Archive for December, 2005

After two continents, three airplanes, two stop-overs, two delays, and too many hours of hung-over travel, I finally arrived back in my home country, tired and in much need of a shower. However, my home country is quite a large one, and for my first Christmas with my family back in the States in 3 [...]

Last Thursday, one of the industrial engineers at Intel collapsed on the shuttle bus ride back home. He was rushed to the nearest hospital, but tragically passed away that night for reasons that are still unknown to most of us in the company. His name was Tony, and he was a good-looking kid, probably about [...]

Kira was gracious enough to throw a great big Christmas party at Shikumen Bistro at Xintiandi. After an exhausting week, month, and year, it was great to actually witness some genuine holiday cheer with great friends. Tina being back in town was like the Christmas star at the top of the tree.

It’s 5:34 am on this Thursday morning, and I’ve got one burning question that has plagued me for the past three hours:
“Does Bailey’s Irish Cream have caffeine in it?”
You’d think that I would know, having insanely dropped $600 for a two week bartending class in San Francisco way back in ‘03, but I honestly didn’t [...]

There are good cultural imports here in Shanghai, like Hooters, jazz music, and Heineken.
There are also slightly annoying cultural imports, like Burger King, American Idol, and Buicks.
Then there are the heinous: Walmart, Michael Bolton, and the preponderance of horoscopes amongst the young women of this thriving metropolis.
Nowhere else have I been where the ladies will [...]

After the previously mentioned tumult of the past month, all of us breathed a collective sigh of relief as this past weekend approached, and we all swore that we would not be doing any sort of “going-out.” Old habits are hard to kill, however, and so I compromised yesterday as I was shopping at Carrefour [...]

Julie’s replacement pedal crank fell out last week when I was riding her home on Monday. As much as I hated doing it, I had no choice but to contemplate putting her down and getting a new bike. Still, she has a good frame and a basket to die for, and the two of us [...]

While hardly a real witch, I’m breathing a bit easier now that Steve’s ass is parked on a plane headed back to San Francisco. Don’t get me wrong, as usual I had a blast with my brother in arms, but the time between Halloween and today should rank as one of the unhealthiest chapters of [...]

Lots of guests in town for Thanksgiving, so we gave a big fat middle finger to bird flu and indulged in duck and turkey. My third Thanksgiving away from the US was made warmer by the abundance of great food, great friends, and many a drink

What do you call the confluence of the Mike’s marathon birthday celebration, Steve Xu’s return to the motherland, Wil’s 2nd visit to China, and a Thanksgiving murder mystery dinner? A turkey of a blog, since there has been almost absolutely no time for me to sit down and try to be clever for this site.
The [...]