my lip for each new note. He thought that was the coolest thing he had seen in a while, so immediately started doing it, only he couldn't get his lips to relax enough because he kept smiling. Pretty soon, we were making each other laugh and I nearly drowned from laughing so hard.

We have had fits of laughter before where we feed off each other's mirth in the same way. He is a great buddy. The only problem is, he has been insisting on sleeping with us. After over a week at Disneyland, he got used to sleeping with mom, and he LIKES it. So, though we get him to fall asleep in his bed, he usually joins us around 4am.

This morning I'm quite ill, so I didn't have the energy to fight it. He is a good snuggler, but he has a big problem with kicking, especially the bed covers...off. He gets pretty hot at night, apparently.

He is definitely a two year old, but he is so sweet and funny, he is no problem. His new favorite song is THANK YOU VERY MUCH. Some company used it on a commercial and he instantly picked up on it, so we borrowed SCROOGE from mom and I play the song over and over. It actually appears in two different spots, so he really gets into it.

Christmas is going to be blast. He calls it Ist-criss. And it when it snows he says, "Look daddy, its soo-ning!".

Oh, in the spirit of the holidays, we have a homeless, ex-junkie living with us. That has been fun. B'Andra is helping him go to Narcotics Anonymous and get a job. Boy, he sure does eat a lot of food.

October

Hmm. What to say?.... October. Hmmm.
I worked a lot. Got sick again and Gidian is a ray of sunshine.
Pretty much the same ol' crappola.

I finally got sick of getting sick, so I went to an internal medical doctor who took about 9 pints of blood. Actually, just 9 vials, but it seemed like a lot.
The results were that my thyroid was grossly insufficient for the task. So I take some synthetic version of whatever hormone the thyroid makes. I really put it to the test this week. I didn't get much more than 6 hours of sleep every night and I'm not sick yet. If I can lick this, I will feel like I have my life back. I've been as weak as a half-drown kitten and as ache and sick as a 80 year old man.

Our CPA firm is going crazy. We are hiring 12 people out of school this year, which is about 4 or 5 times the normal rate and that doesn't include the 3-4 we have hired with experience. And we turn down a full blown audit every week. I was just assigned to two new ones. One is a big company called Q Comm International. You can find it on the SEC website. Also Orbit irrigation, the plant in Bountiful. I have an inventory observation on Monday. Happy flippin' Halloween. The noob (i.e. Newbie, New guy) I've been working with named Steve has been great. Funny, nice, smart guy and we've been a good team. The problem is he is so smart (scores of over 90 on the 2 cpa sections he has taken so far) that he is going to strike out on his own and get his own greeny and I'll get one too. So they are splitting us up to double our work potential.

My firm has also decided to hire B'Andra to work the tax season. She will work a measly 40 hours a week from Feb to April 15 and then be available for the other tax deadlines and there are many. Hopefully she can do some work at home. She is also picking up some bookkeeping work that she will be able to do at home.

Gidian has been enrolled into a Lutheran daycare a block from our house. It is a really good school and is $10 cheaper and 10 miles closer than his old one. We are hoping that he will be able to go full time in February, but for now he is only going Wednesday and Friday. He is getting old enough that he needs a little structure and training. He is thirsty for information, knowledge, art and most of all music. He LOVES to sing. Loves music. He obsesses on songs.

He loves when B'Andra sings to him. She has a pretty decent repertoire of nursery songs, primary songs and Disney songs. I usually just make ones up on the spot. He also gives me a funny look when I use words he knows in a song. Almost like he saying, "I'm used to songs not really making sense, but I can parrot them, but I UNDERSTOOD that about Jecca eating food."

He's halfway potty trained. He's been wearing pull-ups, but it is hard when he is out with mom on errands because he won't report his status, you just have to catch him. But he is good at home and we try to make it fun. For the first several times, I would put the biggest smile on my face when he successfully went that now, he opens his mouth wide in an O and thinks it is pretty cool when he goes.

Halloween should be fun. We are all going to be pirates. I'll get some pictures. We carved some pumpkins that look pretty good. B'Andra bought a book with some patterns and utensils. The little knives are the best. You can really do some intricate stuff in a MUCH safer way than the big, dull butcher knives from yore.

I'll go try and get a picture.

B'Andra recently went to LA with me on an audit again. She spent 6 days in a row at Disneyland. I was able to go 3 days, Fri night, Sat, Sun. I frankly have no idea how she doesn't get sick of it, but she assures me that during the week, it is slow and a lot more fun, but it is better with additional adult companionship.

We are heading down in two more weeks. There happens to be a large gaming convention across the street from Disneyland that I will be attending and B'Andra will be across the street at Disneyland. B' convinced her sister and family to go, so she will have someone to play with and all of my friends are bringing their families, so it should be pretty fun with the guys geeking out at the D&D and miniature games while the wives and kids do Disney.

