manninchina

Back to Beijing this evening and thought I would give youtube a try, still accessible.

As of 31 January, 2008 - any web video site that is not either State owned or State controlled was not going to be allowed to operate. Youtube (owned by Google) is neither. Suspect there are/will be some loop holes, but a bit surprised youtube.com isn’t actually blocked yet (has been before).

So, because it’s still open, I can share this with you … a video I saw a few days ago at a kick off meeting for a large IT project … very funny and very similar to things I face daily.

Youtube link embedding not work now, so here’s the link…

First IT Professional 

Southern China has been slammed with snow this week and is causing chaos across the entire country. 200 million people travel across China to their hometowns for Chinese New Year (lunar). That’s a lot of people and most of them travel via train. Well, there are cancellations all over the place. It’s not easy in the first place to get tickets - they change the rules every year… wait 10 days before the holiday, 5 days before, etc… otherwise, you pay a lot more for the tickets.

Compare this to travel delays during Thanksgiving in the US - 10X.

Meanwhile, I’m sweating here in Singapore - it’s humid as hell here. Oddly enough, I’m looking forward to get back to Beijing Thursday night (just hope Beijing doesn’t get slammed with snow before then!)

Heading to Singapore today…from 20 degrees to 80 degrees in just 6 hours, will be a nice change. This week officially starts a project that is going to be most of my life for the rest of 2008. I like these kind of projects, many challenges and many changes…makes for interesting days.

Back in Beijing on 31 January.

Note to self: Do not get a haircut between 6 February and 6 March. 7 March is OK, but 8 March is the best.

Why? Well, this is a weird one, that I just learned today. Here goes…

If your mother has brothers, it is bad luck to get your haircut during the first month of the new year (Chinese New Year). If you do get your haircut during that month, the myth says one of your mother’s brothers will die.  (Don’t worry uncle Jack, Jim & Bri - got my haircut today, I think I can go 6 weeks).

So, this year…Chinese people will not get their haircut from 6 February to 6 March. On the 7th they will start again, but the 8th is supposed to bring good luck (called “dragon’s head up”? .. 8 is the luckiest number in China).

Does this mean all of the barber shops/salons close for a month? I doubt it, but many probably do. Can’t say I noticed last year.

On the business side, barbers/salons are going crazy between now & 5 February and the second week of March must also be crazy.

Learn something new every day…

On the bus ride back from skiing Sunday, my assistant pulled out a bottle of Jack Daniels. I was a bit surprised (in a good way). But, why didn’t I know about this on the way to skiing?

Anyway, I figured one of them would just take the bottle home and likely let it sit in their apartment for years (not many people on my team like to drink).

Well, Monday morning comes … I go to stock the fridge with my cans of diet coke and what do I see? The bottle of Jack. This isn’t the first time alcohol has been in the office…there were left over beers from our beach trip last September and I did find some of those beers empty on a few people’s desks days later.

So, to keep the bottle in the office or not? I don’t know the policies about this in China (don’t think there are any … as they do serve beer in the restaurant on campus). I’m not going to drink it here - will someone else? I think I will wait and see.

The story goes like this … we were all supposed to go hang-gliding … I was the only one who didn’t. Why? Basically, the guy who was supposed to take me said I was “too big” (there’s some more motivation for me!). Anyway, they told me not to worry…I could para-glide off the mountain. OK, didn’t think it would be as much fun, but I’ll do it.

I drive up the mountain with this little guy (not much over 5 feet tall), in one of the first “bugs” ever made…he may have told me it was from the late 50s (think they started to be made around then?). Anyway, we get up there, looks reasonable, not too scary. Then, we go to the “runway” (see pic below). Then, he gets strapped to MY back, with the parachute laid out behind him. Then, he tells me “stand up, walk fast” … over, and over, and over … He told me if I “sit” we would just fall to the bottom. Great!

So, here we go… stand up, walk fast … I lead the way…holy shit! But, we made it… as soon as we started floating, he repeatedly patted me on the shoulder and said good job. Yeah, I was relieved too. It was a great ride…only about 15 minutes in the air, but it was unreal.

The last pic here is probably my favorite one from the trip. I took it one of the mornings on the way home from one of the parties…

Today marked the first day of the remote training with my brother. I called him this morning … and the remote training part of the conversation went something like this…

Me: I think my shirts are shrinking, wonder why…my back kind of hurts too, I need to get a massage

Brother: No, you need to get your ass to the gym

There was more to the conversation than that, but seriously, that about sums it up.

When I got home - I went to the gym … ran, situps, pushups … that was it for day 1. Hopefully I get an email from him tomorrow with the new training plan and some new motivation

Yesterday, I took my team skiing just outside of Beijing…about 2 hours north of the city. I wasn’t expecting much before we got there, and it wasn’t much, but it wasn’t bad either. There was one slope that was actually really good…maybe equivalent to a black diamond in the US. They also had a bar at the top, so that was nice. Beer before every run down made it even more difficult!

The worst thing about this place was that there really was nothing in between the very basic slopes and the difficult slope. The view from the top in the picture belows shows all of the other slopes - basic.
All-in-all, it was a fun day, I’d do it again.

We finally got some real snow in Beijing yesterday and I was happy to see it! Not much, maybe an inch … but it stuck. Usually, we get some flurries, but nothing sticks. Didn’t notice any snow ball fights going on, I don’t think that’s popular here…yet.
Here’s a picture, curtiousy of NYtimes.com … I haven’t snapped any, but this is a great pic.

Picture above from NYtimes.com pics of day, 17 January, 2008

I need to get back in the gym. When my younger brother stayed with me for a month last summer, he made me go just about every day … at least 5 days a week. When he left,
I never really kept up…maybe a handful of times each month since.

So, we decided he’ll do some “remote training” for me. The concept is, he’ll basically make me feel bad about myself via email and ask me to report on what I’ve been doing. See, he’s really good at making people feel bad about themselves. So, I think this has a chance at working. We’ll see.

The concept of remote training is out there, and I think a lot of people do it.

I guess if I also report and show progress here, that may push me even more.

Who wants to see a picture of my belly? Not me, not happening.