Odds and Ends

I don't have anything exciting to write about today...just some odds and ends

You may have noticed I changed the layout of my blog to make it easier on the eyes. I hope it works. I also fixed the link to Jesse's pics because it didn't work. Previously it was very difficult to leave comments after my blogs. I changed that so anyone can leave a comment now. Let me know how it works.

Saturday was Kyle and Sara's wedding. It was a pretty good time. I had a great opportunity to photo bomb a bunch of unsuspecting girls. Their picture is ruined forever now!! darn



There only thing else that is exciting is the upcoming weather and getting Friday off of work!

The Morning After

So this morning when I woke up... wait let me restart that


So this AFTERNOON when I woke up Nic was doing my dishes for me. How sweet is that. He will be a good wife some day... wait let me rephrase that

He will be a good "life partner" to a lucky guy someday. (I'm betting he will be the taker not the giver in that relationship)



Tonight is Sara and Kyle's wedding. Free booze, so I guess last night was just the warm up! and yes I will grow up someday so quit thinking that (as a friend of mine says "I will grow up when the stick turns blue")

Motivation for my Boilers tonight!

Dwight Shrute Quotes

I grew up on a farm. I have seen animals having sex in every position imaginable. Goat on chicken. Chicken on goat. Couple of chickens doing a goat, couple of pigs watching.

When my mother was pregnant with me, they did an ultrasound and found she was having twins. When they did another ultrasound a few weeks later, they discovered, that I had resorbed the other fetus. Do I regret this? No, I believe his tissue has made me stronger. I now have the strength of a grown man and a little baby.

Before I do anything I ask myself "Would an idiot do that?" And if the answer is yes, I do not do that thing.

Babies are one of my many areas of expertise. Growing up I performed my own circumcision.

There are several ways to tell if a perp is lying...
The liar will avoid direct eye contact. The liar will cover part of his or her face with his hand, especially the mouth. The liar will perspire. Unfortunately I spoke to Oscar on the phone so none of this is useful.



I come from a long line of fighters. My maternal grandfather was the toughest guy I ever knew. World War Two veteran killed twenty men and spent the rest of the war in an Allied prison camp. My father battled blood pressure and obesity all his life. Different kind of fight.

Why tip someone for a job I'm capable of doing myself? I can deliver food. I can drive a taxi. I can, and do, cut my own hair. I did however, tip my urologist, because I am unable to pulverize my own kidney stones.

I train my major blood vessels to retract into my body on command. Also, I can retract my penis up into itself. .

Security in this office park is a joke. Last year I came to work with my spud-gun in a duffle bag. I sat at my desk all day with a rifle that shoots potatoes at 60 pounds per square inch. Can you imagine if I was deranged?

I wish I could menstruate. If I could menstruate, I wouldn't have to deal with idiotic calendars anymore. I'd just be able to count down from my previous cycle. Plus I'd be more in tune with the moon and the tides.

Leah's College

My niece is going to Purdue!



She wanted to put my Purdue coat on. I guess it’s just meant to be!!

I’m sorry to disappoint her mom but she’s not going to thee OSU or going to be an OSU fan.

Drew Brees’s son is also going to attend Purdue and be their star quarterback. Leah is about a year and a half older so she will have to date a younger guy. I’m OK with that as long as it’s Drew’s son. When they get married I will finally get to meet Drew Brees and I also plan on him somehow getting me Purdue football tickets for life. This will happen in about 20 years but I’m already excited now!!!

Purdue and the weekend

All the experts predicted Purdue to get beat in the first round this weekend. They lost their starting point guard for the first half of the season. They lost their starting power forward and possibly best player for the season at the worst possible time. They lost a key newcomer and one that was to provide frontcourt depth before the season even started. The “experts” have dismissed them as a team with not enough talent, then as one that can't overcome the loss of one player. And now they are in the Sweet 16 for the second straight year. I consider that a huge accomplishment considering they have only had their projected starting lineup for 7 games. Below is the shot to tie the game and Kramer after he made the game winning shot.





Speaking of Purdue I traveled to West Lafayette this weekend. The weather was great and the bars were fun.

That's me on the center of the court






This picture was taken by the team lockers. We probably shouldn't have been in there but my personal tour guide was feeling rebellious!


There are many more pictures to the right on my shutterfly site.

Spring is here!

Some people my age are married. Some people my age own a home. Some people my age have babies. And some people my age have all of these.

Well I have a baby of my own and I have waited five long months to drive her!



