Month: August 2010

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Thursday/ keep good company

Walking home after a bite at the ‘corner’ restaurant as we call it,  I noticed a new office front – for the Shenzhen Century Gamay Design Decoration Engineering Ltd company.

Quite a title and I couldn’t quite make out what the company really does.   But it reminded me of the song Good Company from A Night at the Opera (1975) by Queen.   What a great song!  It starts with Take good care of what you’ve got .. and ends with  I ponder on the lesson of my life’s insanity/ take care of those you call your own and keep good company.

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Wednesday/ an ‘Indian’ buffet

A few of us went to the King Key* Palace Hotel’s restaurant for dinner tonight, and here is the billboard in the lobby that advertises the Indian cuisine buffet dinner on Fridays.   It’s not cheap at RMB 228 ($US33.65).   And without the benefit of the billboard, one could be forgiven for expecting to find tandoori chicken at the buffet instead of hamburgers and T-bone steak!

*say it slowly :  King. Key. : )

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Tuesday/ what to wear

I woke up really early – so early that I even had time to take a snap of my outfit for the day.  The blue Burberry shirt is new and has just enough punch without being too flashy.  The knight in armor logo stitched in on the right is ready to kill an imaginary dragon.   Let’s go!

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Monday night/ in Dameisha

We arrived early at Hong Kong airport and the driver did a great job getting me through customs and Shenzhen evening traffic to get me to Dameisha in under two hours.    The first picture is of the Hong Kong-mainland China border crossing just at sunset.

At the apartment I had to run out to get some milk, ended up buying some jasmine tea and iron buddha tea.  (I will need it to perk me up tomorrow).    The brand of the tea is Lipton.    I thought Lipton was an American brand, but I see  Lipton  was created at the end of the 19th century by Sir Thomas Lipton in Glasgow, Scotland.   His enterprise soon flourished and he established a chain of grocers, first across Glasgow, then the rest of Scotland, until finally he had stores throughout Britain.  Today the brand belongs to Unilever.

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Sunday morning/ at Seatac airport

Yes, here he is, all smiles, the globe trotter waiting for his flight to San Francisco.  My flight to San Francisco is delayed slightly, but I should still be able to make my connection to Hong Kong.

Tip to summer travelers : allow one more hour to get through security.    The clock ticks and those screaming babies in their strollers and those first-time travelers with liquids hidden inside their maximum-size carry-on bags WILL trip you up and make you miss your flight.    What is going on up there? Why are they so slow? the people behind me kept asking.  Well – you are asking the wrong question, I thought.  Why did you get here so late?

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Saturday/ packing for trip #7

Yes, I’m counting them !   I’m flying a familiar route on United, down to San Francisco and then out due west to the Far East, across the International Dateline.    The picture is from www.flightstats.com and I just punched in the flight number –  the same one I will be on tomorrow.

So it’s a hive of one-man activity here, up and down the stairs to get the laundry, then out the door to run an errand, and start packing my bag.   I have a checklist for the small roller bag, a check list for the computer bag and an out-the-door checklist for tomorrow morning.    Yes sir! it helps to calm me down.

Here’s the out-the-door check list :

  • Adjust thermostat
  • Windows, doors closed, LOCKED
  • Lava lamp OFF
  • Clothes iron OFF
  • TV, Computer UNPLUGGED
  • Garage LOCKED
  • Fridge perishables OUT
  • Garbage OUT
  • Inside Lights ON
  • House alarm SET

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Friday/ the Elysian Brewing Co

Friday evenings finds me at the Elysian Brewing Co more often than not, with Bryan and Gary, drinking some Zephyrus Pilsner if it is available, or any other of the 16 beers they have on tap.  It is brewed on the property.   Constructed in a 1919-era Packard storage building, the pub embdies the classic American brewpub feel with large exposed timbers, high ceilings, concrete floor and a full wall of brewery tanks.

And where does the name come from?  In Greek mythology, Elysium was a section of the Underworld.  (Hence the Ionic column in the picture, a greek architectural classic).  The Elysian Fields, or the Elysian Plains, were the final resting places of the souls of the heroic and the virtuous.

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Thursday/ you can still get your Starbucks

.. on Olive Way, that is.    The Starbucks coffee shop is being remodeled (it looked perfectly fine inside to me – it’s the wooden structure to the left of the van in the background), and now they are serving coffee from a Starbucks van.    It was getting dark and the van was closing down by the time I got there to take the picture so the van was closing up shop.   First time I have seen a Starbucks van, though.   And check out the makeshift deck in the foreground where you can sit and have your coffee while you watch the world go by!   : )

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Wednesday/ put your thinking cap on

Actually, your thinking hat – and pick a color.

The training course I attended at work today, meant to sharpen up our thinking, mentioned Edward de Bono’s six hats.  Six different ways to think about a problem, that is.   Which one is your favorite way of thinking?

White hat – Facts & Information
Red hat – Feelings & Emotions
Black hat – Negatives
Yellow hat – Positives
Green hat – New Ideas
Blue hat – The Big Picture .. P.S. and click the picture below to make it bigger !

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Tuesday night/ more of Capitol Hill

Pictures from tonight’s walkabout .. a black kitty kat that must have stepped in white paint : ),  an update on the artwork on John and 11th, want to join the Revolutionary Communist Party of the USA? Sign up! and the neon sign on the Broadway Rite Aid pharmacy.

I have to get up early to go to the office for a long day of training.

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Monday/ new Capitol Hill light rail station

Here are some pictures from the Capitol Hill light rail station that is under construction.  I took it on my Sunday afternoon stroll in my neighborhood. The artwork was commissionedby Sound Transit and the artist is Baso Fibonacci (is he also a mathematician?*).  There’s the Ethiopian Restaurant that I have never been to (time to go?), a picture of the red fence around the construction and a peek inside.   A loong way to go still.

*The famous Fibonacci numbers are 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233 .. see how it works? Start with 0 and 1, and add the two previous numbers to get the next one.   The higher up in the sequence, the closer two consecutive Fibonacci numbers of the sequence divided by each other will approach the golden ratio (approximately 1 : 1.618 or 0.618 : 1).

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Sunday/ change in plans

My travel back to China has been pushed out by a week, so that I can attend corporate training here in Seattle.   I see United Airlines and Continental Airlines will merge towards the end of 2010.  It’s a ‘merger of equals’.   But what will the new planes look like?  Well, below is an artist’s rendition. (It wasn’t me spending two hours Photoshopping!)    The Continental gold and blue graphics will be kept and be replaced with the word United – so the new airline will be called United Airlines.