More of China - Suzhou to be exact

Ni Hao People - Getting to know China a bit more. Did you know that although Christianity is not the main religion here, and they don't really celebrate Christmas, there is a ton of Christmas stuff all over Suzhou. I am sitting here right now humming to "Santa Claus is coming to town...Santa Claus is coming to town...Santa Claus is coming to town..."  Too funny but kinda driving me nuts, I think the same 10 songs have been playing all afternoon.  I can't decide if I fit in here or if people are used to seeing me already in the same places - they stopped laughing and pointing at me. Some cool things I wish we had in America, the cool timers at all the intersections for the cars. You know how in the states (listen to me, I've referred to my homeland as "the states" - weird), any way. In the states we have timers at some of the Pedestrian signs. Well they have it for the cars. Yesterday I was in a cab and I swear dude took a nap at the light. Why not he had friggin 75 seconds to wait. He even turned the cab off! The other cool thing is that everything is lit up, like the freeways and bridges. It feels like a big DJ party or something. It always feels like something is going on. Kinda cool! Oh and this is too funny too - there are always fireworks going off here. Yea day and night, always. Apparently it's legal to buy and just shoot them off. I don't even notice it anymore, but at first I would run outside to see them.  Yea dorky, but come on, who doesn't like fireworks???!

Been working crazy hours, so I am beyond tired. This is picture of the room, the war room for the project. This room gets hot and LOUD. I love how hard people work here. My Taiwan-based consulting team rocks! They are awesome and so polite. And they respect the "boss" - that's me. Funny that I am a "boss" if they only knew I still laugh at my own farts and play with legos...Shit, I said that outloud huh? 

Funny thing - look at this picture. When I first got to my room, I was like dude where's the power button. Well they require you to put your key in the slot so that the room gets power. SMART- this is so jack asses don't walk away from the room with lights and TV on. I've never done that before.

I miss my sports. I get to watch tons of football, and by football, I mean Soccer. Thank God for Rome downloads!


Anyway back to work people...Cheers.

Airports - Collection 1

I love airports for some reason. Maybe it's because I spend so much time in them. Actually I think it's because when I was a kid, my brosef and made pretend airports out of legos and our beds and stuff. Also we lived right in the flight pattern for SFO. The other day at band camp...oops I mean...the other day at my parents house, I showed my kidos how close the planes got to Toto's house.

The pictures below are of Vancouver, Shanghai and Tokyo. See if you can figure out which is which...

First Trip to China

Hey Party People - Just got back from Suzhou, China. It was awesome. Going back in a couple of weeks. Here are some of the pictures that I took. The food was good, the hotel was pretty darn good as well, but the people were great. So friendly and helpful; they did stare at this Latino, probably wondering what the hey. Anyway, here are some photos. Enjoy!



See the album at:
http://picasaweb.google.com/mars68/0_Suzhou?feat=directlink

Historical Night in Chicago

November 2, 2008 - The Night Obama Got Elected - Chicago's Grant Park




Hey People - This is the first official post to this blog. The idea came about last week on a project when I was talking with a fellow consultant about the crazy stories we experience on the road. Damn we are fools sometimes! Anyway I hope to read some very interesting stories. Only rules, No real names, no real company names (Companies you worked for at the time, not cities, hotels, restaurants unless they were your customers).

Historical Night - As a consultant you often find yourself on the road during historical events. Some planned, some not planned. Some you stumble on by accident. I was in Chicago the night Mr. Obama became President-Elec Obama. It was a magical night. "A crowd of nearly a quarter-million jammed Grant Park and the surrounding area in Chicago, where Obama addressed the nation for the first time as its president-elect at midnight ET. Hundreds of thousands more — Mayor Richard Daley said he would not be surprised if a million Chicagoans jammed the streets — watched on a large television screen outside the park" -source MSNBC. I really didn't think I would have time to attend the rally. And I really didn't connect the dots when I was planning my trip. As the day progressed, excitement about the election and the possibility that this would be a historical event started to gain momentum all around Chicago. Everyone was talking about it at work, online, on TV, radio and at the water cooler. So I decided to walk on over to Grant Park. Quick side note, as I was walking I poked my head into this restaurant called Triad Sushi (the best sushi in Chicago by far - great atmosphere, cool owner & staff) and asked some dumb question like how late they were open. This was the first time I ever went into Triad, the site and location of many other road stories, but I digress. I was starving, not having time for a real lunch that day and forgetting about dinner in my excitement to reach the park. Excitement beat hunger that night, wish I could say the same for my other 100 nights on the road in the last year. Anyway as I got closer to the park, more and more people lined the streets. It got down right crowded as I saw the first glimpse of the lights, cameras and big screen TVs. I don't usually like crowds, I tend to get a little claustrophobic. For whatever reason this night was different. This is probably the biggest crowd I've been in. My biggest impression that night was how everyone there got along. I didn't see one incident of bad behavior. It was truly magical. Regardless of what side you are on, right or left, I bet if you were there you'd feel like most of us in the crowd, an extreme sense of pride in our country. Obama says it in his acceptance speech. “If there is anyone out there who doubts that America is a place where anything is possible, who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time, who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer,”-source Obama quoted on MSNBC.

Anyway, this is kind of yesterday's news, but whatevs, still fresh in my mind as a story I will remember from the road forever.


Mars68

Obama wins the Nobel Prize - Dude that's cool!

Just arriving back from Chicago and that was depressing. It was really quiet this time and no one was talking about the Olympic thing. When I finally did get someone to talk about it, it was my cab driver. She was funnnnny! She said that someone from the IOC got bad cab service and that is why they dogged Chicago. Ok.
Anyway this morning the son of Chicago, our Prez, wins the Nobel Peace Prize. Damn that's kinda cool.

President Barack Obama wins Nobel Peace Prize

Sports Stories

We are sometimes fortunate enough to have 2 of our worlds collide to our benefit. Like the time I was on a consulting gig in NYC and the Cal Bears Basketball team was at Madison Square Garden to play for the NIT championship. Or the time I was in Chicago to watch the SF Giants play an extra innings, rain delayed game against the Cubs. Oh what fun...post sports stories here.