And I’m just going to assume all of those people are jealous they didn’t get their toys before they were married. Probably not but don’t piss in my Wheaties.

Happy Birthday Heater!!

Happy birthday to my favorite(and only) cousin named Heather!!

I thought you might like this picture because the guy looks queer like your husband but don't tell him I said that.


You are getting pretty old so I guess this is fitting but lets face it Jake can't do any better so you have nothing to worry about.


This picture has nothing to do with you. It's just damn funny!!

Well it was Iggy's birthday not to long ago. I wonder if Kim made him a cake like this??

Updates

I added a lot of pictures from China to my shutterfly site. If you would like to view them the link is on the right side of the page.

Also I was told that my blog is hard to read. I personally do not have any problems but Iggy told me last night it screws up his eyes. I'm not convinced that it's my blog causing the problem because I've been told that too much masturbation makes you go blind! Anyways I increased the font size hoping that will help. If needed I can change the color of the text and background. Let me know if you have any problems reading it. My email is mylifedocumented@hotmail.com


Picture of the day:

Wisconsin

My company makes several products that are used on fire trucks. There was a show Monday this week in Wisconsin and all of our sales associated were at another show. They couldn’t make so I ended up going with another person I work with. I really didn’t want to go since I was only back from China for two days and my sleeping habits were really screwed up but I didn’t really have a choice because the president of our company asked me to go. I don’t think I should say no to him! I've been on eight planes in the last two weeks. That sucks!!



The show wasn’t too bad though and the weather was nice.

While we were in Wisconsin the girl I was with and I both decided we needed to buy some cheese. We drove around for about an hour trying to find a little cheese shop but all of them were closed. We ended up seeing Lambeau Field while we were looking for cheese.


I pissed on a statue of Brent Farve. OK I really didn’t but I would if I had the chance!

We had to stop and ask for advice but we finally found some cheese. I bought jalapeno cheese, 3 year cheddar cheese and muenster cheese. I debated on buying some cheese curds but didn’t. I should have because I was told that they are really good.



We ate dinner ate some sports bar/restaurant called Bentley’s. I asked them what type of beer they had on draft and one of them was called “Spotted Cow”. While in Wisconsin I had to try that. It is made by a local brewing company and was pretty good. The link to the company is below.



http://www.newglarusbrewing.com/Beers.cfm?BeerCategoryID=1&BeerID=7

I saw Lambeau Field, bought several types of cheese and drank a couple spotted cow beers. I guess I pretty much saw everything there is to see in Wisconsin…

Just kidding, I still need to go to Camp Randall someday and watch a football game and party. It’s supposed to be a wild time.

The show was about an hour drive from Green Bay. There were lots of hills and lakes. It was really scenic. There were some amazing log cabins. I could live there one day if it didn’t get so damn cold in the winter!

My last day in China

Today is my last full day in China. Tomorrow morning I will be going to back to Hong Kong to fly out. My trip has been really good. The Chinese people are very friendly and respectful. I never had to open a door for myself. Everybody always said hi, bye and thank you. At some places when you leave they will line up at the door and say bye to you. That happened at several factories and restaurants. I’m going to miss be treated so nicely. I’m not sure if it’s because I’m white or what but I almost feel like I’m treated like royalty here. I could get use to that.

Yesterday I saw Jessica Simpson’s handbag factory. I was thinking about stopping in to see if Jess was around but I was pretty busy. I’ll call her later to catch up (I really need that sarcasm font).

Tonight is my last night here. I’m not sure what we are going to do but I’m sure its going to be fun!! I’m thinking I should start the night out by getting a massage while drinking a few beers. I plan on finishing this blog tomorrow very hung over…..


…the next day……


Well I was right. I definitely had fun last night. It started out with a massage. There was no happy ending, get your mind out of the gutter. Then we did a little more shopping I bought a Giorgio Armani belt for $15. Once again I’m sure it is not real but it looks nice. After that we ate a restaurant call the Metropolitan. It is a pretty nice restaurant inside a 4 or 5 star hotel. After dinner and a few drinks we went out to the same bar I went to on the first night here. I had to play drinking games with the cute bartenders again. They don’t understand a single word I’m saying, all they know is I have blue eyes and they love it!!

I was looking at souvenirs at the airport. I found this cute little oriental Chinese jacket that I wanted to by for my niece but they didn't have it in her size. She is just growing too fast!!



I’m in Newark right now and I have gone through security 4 times so far and had two pat downs. Traveling back to the US sucks but I guess that better than my plane blowing up!!

