Lost wallets and Chinese fire drills

I was in a cab on my way to Chinese class today with my friend tom. I got a phone call from home and got into a pretty long and intense discussion with my dad. We got to school. It was my turn to pay. I threw a 50 kuai at tom and got out of…

More hoops talk

Ben Osborne wrote:The Pistons did look really good last night--and have all season. The game was on NBATV last night, which now carries at least one game every night that TNT or ESPN don't. They use local announcers but put the NBATV fonts on…

Digging into some hoops

It’s hard to describe how happy I was when I went to the gym this afternoon, got on the bike, flipped on the Tv, turned to Sports Plus to see if any football was on and stumbled onto the Pistons/King s game -- on Pistons TV no less, with homer…

R.I.P Cresenta Fernando

I have met quite a few World Bank people here and Cresenta Fernando has come up in conversation with them several times. This has caused me to think about him quite a bit and I wanted to pause and pay him tribute.As many of you know, my (sort…

R.I.P Cresenta Fernando

I have met quite a few World Bank people here and Cresenta Fernando has come up in conversation with them several times. This has caused me to think about him quite a bit and I wanted to pause and pay him tribute.As many of you know, my (sort…
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Family trip to the Wall

Last Friday, Becky took the day off of work and we took the kids out of school, rented a van for the day and headed out to the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall, with Hal and Ruth., They were leaving the next morning and we wanted…

Escaping Chinese products

Twice a week, the "bread man" comes around our neighborhood with his little car filled with fresh baked bread, rolls, pizza, cookies. We usually buy rolls and cinammon bread and pizza. The kids love it. Jacob has come to call him "the bread…

R.I.P. bluesmen

Pictured from the top: Little Milton, Son Seals, Gatemouth Brown, RL BurnsideAn obituary for three great blues guitarists who recently died, from the current GW. Below that I will paste in an obit for Son Seals, from about six months ago.Gatemouth,…

Take that Phil Jackson

Hey, my friend and former colleague Scoop Jackson puts Phil Jackson on blast today and I love it. Great job, Scoop. I long ago tired of that phony jerk's schtick.http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=jackson/051101

Halloween in China

Our first Halloween in China was a success. They do it up pretty big time in the compounds and the kids were able to double dip. They celebrated on Saturday at River Garden, where we used to live, and we went up there with Kathy Chen and her…