B' is scheduled to go down early with her sister and will spend like 9 consecutive days at Disneyland. Her annual pass has paid off. By the time it expires next year, I'm sure she will have gone around 30 days, making her daily Disneyland bill around $8. Not too bad. :)

Here is a picture of B'Andra. Her and a friend dressed up like 'white trash' to go the Utah State Fair. Some dude actually stopped her and chatted about Rush for a while.

She got this tattoo at my insistence. I'm thinking we should make it permanent.

Late Update

Hi all.
Haven't posted in a while.
I turned 35. I'm freeking OLD!!!!

I've been working a lot, two weeks in Wyoming and tons of deadlines and other dreadfully boring, stressful crap.

Gidian is getting cuter and cooler every single day. He is learning to talk and sing. The problem is, the only songs he knows are the Spiderman Theme song and the Pirates of the Caribbean theme-song. He will modulate them, change the tempo and slow things down when he is really contemplative or substitute other words in for the regular words.

Sometimes he just sings to sing.
Dad- "Hey Bubba, put this in the sink."
Gidan- (singing) In the SINK, IN the sink... to the tune of spiderman or maybe his own little melody.

He loves music. He sings along with Nightmare Before Christmas and James and the Giant Peach. He will watch concerts on tv with me. We watched a cool acapella BYU show the other night. He watched and listened for 15 minutes before getting bored. Crazy for a twitchy 2 year old.

I cut down a large tree in my back yard. There was a fence, shed and powerlines next to it, so I couldn't just cut it down. I had to climp up 20 feet and cut the branches so when they fell, they would bend about the same height as the lines and then fall and not pull them down. It didn't work that way. The first big branch fell on the power line and got caught. I can't believe it held it was VERY heavy. I leaned out as far as I could to lift it off and didn't even come close to making it. I finally reached under the branch and grabbed the cable so the branch was on the top of my hand and then I lifted it up and it slid off. Apparently that was really stupid according some guys at work. A lot of electricity going through those.

B'Andra has torn the bathroom apart and is rebuilding it. It is looking good, but still has work to go. We still can't shower, but I like baths, so I'm not inconvenienced. Gidian HATES showers, so he's happy with the way things have turned out so far.

Remember the silly pirate game from Cousin Week? Well, I had some of them with my on my audit in Wyoming and showed them to the two guys I work with. They got interested and before you knew it, we were in a hotel room battling it out every night. They got so excited, they went out and bought some of their own. One of the guys has been playing with his kids and they love it. My nephew, Cole, on B's side, loves the game as well and we play on occasion. Funny stuff.

I'll include some pictures of current activities.

Mayor Mook

Results from our third annual Lagoon trip & Old Timey Picture with Chevy, my former neighbor, and the rest of the fam.

Gidian steals the show on this one. His serious face and long hair make him look like a 17th century son of Mayor Mook.

B'Andra, try though she might, can not look anything but happy, vibrant and beautiful. Her smile sort of ruins the picture, but she's worth it!

The Farchings Family hit the beach

Gidian freeking LOVED the beach. He took one look at the sand, squealed and belly-flopped and started rubbing his hands back and forth. I had to drag him off kicking and screaming.

He loved running away from the waves and letting his legs get wet. I was holding him in the water and wasn't watching and a big wave came in and went over his head. He was ok except that dad nearly lost his grip and it was then that I realized if Bubba were to go under, I wouldn't be able to see him from the foam and sandy water.

I counted myself lucky and ran, not walked, back to dry land never to return without a lifevest for the most precious thing in my life. Ug. It made me sick to think about. Sea water can be a bit slippery, for those of you who don't know.

Anywho, we had a blast. If Gidian didnt' have tubes, he would be a regular fish.

Speaking of fish, Gidian has long known about fish, (he pronounces it Bish). He sees them on FINDING NEMO, story books, acquariums, Sea World, etc.

Well, we were at a restaurant the other night and B'Andra had halibut and asked Gidian if he "wanted some fish?". He screwed his face up and said, "Eat the bish?????".

We started chuckling and he asked again with one eye squinted and his mouth drawn to one side, "Eat the BISH????"

By the third and loudest time, "Eat the BISH????!!!!!) we were crying tears of laughter. He's a funny kid. He was baffled by the concept of eating fish. But B'Andra drove it home for him, "Bubba, do you want to eat Nemo?"

He mysteriously never ate a bite.

TV: Father, Mother, secret lover.

This might be a little rude, but it made me think of dad.
:)

In case you can't read it:

Just so you know.

I never want to live in a vegatative state, dependent upon some machine.

If that ever happens, just unplug me.

Ok.