Getting Back Into It

yeah yeah - it's been a while. I'm trying to get my creative juices back to do some blogging so continue to bear with me.

Congrats to Eddie and Juanita in the birth of an adorable baby girl - Sophia!

I'm headed back to the US of A this week! There's a wedding (no, not ours) in Iowa that Sarah's in on July 11th, so I'm headed home to see Sarah, see some family, and see some normal summer weather. For those of you who are complaining that it's over 90 degrees (100+ with the humidity)... welcome to 4 months of the weather in Taiwan!!! Seriously, it's already 105+ heat index here, and will only get hotter for August and September. Sucks....

A weird week last week - Ed McMahon died... but nobody remembers that now that Michael Jackson died mysteriously as well. Yeah, I know Farrah Fawcett died too, but that was a little before my time. I'm the border of GenX and GenY which means she was too old by the time I was old enough to notice. Now Michael Jackson, I was more partial to the Bad album mainly because I was too young when Thriller came out. But I still appreciate what an incredible influence he was for pop music - for all music! Not many people are as recognizable as he is in this world... even after his seclusion years as of late. CNN International had a MJ marathon all weekend playing all kind of Michael Jackson related clips. No MTV/VH1 here so no marathon of videos for me unfortunately. Sure he was strange in later years, but in 10 years nobody will really remember that - only the musical legacy he created. Same thing happened with Elvis - nobody remembers the years towards the end.

I added another photo album to the right.... we had an organizational outing on a Friday a few weeks ago. We went to an "Eat to Die" BBQ place which also happened to be "Drink to Die". So between the really good food AND an endless supply of beer, it was a good day. Of course everyone wanted to race finishing their beers against me so I was unable to sip my beer and enjoy it. A handfull of us headed to KTV afterwards and had some more fun for a Friday afternoon. And yeah, this was the night I called Sarah at 6:30am her time and then I went to bed right after that:)

And Brett Favre to the Vikings?!?!?!? Hmmmm.... I don't know what to think yet on that one. I had my hopes up for my buddy Sage "Middle Finger" Rosenfels, but we'll see what the Vikes decide to do. Anything is better than Tavaris. Plus I'm still trying to figure out why the Timberwolves drafted 4 Point Guards in last week's Draft....

Ok - have a good Monday. By Tuesday morning your time, I'll be on a plane over the Pacific!

Diving in Longdong

Summer in Taiwan - it's definitely here and I don't enjoy sweating every time I walk to the 7-11 around the corner. Thankfully there is either a 7-11, a Family Mart, or an OK Mart or whatever it's called. So for your "convenience" the 2007 data said there were 9300+ convenience stores on the 13,891 square mile island and 23 million people. That comes out to one store for every 2450 people. Not staggering enough of a stat? Considering only 1/3 of the island is actually occupied (rest is mountains or beaches or farmland), that leaves 2 convenience stores per square mile. Now that one sounds like a lot, but come visit Taipei, it's more like 2 convenience stores per city block. I can visit 4 Family Marts all within a 3 minute walk from start to finish.

We did some scuba diving this weekend. It was hot and sunny, but no better way to cool off then to go under water:) We went up to the Northeast part of Taiwan again, near Keelung (port city in the North) but the bay area was actually called "Longdong Bay".... I kid you not! Enter perverted joke here..... Longdong Bay was full of lots of people, other scuba divers, some people learning to snorkel, and other people just swimming and enjoying the water. So I guess you could say there were lots of sea men (and women) in Longdong bay yesterday....

This is the final week of NHL - hopefully in the favor of the Red Wings. It's also the NBA finals, but does anyone really care anymore? Since fan voting doesn't determine the outcome, hard to imagine that people still want to watch Kobe cry after winning a trophy thanks to yet another "big man".

Big week for Birthdays and Anniversaries! I'll try to remember them all - I sometimes get screwed up with the time difference too. Happy birthday tomorrow Jen!

Random Update

I added some pictures from IBM Family Day last weekend. We took a bus down about 90 minutes south of Taipei to a Green Park. It was damned hot in the morning when we got there, but it was a very pretty park that has a lot of natural habitat areas and wildlife to enjoy. There was an ample representation of families as well as some fun animals to observe. You'll see some long snakes in there, they're actually pretty cool. I had Alex ask about how much the python eats and he said they feed it two times a month, each time they give it three whole chickens and that suffices for another 1/2 month. I had Alex then ask about if the python could eat Val, he said no... but then pointed to a little girl who was also standing there and nodded as if to say "yeah, that one he could".

NHL - GO RED WINGS!!! - I've been able to watch most of the first two games thanks to the Slingbox, the next two may be a little tricky with work stuff. I'm hoping for a 5 game series that way I can watch the final game on my Sunday morning.

It's June, which means I come home permanently in 3 months. Can you believe that I've been here for 14 months already?