However, with the start of a couple of new projects involving additional online content creation, my hope is that I can once again pick up where I’ve always left off, and give this blog the attention it deserves. There’s a lot of history here, and I wouldn’t want to lose it or devalue its importance. I have been pretty good about updating the Milestones though; that at least is up to date.

I also think my father came to visit at some point, most likely in June, though it’s confusing because they were originally supposed to come in May. I had even bought both he and our doctor round trip airplane tickets and hotel reservations, all at the very last minute, and had to cancel them, all at the very last minute again, only to be told a couple of weeks later, at the very last minute, that they need round trip airplane tickets and hotel reservations again, only to find out upon landing that the doctor ran off with his ex-wife, never to be seen again until the end of the trip, and the wonderful hotel room he found for them in Times Square needs to be canceled and replaced with the Yonkers Roadway Motel, because my father is just like that. Oh and did I mention, all a the very last minute. They also had a massive agenda of speaking with editors of Nature, CDC scientists, IP lawyers, and innumerable other matters relating to Maria and my ultimate self employment, non of which got addressed. Not that I’m bitter, or complaining, but there’s an unfortunate growing part of me that wonders why I keep giving these people additional chances to take advantage then disregard me.

But that is not the point of this post, nor is my grandfather’s funeral, which Maria and I went to. It was nice being back in China, to visit that is. I think we’ve both decided that China is best kept for the visitors, and that, even for long periods of time, it’s infinitely better to visit than live in that country. We accomplished a lot while we were there as well, including getting her refund from business school, something that involved a literal scavenger hunt for departmental seals. They had said to budget 3 or so hours for the entire process, because it required us to move from one department to another, handing them one thing after the other, getting their seals collected on a piece of paper to ultimately trade for another piece of paper that said she’d withdrawn. It’s like, in this day and age, hard to imagine that the MBA office’s computers weren’t connected to the library, IT, or student affairs. I’m sure I’ve ranted about this all before somewhere, but come on people. More on all of that later, again, that’s not the point of this post.

The point is, that we had a lovely long weekend in Ohio for the Fourth.

Perhaps for the last time, at least until we decide to keep a nocturnal schedule, and the thought of which has been sounding more and more appealing what with these very warm summer days in NYC, we drove through the night again. It was actually my last day at work, but I’d rather not get into any of that right now. Suffice it to say we were free to go where we wanted, for as long as we wanted, barring BAR study, the only limiting factor. Part ways through New Jersey, the car all of a sudden got really loud. We had noticed that it was running louder and louder ever since our trip up to Vermont, but this was out of hand. No check engine light though, no handling issues, so we just pressed one, because, well, what could we do? We could postpone our trip, but that’s no fun, and we had to be there by Friday afternoon (we left Thursday evening).

You see, we had gotten invited to Maria’s best friend’s 4th of July party, on the afternoon of the 1st, to view some fireworks, eat some good food, take in some good company. She had even invited me, something which for rather obscure reasons moved me an awful lot. It felt nice to have someone consider me in their plans, and I was touched that she thought of me. We got in, effectively slept all day, though in the middle of napping I went to get the car fixed at the local garage. It turns out the pipe connecting the engine to the muffler had rusted through, a quick cut, measure, and weld fixed it, quite cheaply I might add. Then there was the actual party, at which they had an above ground pool, which we didn’t use that day but the next, after playing cards and board games. There was breakfast with the family at Panera, dinner at home, driving around town and the countryside. We saw a movie. I always like it when I visit Maria’s home town. I might like it enough to live there. The people are so nice, the community as well, and it makes me wish for a more stable, permanent lifestyle, one in which I can actually be a part of a community, know the people around me. I’ve rented all my life, and briefly at that, so I’ve never felt that kind of connection, and SLC is know for not having a “community,” even going so far as to have open forums on why there is no “community” at SLC. So may it’s this sense of being out of place, out of sync with the people around me, that makes me envious of the lives of those who have that connection. Maria’s best friend has her husband, their beautiful daughter, and their entire family around them and all their friends. They have a beautiful house and yard, and a garden with vegetables that hopefully this next time we visit, we’d be able to partake from. They’re renovating their garage. There’s a lot that’s enviable about all of that.