My flight to Dayton is delayed of course. As if 28 hours of traveling isn’t enough. So I’m now sitting at the Budweiser Brew House in the Airport getting a bite to eat and a beer! I had some type of burger with Salsa on it. It was really good. Soon I will be home in my own bed!!!

China Day 5

Today was a really productive day for me at work. I worked until about 7:30 then had dinner.



Obviously we had Chinese food again today. The guys in the picture from the left are Scott our VP of international operations, myself, Kuenter our outside project manager, and Tracy. At most restaurants here when you order food you just order a bunch of dishes and they place them on a turntable in the middle of the table. Dinner here is more conversation oriented. We basically will talk and drink and pick at the food with our chopsticks. The turn table works its way around so there is always a different dish in front of you. In the middle of the turn table you can see fish head soup. It’s actually really good but you have to watch out for bones. I didn’t see any chicken feet this time here. I always pick a random dish to try. Last time I was here the dish I picked and chicken feet in it. I tried some of the dish but I definitely passed on the chicken feet.

We also did a little shopping tonight. I bought a Rolex watch and a Louis Vuitton bag (it’s a satchel, Indiana Jones has one)! After some negotiations I got them both for 80 US dollars (544 yen). For that price I’m 100% positive that they are not real!!

After that we went back to the apartment for a couple more beers and some conference calls.

Oh and I watched the movie Taking Woodstock. It was very disappointing. There are a couple gay scenes in it with GUYS!! Two guys shoving their tongues down each others throat is not cool with me! Girls, well that’s a different story. I would and have paid to see that…..



I didn’t really take this picture. I found it on the internet but I still like it!!

That reminds me the culture in China is very different than in the US. They are much more “touchy feely”. It is not uncommon for girls to be holding hands or have their arms around each other. The guys are the same way. When they are talking to you they will put their hand on your shoulder or on your leg if you are sitting. It freaks me out when the guys do it but it is freaking HOT when the girls are touchy feely with each other.

Day 4, all work and no play...

The internet is really unreliable here. This morning I tried to make some calls with Skype for 2 cents a minute rather than using my phone for $1.99 a minute but the internet was too slow. The demand is so high the internet companies can’t keep up. That is a common theme here for about everything until the recession started. So many people moved to this area because the factories were growing so fast. The water and sanitation departments can’t keep up. That is why we have to use bottled water to brush our teeth.

The first time I came to China about a year ago the turn over rate of employees was only a few months because there were so many jobs. If someone didn’t like their job they would just quit and go to another factory and get a new job. That makes it really difficult for production from a consistency and quality standpoint. Things are a little different now. China is/has gone through the recession just like the rest of the world. It might have actually done some good from a quality standpoint because it weeded out the less desirable workers and the good workers remained.

From an education standpoint the engineers here are very intelligent and educated. I communicate with one engineer here daily and he continues to impress me every week. The problem is that educated people here are educated in the “China” ways with out any outside influence. I don’t know how to explain it but the mindset here is probably close to as it was 500 years ago when China was the greatest country in the world. This is the center of the world to them and for the most part they don’t care about the outside world. They don’t want too learn about Six Sigma or Lean Manufacturing. They have tons of cheap labor so if there is a problem they just throw more labor at it and hope it goes away. They will use twice as much labor on an assembly line rather than putting processes in control to prevent problems. Standard work procedures and manufacturing practices that any first world country uses are not even considered here. Things are changing though and they have changed since I was here a year ago. I am in industrial China, places like Beijing and Shanghai have much more of a western influence. The reason for that is that the people in the larger cities get out of China and see things done differently. Where I am at there are some areas were the people just stare at me because they have never or very rarely seen a white person. I’m not saying the American and European ways are the best ways but there is a lot that China could learn from us if it wanted too. It probably goes both ways though. The government controls a lot of the media and internet here so most people don’t realize what the rest of the world is like.

We needed to take a fast lunch today so we ate at a KFC. I know what you are thinking, more United States fast food. Actually it is very different. You can get chicken sandwiches and fries but you can also get Chinese KFC. I got some type of sandwich and I’m not sure what it was. I tasted like chicken but one of the guys I was with thought it was eel. It was different but good and of course spicy.

This afternoon I visited an investment casting factory that was a three hour drive each way. I went there with four Chinese people, which only one of them could speak very little English. I only speak enough Chinese to say hello, thank you, and order a beer. So the 6 hours in the car was pretty quiet. I had some I-pod time.

