Don’t Look Down!

My column went up today. It is my 24th. It’s somewhat hard for me to believe I am pushing on towards a year and 25+ columns now. Writing it has been great for me on many levels and most of them have come fairly easily.Even the ones I labored…

There goes the neighborhood

I have been thinking of writing about the way old Beijing is just being ripped down block by block and replaced by huge, glass skyscrapers, all over the central city. People hear about the hutongs (old alleyway neighborhoods) being torn down,…

Oh damn!

Just like that, blogspot is banned again and I can't view the site.. just when some friends here were starting to read it and I was feeling inspired to get cranking... Here today, gone tomorrow... you never know what the Great firewall of China…

Joshua Anchia-Cohen

A big welcome to the world to Joshua Anchia Cohen, born in Costa Rica to cousin Amy Cohen and her husband Kenneth Anchia. How do you say Mazel Tov in Spanish? IN Chinese it is goong-see.

Mold/shopping

We have a mold problem. I’m not sure how bad it is but there is some nasty black stuff font eh wall of our playroom downstairs and we had a pipe leak which brought water damage to the already nasty rug down there. We’re changing that and…

Becky and friends road race

Last week, Becky ran an 8k race as part of the Beijing Marathon. She was with friends Kristi Belete, Vivian Nazari and Liz Durkin. These are before and after pictures and I don't think they look any worse for the wear.It started at Tiananmen…

Photo

The new Insider’s Guide to Beijing came out a few weeks ago. It is a fairly massive tome and very good and quite well read in our world. I wrote a few pieces for it, including a rewrite of my first WSJ column. They ran that in the front as…

Great journalism

This brilliant story about the Washington Wizards' Gilbert Arenas left me speachless. I now have a new favorite player. It has also encouraged me to renew a sub to Esquire. Wow.

Free Int’l Phone calls

Friend David Goldberger sent me this:www.futurephone.comThis company is making money on "telecom triage" - the federal subsidy they collect from the federal govt for providing the call from Iowa is less than the cost of providing the service,…

Some oldie but goodies

Icky Reingold sent me these pictures a while back. Taken probably 4-5 years ago at a Thanksgiving weekend Dixie Doc gig at the Penn Brewery, North Side of Pittsburgh.That's me, Icky and Ripper if you don't know. Whatever happened to nicknames?…