First, we’re moving back to the States! NYC to be specific. That’s what the countdown is for. We leave early morning Christmas Eve for our new but temporary home in the Upper East Side at 75th and 3rd. We have many exciting and grand plans regarding getting jobs that actually pay when and what they say they will yet aren’t that overbearing on the rest of our lives so that we’d have time to maintain an active non-work life in the evenings and on weekends and take vacations throughout the year. I have grand plans for a balcony where we can grow fancy vegetables and set up a fire pit on which I intend to cook hearty soups with my cast iron pot, skewer vegetables and meats, grill different kinds of fish in one of those neat looking fish-grilling-baskets, and roast marshmallows, all under the glow of any and all seasonally appropriate skies. I’m going to be more revealing here than anywhere else public on the inter-webs, but you know, I’m feeling excited about these new prospects so any unforeseen consequences of my openness be damned. We’re also going to be stopping off first at Maria’s parents place in Ohio, and though it’s seeing her side of the family again in a relatively short amount of time, we feel its appropriate as it’s quite close to NYC and we intend to take possession of her parents old minivan. Yes, I will be driving a minivan, feel free to start the ribbing on that one. But I’d just like to point out the obvious benefits of one:

1. we can carry STUFF! (Costco, free stuff from Craigslist, people, moving)
2. we can go on ROAD TRIPS (which I love, and if necessary even sleep in the van)
3. it’s obviously free (they have more cars than drivers right now)
4. it’ll be reminiscent and nostalgic of those days when I owned a pickup truck, but minus the tiny little seats in the cab that faced each other whenever I tried to haul more than 2 people

We’re in the gigantically messy process of packing up our entire lives, once again, like we did a year and a half ago for our move to China. Feels kind of full circle in a way. We were lucky, having never settled that well, which was actually a problem in and of itself but at least it’s come to benefit us now in that though we’ve acquired some more things than before, we still don’t have that much stuff. We used to fit in 8 suit cases, we now fit in 10, and we still don’t have furniture. That means our temporary apartment in NYC is actually furnished (thanks to you know who!), and we’ve tentatively given ourselves 2 months to figure it all out, permanent jobs, permanent apartments, permanent routines, etc. This does also mean that we may have to remove our blog from the expat blog listings, but I’ll comfort myself by creating new NYC centric categories and tags. I will most likely still be working within the web programming field, and Maria’s thinking of re-entering law or perhaps finance. We will both of course still work with our fancy little Enterprise Consulting company in whatever fashion that “work with” may mean.

The explanation for the lateness of this entry is that we’ve been kind of sub-consciously messing up our sleeping schedules, I think so that we’ll have an easier time when we get to the States adjusting to US time again (civilized time?), but it’s not been easy these past 3 weeks actually, ever since we got back the last time to China after Thanksgiving. Immediately after landing we found ourselves smack in the middle of final negotiations to close our JV VC deal, a process that involved many Chinese lawyers and lots of legalese and staying up to the middle of the night every night hammering through all the details involved and trying to explain it all to our partners who aren’t native English speakers and were giving themselves headaches just trying to parse the individual sentences. I discovered I have quite a knack for this stuff actually, an innate ability to understand those massively long and complex legal sentences, and if nothing else I provided good translation services because wouldn’t you know it, though the JV is international and the governing documents are in English (and even governed by NY law), Maria and I were the only people with any thorough command of the English language and the negotiations even happened in Chinese, something brand new I’ve never experienced before in my life. Lots of fun, though insanely tiring, and happening all at the same time as my IFC concert. When it rains and all that. We did close, on time even, or basically, terms and conditions met and documents signed and all, and I had my concert, which I mentioned in an earlier post was a success, then I had another concert in Shanghai of all places which I also mentioned, and we go to see our new Enterprise Consulting company’s facilities at that incubator (which I also mentioned?), and well, the sum of it all was that in the span of 3 weeks, we’ve managed to:

1. negotiate and close a JV VC deal
2. sing Handel’s Messiah twice in Beijing with the IFC
3. sing Handel’s Messiah twice in Shanghai with the IFC
4. inspect our company’s holdings in Shanghai (at least some)
5. end Maria’s MBA program (I won’t say more than just this stated fact, though there’s obviously SO much more details that can be had here, but suffice it to say we’re obviously not continuing with the program if we’re leaving the country)
6. pack and finalize moving details
7. sing at the British Ambassador’s residence (did I mention that? We sang carols. It was good)
8. move all the furniture in the apartment back the way it was (we had optimized it, but now we need to un-optimize it since we’ve not going to be using it)
9. have a tiny little family oriented engagement party (yes, that’s the other thing, we got engaged! I don’t want to dwell too much on this point either as I’m kind of running out of blogging steam, but it’s self explanatory isn’t it? We’ve been together for almost 3 years now! This upcoming February! And we look forward to the infinitely better water pressure and hot water temperature that the States has to offer)
10. have a massive Beijing friends oriented engagement/going away party in which we either drank through or gave away all of our remaining booze, of which there were, and somehow still are, lots
11. actually get my work visa and residence permit (yes, I realize the irony involved in 3 days before leaving a country finally getting the necessary paperwork and documents in place to stay in said country easily and indefinitely really. Let’s chalk it up to “well now I can come and go as I please”)

What else happened? I think that about sums it all up. The plan for these remaining days is to finish our packing, close some necessary accounts (telephone, internet, cell phone), actually ship everything we want, then do some last minute tourist stuff like see the Great Wall and the 798 Arts District. It takes something like moving out of the country to really motivate you to do those little touristy stuff that you never had a chance or the motivation to, though that’s mostly me. Maria’s been wanting to do these things for ages, but I guess we had planned to be here for a lot longer so there was almost always more time. Ah well, we’ll take care of it. I also plan to, once we’ve finished getting everything shipped, have a proper blog entry on the details regarding said process as at the moment the inter-web’s information regarding how best to cheaply but slowly ship your material from this country to the States is limited. I will rectify this missing bit of much needed information. Oh, and in the process of packing, I managed to kill one of my computer’s hard drives, but it’s ok, it was the system drive which for some stupid (but in the end alright) reason also housed the backup of the system drive. Chalk it up to me forgetting which partition sat on which physical disk, but it means I actually didn’t lose any DATA, of which I had a lot, and would have been very sad were I to have lost it. My RAID drives are fine, my one off data drive is fine, I only lost my system and the backup of said system. I couldn’t have actually planned it any better if I were trying, otherwise I could have lost my one off data partition…I hate data loss, and considering I was very careful with the drive even and can’t imagine why or how I managed to mess it up so much, it really just points out and highlights once again the necessity to own a massively large NAS. I’m shooting for the 8-bay QNAP NAS with 2TB drives. Haven’t decided what RAID level I want though, maybe just Mirroring, maybe 5 + hot spare, maybe 6 + hot spare. At minimum, with Mirroring, I’ll still have 8TB of storage versus my piddling little 1.5TB now, and it will be wonderful. Today was the first time I realized but Maria pointed out how there’s a sort of religious aspect to technology. It’s “thank God” I didn’t lose my data, and the appropriate feeling of “relief” and “fulfillment” from having a really good plan and system to handle it all. It’s like “fate” or “destiny” that I messed up where my system backups were stored, otherwise I would have lost data. So once again I thank whatever technology God(s) there may be.

Oh, and I fully intend to keep up my QQ accounts. Gotta grow and steal those vegetables, those “farm” animals, and now maintain my little vegetarian restaurant.

The IFC also had its first ever Gala Evening on September 11th. Inauspicious day I know, but it doesn’t seem to have made much of a difference in this country. It took place at Capital M Beijing, a very lovely restaurant at Qianmen actually. I was surprised by how fancy it was on the inside, and it had a huge patio with wonderful views of the gates and the Forbidden City. Perfect on a warm summer evening actually, very comfortable. The food looked good, though we didn’t actually eat any. I was there as a volunteer for the IFC, helping coordinate the evening, handle registrations, payments, attendee corralling, and singing even. We sang 3 songs between courses, to general appreciation. Either way, this just means that it was a very long and tiring day, but still nice! We’re thinking of heading on back to the restaurant at some point, get a nice, fancy dinner. Or apparently they have a lovely Sunday brunch special on the patio, which sounded like fun also. Another member of the IFC, Amanda, suggested it, because the price is like a quarter of the normal dinner prices, but the food is still good, and there are champagne cocktails.