The company we went to makes a lot of investment casted parts. They actually make the Cooperstown Hall of Fame rings. How ironic is that? A company in China makes rings for the baseball hall of fame in the US!

I should probably mention that the above and previous posts are my opinion of China and the area I am at. I am sure other regions of China are completely different. Please take everything I say with a grain of salt.

We finally got dinner tonight at about 9:00. We had fish head soup, spicy tofu, spicy chicken and spicy pork. It was all good but I drank 2 liters of beer to keep my mouth from burning. I still have that conference call at 11:30 tonight and then its bed time!

Day 3, I'm huge in China

Have you ever heard the expression “I’m huge in China”? Well its true! I about 6’1” and I probably average about 10 inches taller than most Chinese people. For example in our apartment I have to bend over to use the counters in the kitchen and bath room. They are several inches below my waste. If I stood in front of our apartment door and someone looked through the peep hole they would see my chest. The shower head is also at chest height! If I was on my knees it would be about the right height.

Last night everyone was feeling lazy so we had McDonalds for dinner. I hate McDonalds. I don’t even eat it in the US. I’m all about trying the local cuisine. I like to pick random things on the menu that I have no idea what it is. Sometimes it works out and sometimes it doesn’t but life is too short to not experiment. I learned that from my grandma when I was younger. My dad farms with my grandpa so as a kid my brother and I spent at lot of time at my grandma and grandpas house. My grandma always made rhubarb pie. It looked disgusting; I would never even consider trying it. Finally after about 15 years of my life avoiding rhubarb pie I tried it and realized that I loved it. Now it is my favorite pie. The lesson of this story is that you have to try something before you decide you don’t like it. So when I travel I take every chance I can to try something different. We just ate lunch at one of the club houses on the golf course and I just picked some random dish off of the menu and it was actually really good. I have no idea what I ate or where it came from but it tasted good.

Today is Sunday, so it is more of a relaxed day. Last night I couldn’t sleep so I was up until about 2am emailing and doing some work. Then I woke up at 6am this morning and couldn’t fall back to sleep. As soon as I got up I had to check the Purdue score to see if they won their last regulation game. They are now Big Ten champs. Too bad they have to share that title with OSU and possibly Michigan State. Oh well that makes the lead leading 22 or 23 Big Ten Championships for Purdue. I’m going insane not being able to watch basketball. The internet is not fast enough to stream it. I tried watching Chinese basketball on TV but that is almost as bad as watching women’s basketball. For a team to score 25 points in a game is just not interesting!!

Anyways back onto the subject of China. The toilets in China are much different than in the US. Take a look at the picture below. Everybody squats in China! I bet that makes it hard to read the newspaper. Fortunately our apartment and most nice restaurants have toilets like ours in the US. The Chinese people actually think toilets like ours are discusting because everybody sits on the seat. With their toilets they "hover" above the toilet so they do not touch the surface. It makes sense but I still prefer our style of toilet!



I took a walk around our apartment complex today. It’s a really large apartment complex. There are probably about 40-50 twelve story apartment buildings with eight apartments on each story. The 216 hole golf course is surrounded with complexes like this.



The apartment complex even has it own kindergarten.



The center of the apartment complex has a main building almost like Sandals resort in the Bahamas. It’s a large building with a huge pool in the back. Below is a picture of the pool. It’s 80 degrees here and they don’t even have any water in the pool. If there was water in there I would be at the swim up bar drinking a beer right now. Actually a pina colada sounds better, wonder if they make those here?!?



I think we are going to do a little shopping and have sushi for dinner tonight. I’m not a big fan of sushi because its not very filling but like I said earlier I like to try new stuff. The wasabi sauce they have here is so hot a drop of it burns your tongue for an hour. The reason you eat wasabi with sushi is because the sushi (raw fish and seafood) had bacteria on it because it has not been cooked. The spices in the wasabi sauce is basically to sterilize the bacteria in your stomach so you don’t get sick. Cooking the food makes more sense to me but what the hell. Life is short, live it up!!

Day Two in China

I got up this morning a little tired from last night but after a bottle of water and a couple pop tarts I was feeling like a million dollars. Below are a few pictures of our apartment, the living room, my bedroom and the view from the porch.







Its Saturday morning and our factory works a half a day on Saturday so we went in to go over a few projects and have a couple meetings. Below is a picture of our factory buildings and the office building.





After we left the factory we went and got some lunch. I ordered the spicy beef. It tasted great but it was freaking hot. My lips and tong are still numb and it’s five hours later when I’m writing this!! They use these tiny red peppers in most spicy food here. I don’t know what these peppers are called but I want to bring some home to make salsa. I’ve looked at every market and haven’t found them yet. Actually I don’t think I can bring them home with me

After we ate we went to the market to look around and buy some fruit. Its tropical here so the fruit is fresh and really good. The market smells horrible though because there is dead fish and animals everywhere. I actually saw a goose that was about to get its head chopped off. Poor bastard didn’t even see it coming. Below are a couple pictures of the market. The three guys in the first picture are my coworkers.





Below is a picture of some billboards on the drive back from the market



We then stopped at a DVD store to pick up some movies. I bought 53 DVD’s for $66. That is about $1.25each. A lot of them are even blue ray. I purchased a couple movies that are not even out on DVD yet in the US. Hopefully they make it through customs otherwise I might be held up for a while and paying a hefty fine. I bought a few Disney movies for my niece and nephew so if customs tries to take them we are going to have problem! There was also a guy down by the market selling “adult” DVD’s out of a basket on his motorcycle. He seamed pretty legit to me (sarcasm). About as legit as a dark van with tinted window that says “free candy” on the side!!

I was still a little dehydrated from last night so I bought a Nestle ice tea. The label is a little different in China



Well it’s Saturday night now. So I better drink a beer. Below is a picture of a beer can. They have the old pull tab like we use to have when I was a kid steeling my dads Old Milwaukee Heavy.



Oh, I just found out from one of my coworkers that I should have had a hepatitis A, hepatitis B, and a malaria shot before traveling to China. That would have been good to know about a year ago when I came here the first time!! Now I am petrified of the mosquitoes that are everywhere! That is similar to what happened to me my first time here. I was feeling sick for the first three days. Then one of my coworker told me that we are suppose to brush our teeth using bottled water and not the water in the sink! Some people need to be better at communicating important possible life or death information!!

The population of the area I am in is about 25-30 million. I’m not really sure because it seams like the cities and factories are non stop here. It’s hard to tell where one city stops and the next one starts. The average age here is 26 and there are 60-70% women. The reason for this is that this is the industrial area of China. China is huge; there are countless towns and villages in the remote hilly areas of China. The teenagers from these town and villages come here to get jobs because there are no jobs where they are from. So they work here for 10-15 years and save their money to return home and live off it for the rest of their lives. The reason it is mostly girls is because the guys stay home in the villages to work on the small farms. A 26 year old Asian women looks like she is about 20. So naturally anybody with an Asian fetish (not me of course) is in heaven here!

As I’m writing these blogs I decided there needs to be a new font for sarcasm. I throw a lot of it out there and I hope everybody is catching it… I’ll give Bill Gates a call and see what he can do about that. (see what I mean? That sentence should have been in sarcasm font)

Day One In China

Well I'm back in Hong Kong waiting for my flight. The internet is not restricted here so I finially can publish my posts. I have several typed up so they will be in past tense when you read them. Enjoy!

Most people don’t realize that to fly to China you actually fly over the top of the world instead around the world because it’s a shorter distance. Below is a picture of the flight path. We flew straight up from Newark over Greenland, then over the top of Europe and Russia. When I fly back it will be day light and about 12 out of the 16 hours all you can see is snow and ice below us. I hope we don’t have to make any emergency landings!



Well I just arrived in Hong Kong. Its about ten at night here. Flying in at night is amazing the entire city is light up with all kinds of lights. I’ve been to New York City at night which was really awesome but it doesn’t compare to Hong Kong. When the plane was landing I could see the reflection of water below us. We were about 20 yards off the water and it looked like we were going to land in the water. Then all of a sudden the plane touches down on the runway. The runway literally ends in the water. The Hong Kong airport is actually a man made island. I couldn’t imagine the amount of dirt and stone they had to dump into the ocean for that.




The Hong Kong Airport is really awesome. Its easy to navigate and customs and immigration are a breeze. If you ever flown into the US you know how badly it sucks going through US immigration and customs. Sometimes it takes hours. I missed my connecting flight more than once. At the airport my driver was waiting for me in front of Starbucks with a sign that had my name on it. The place I am going is actually about an hour and half out of Hong Kong. We basically drove around the outside of Hong Kong on the way. I know I already said this but the lights were amazing!



For those of you that didn’t know, Hong Kong use to be a British providence until I think sometime in the early 90’s but then they had to give it back to China. They are considered to be China but they are still treated very much different. It’s easy to get into Hong Kong but it is much harder to get into mainland China. Crossing from Hong Kong into China we had to go through security again. They are very cautious about H1N1. So I was asked many questions about being sick and had to fill out some health paperwork. They even took my temperature. After that the car drives through a bath of some sort to sterilize the car from transporting any type of viruses into China. I should also mention that since Hong Kong was a British providence they drive on the left side of the road and then as soon as you cross over into main land China they drive on the right side of the road like in the US.

The driving is just like you see on TV or in those email forwards. Its pretty much every person for them selves. At one time we were on a one lane exit ramp but the cars were 3 or 4 wide. It is really crazy and you have to have some major balls to drive here. The last time I was here our taxi driver decided to take a short cut down a five wide one way street the wrong way. Needless to say we got in an accident. We got drilled by a BMW. Nobody got hurt but it was eye opening!! Some four way intersections do not have stop lights or stops signs. Its like a huge game of chicken. Whoever has the most guts makes it through first. The intersections that do have stop lights are pretty cool though. They all have counters that count down how long the light is going to be red or green.

It was about an hour and a half drive from the airport to our apartment in Shenzhen. Our apartment is located on the edge of a 216 hole golf course called Mission Hills. It takes about 45 minutes to get from one side of the golf course to the other. A lot of famous golfers have their own designed course there. There are huge billboards of Tiger, Jack, Phil and pretty much any other famous golfer. It is the largest golf course in the world. Most of the courses a regular person can even get on. They courses that you can get on cost about $200 for 9 holes. That’s outrageous especially for China. There are four huge club houses on the course. Check out the link below

http://www.missionhillschina.com/information-level/golf/clubhouses.aspx
It is actually cheaper for us to rent a 3 bedroom apartment here year around then get hotel rooms when ever we come over. It is definitely much nicer too. I got to our apartment at around 11:30 PM. Tracy, the guy from Minster, wanted to get a couple drinks. After 16 hours on a plane I was exhausted but a beer sure sounded good. The beer companies here were taken over by German beer companies during World War 2. So it is really good beer. Tracy, his very cute Asian girlfriend and I went to this hotel/bar/nightclub/casino/everything else. It was a very fancy hotel, like something you would see in Vegas. The bar was awesome. No guys worked there, only really cute girls wearing very provocative clothing. At bars in China the bartenders play drinking games with you. It is like liars poker but with dice. They are damn good at it too. I probably drank three or four beers to their one. Oh and when they are not playing drinking games with you they are dancing on the bar and on poles. I wish I could have taken pictures in there to make every guy I know jealous!! Also did I mention that they love white guys? They especially like blue eyes and blond hair because nobody in China has blue eyes and blond hair. I have the blue eyes thing going but my brown hair is still very rare. Don’t worry though I behaved. Damn morals of mine…

We got back from the bar at about 2am (which is 1pm in OH) and I had a call from Ohio. Evidently one of our customers in the US wanted to have a conference call. So needless to say I’m pretty drunk and haven’t slept in a long time but at the last minute the customer rescheduled to Monday. This customer is in California so the call was at 7:30am their time, 10:30am Ohio time and 11:30pm in China.

Day one is over, its bed time for me!!

Damn Commies

“Well I’m in China. My brother is posting this because I can not get on my blog here. Blogs, facebook, ebay, and youtube are all blocked here by the gov. China is a communist country so there are a lot of freedoms that they don’t have but there is a lot of things that they can do that we can not in the US. I’ll write more about this when I get back. I have several blogs already typed up and many pictures to post but I will not be able to do that until I get back in the US. I got up at 6am this morning (Sunday) to see if Purdue won. They are the big Ten champs despite not having their starting point guard the first 17 games and loosing their arguably best player with four games to go. Too bad that they have to share it with OSU and maybe Michigan State if they win their last game. Well I have to get going. Sorry to keep everyone waiting, but I will not be able to post any updates until I get back into Newark on Thursday afternoon. I’ll have a lot of postings then.”

Departure for China

This blog starts out on Wednesday night. I am packing for China and watching my beloved Boilermakers destroy IU. It was an awesome sight. I could have gone to that game but I had to pack, and visit my parents before I left. Also I would not have gotten back until really late.

Anyways I have a coworker originally from Minster, Ohio that lives in China full time. It is very hard to find or get any sweet foods in China so I always bring him a ton of junk food. He specifically requested oatmeal cream pies this time. Last time I packed a case of Mountain Dew and some junk food. He found a way to get Mountain Dew so I’m just bringing him sweets this time. Below is the food I’m bringing. On the way back after I get rid of all of this I should have enough room in my suit case for a cute little Asian girl… just kidding!


The picture below is of the New York City skyline from Newark airport. You can see the Empire State building. I had a really good view of it and the Statue of Liberty in the plane on the way into the airport. I spent a week in NYC several years back. It was awesome and I can’t wait to go back.


I’m in Newark airport for about 2 ½ hours so I decided to get my last American meal for a week. I went to a steakhouse planning on getting a steak and beer but the cheapest stake was $40. I didn’t think work would like that too much so I got a steak burger and a draft Budweiser for $25. A Budweiser at 12:30 in the afternoon on Thursday just seamed like a good idea today. I wanted to get a couple more to help me sleep on the 16 hour plane ride to Hong Kong but I also didn’t want to get up and go to the bathroom every 20 minutes.

Below is my last American meal. From hear on out its going to be spicy Chinese food. The Americanized Chinese food we can buy in the US is nothing like the authentic food in China. Almost everything is spicy and I mean SPICY!! It all taste good but you have to have a strong stomach to try some of it because it doesn’t look too appetizing. I have stories about chicken feet and fish that are still moving from the last time I was there but maybe I can get some pictures while I’m there for a later post.


While I was typing this three pilots walked past and the one said to the other “holy shit, I’m still recovering from last night”. The other pilot said back “yeah it’s going to be a rough day”. I really hope they are not flying my plane!

About 20 hours from now I will be in China. Until then…

Weddings (thoughts in a guys head)

I have a few weddings coming up so I decided to do a post about what guys are really thinking while at weddings. Well all of the guys except the groom that is.



(4:10pm) I f*ckin' hate weddings. Why do people feel the need to spend tens of thousands of dollars on a fancy party just so that everyone knows they're in love? Shouldn't we have gotten the point when you dated each other for three years? And if we were somehow stupid enough to not get that you two were into each other, shouldn't we have gotten the hint when you got engaged? Didn't I go out drinking and partying with you guys the weekend after you got engaged? Everyone here already knew that you guys were in love, so what's with the extravagent party? Let's just get through the boring God part, say your stupid vows and get to the two magic words that everyone's waiting to hear: open bar.

(5:08pm) Phew. I'm glad that's over with. It's time to get my drink on. Let's see: it's a little after 5 now, so that means that they'll probably start serving dinner around 6 or so. That's almost a solid hour of drinking time before I have to slow down and eat. I bet I can down 8 Jack n' Cokes before the meal's even ready. Normally I wouldn't have such an insatiable appetite for booze, but this particular wedding happens to be inhabited by two distinct categories of people: a) people I don't know at all, and b) people I used to be friends with and currently hate. I already know that I'm going to say something terrible to most of the people here. I just have to get wasted so that I can blame it on "liquid courage" later, and that way I'll avoid having to apologize too much in the future. Okay, liver, game on.

(6:30pm) Oh my f*ckin' god, dude. These f*ckin' mashed potatoes are delicious. Can you get seconds at a wedding? I need another drink anyway, and the f*ckin' mashed potatoes are on the way to the bar, so I'll just swing by and find out.

(6:40pm) Well, Jack n' Coke, you did me good so far tonight, but I'm switchin' to Gin n' Tonics for awhile. They just make me feel more sphophisticated, y'know? Why the f*ck am I carrying this plate around? And who put so many f*ckin' stairs in this place? This is outreagius! I can't be the only one seeing this. It's like, "hey, stuppid banquet room that this wedding is in, make a deshishion: all stairs or no stairs, okay?" None of this halfway stuff. There's all this flat ground around here, and then thesef*ckn' stairs come out of nowhere! F*ck you stairs! I bet I could throw this plate all the way across the room like a discus. Whoooosh!



(7:36pm) Dance party! Man, there are some hot chicks at htis wdding. Look at this nice peace ofass here. Mmm, shake it beby! THis chick has some sweetm hairdo. It's silver and it loks like Lady Gagaga's hair. I cant' tell if she's old and wrinkly or if my pupils in my eyes jst have relly bad streaks on em. I rlly thought dancing with two drunks in yer hanz would be harder than it is, but it trns out that id doesnt' matter if you spill, as long as thr's an open bar over ther. I love that bartndner. He's so awsome!

(8:10pm) Wher's' the f*ckn' bathrom in this place.? Stupfid f"ckin' weddign witha f*ckin' bathrum thats impolsible to find. Well, whatj the fucm, ringt? I'm stnadimng right tnext to a plant, atd they need water to live. My piss is amost all wahter. I'm gunna pissh in this palnt. Probably nobody wll even notice me. Wait, the kids table is right next to the plan.t Ah, f8ck it. If these kids dontknow what a dick looks like by now, its thr own f*cking fault. You heer that, kids?!! This is what a dick looks like! There! You learned something today, you liktttle assholes!

(9:06pm) Thatnks for havng me at the weddign. I know that the speeches are usuly rzzerved fr the family of the ppl getting marrimed, but I just have some quick things thadawana say quickly. First, thanks for the opoen bar. Right?! That was a joke. I thought it wood geta better reaakshin. Okay, givedup fer the bridengroom! I've known Danny since highskool and he was a fag bcak then, so somebody shoud make sure that Charlene doens't have a big old dick tucked under that slutty weddingdress uv hers. Ha ha! Burn, Charlene! By the way, I'm a friend of Danneez. Congramjurmations. Does anyone elsee know that Danny has nked picturmes of Charllyne on his compuder? I know becuz one time I had to use his lapltop and thr wuz all these naked pichurrs of her. I woudl now like to describe her vagina and asshoel in painstaking detail...

(9:42pm) You cant git ckicked out from a weding, dude. No, you can/t. No you cant, dude. I don't care if yer some kina securidy guard or whudver. No, I'm not drunk. Yes, I did accidentalty shit in the decorative fountain, but its not what itlooks llike. I jst got confiused fer a minut and thot I was in Europe, an dhtat was a buday or someting,. I dunno, dude. Wedingz are weird. I had totake a massive shit. F*ck You! Do you have aney weed? Hold on. I'm gonna throwm up lreal quick. BLRRAAAUUUGGHHK! Sorry about just puking on you, old laydy next to me. Yer Danny's gramma, right? Mayhbe I'll see you later in room 212 of the Marriott down the street. Leave the dress, honey. Youwon/t need it cuz we'ree gonna f*Ck later. I F*CKIN'LOVE WEDDINGS!!$%!!!!!K!K!!!!!

Rollin like a big shot

Well I spent another Saturday night in Indianapolis. My life usually isn’t this busy. Most weekends I’m bored in FR looking for something to do. That hasn’t been a problem the last three or four weeks and I don’t think it will be changing for a while. I’m leaving Thursday to go to Hong Kong for work and as soon as I get back I might go to the Big Ten basketball tournament in Indy. Then I leave the following Monday to go to Wisconsin a couple days for work. I’m going to be busy and worn out but hopefully I will have the weekend off after all of that is over!

The reason I went to Indy this past weekend was for a boat show and a bachelor party. Jesse has become our driver every time we go anywhere. I think it might have to do something with his sweet ride below (hence the title of this blog). I’ve watched the Hangover 5 or 6 times and half of them have been in his vehicle. He is looking for suggestions for custom license plates. I thought of the idea “Not Kristi’s” but he thinks his wife may not like that so much...

Below is a good picture of the Caddy and Matt’s boat. This makes me ready for boating season. I can’t wait until it gets warm!!


For more pictures check out Jesse’s website below. There are a lot of good pictures of our boating trips. Also I heard there is a good video of Travis getting shot down.

http://jessepics1.shutterfly.com/

The boat show had a lot more than just boats. It was also an outdoor show, fishing show, motorcycles show, RV show and more. It was at the Indiana State Fairgrounds. There was a lot a cool toys there that I wanted but can not afford. For instance the blue Wakesetter below. Blue is my favorite color but I think I can live with Matt’s yellow one. After all it’s much cheaper to have a friend with a boat than to have your own boat! Thanks Matt, we appreciate the hell out of you!!!


We were all pretty excited to see Twiggy the waterskiing squirrel but the crowd was so big we didn’t want to wait. So all I have is a picture of the sign.


The show was sponsored by Ford. I signed Nic and myself up to win this Mustang. I’m sure one of us is bound to win and since Nic is a Mopar man I’m sure he would give the Mustang to me if he won.


The night started out pretty good for Nic because he got some action from a cougar in the afternoon. She turned out to be a 14 year old girl but we won’t talk about that part…


After this we met up with the bachelor part at a small pub downtown called Coaches. We had a few drinks there and then moved onto another bar called Tiki Bob’s. It was a fun filled night. We definitely stayed up too late but I guess that’s bound to happen now and then.