Otherwise, my father has succeeded in selling off the rest of his shares in the restaurant, 25% of which the sales revenue goes to Maria, at some point, which will be great. I have a job offer jointly from FTC/Matrix, my father and cousin’s, respectively, companies, though they haven’t paid me anything, and have kinda gone silent as far as work for me goes. I was supposed to go on down south a bit to put up some wireless sensor network thingie, work on some remote medicine stuff, etc., but apparently there’s been some miscommunication between the multiple parties and what responsibilities were meant to be delegated, and I kind of feel like I’m left out in the blue with nothing to do, and maybe nothing coming to me. I was supposed to be paid already, and again at the beginning of October. I even turned down yet another job offer from another company because of this, and it’ll actually really piss me off if I don’t get paid. I made this mistake once, turning down a job for the job at the restaurant, and this is the second time I’ve turned down a job for some family opportunity and if it doesn’t work out well, huh, I guess that’ll just suck, short answer, huh?

Either way, it does feel like things are coming together, school, relationship, job, apartments, visa, etc., which is absolutely great actually. It’s taken a bit, but maybe it’ll start working out soon.

I also hadn’t blogged in a while, which is mostly the point of this entry. We’ve been sick, that’s all, and very, very busy. But as I look at the last post date, it hasn’t actually been that long somehow, just like, a little over a week. I wonder if it’s really the fact that being sick, being unable to sleep, being generically uncomfortable, has just made the time drag. Though we had a good time last week, hanging out together, sick, at home, watching movies and TV. I guess this week’s a bit different now, and everything feels more, specific in how they bother me, like the sickness, the lack of commitment from my “job,” because Maria’s started classes and is much busier during the day, and it would be great if I had things to do during the day as well as I had planned on it, but well, I’ve already written about how annoyed I am at my family, and I guess I may get even more annoyed at them…what does it take to have a steady job eh?

Maria has been invited to interview with both BiMBA and Tsinghua! I take this as a very good sign. She’s also basically finished with her Chinese Government scholarship application; those will go out to the States tomorrow. Since she started working on them there have been additions apparently for which she is also qualified so she may compile the necessary documents for those as well. Given our liking of Hong Kong, more on that later, I think she’s also going to apply to CEIBS, an international MBA program based out of Shanghai; much more expensive than the others, much more heavily focused on the finance side of things, much more recognizable to foreigners though less prestigious to the Chinese, but it couldn’t hurt to apply. She is also thinking of going into business with my father, though I think the “thinking of” is a little outdated since my father’s already added her to his business’ website and printed her new business cards for the new company. She is a “General Partner/Legal Associate” for a new portfolio company my father is starting to hold the myriad of other businesses he’s involved with. More details later, or not, if I’m not at liberty to say. All in all though, things sound very exciting for Maria. She’s also going back to the States around the end of April to see her parents, her sister, her nephews, and run her face marathon in Cincinnati, which, sadly, I will miss. But I will be cheering her on from over here, and eagerly awaiting her next marathon in October, the Beijing Marathon.

As far as myself goes, not much has happened. I’ve fully stepped back as full time manager of the restaurant, which is a good thing. When we left for Hong Kong, everything at the restaurant functioned smoothly as far as I’m aware so I’ll take this as a good sign that they don’t need me there every day so I can instead manage from afar and direct through my two supervisors I’ve promoted. Basically, I took one cook and one waitstaff and gave them more responsibility and money so that they can implement my policies and oversee the other employees. I will then direct the overall direction and come up with strategy and have them put them into action. I think this is the best way to handle it. Though I must say the whole process of having David and Yang Zhi exit the business and finding new partners is a total pain in the ass! Remind me never to do business with family. Oh, right, I still am, and am still planning to. Huh. But that brings up the complete and utter mess that is Chinese business bureaucracy. So I have checks that I can write on behalf of the company, and it pulls money out of the company’s bank account. These checks are individually numbered, have a stub, are in triplicate, and when I write one, I need to fill out a special check writing receipt, also in triplicate, fill out a special check writing ledger, and fill out a general money paid out receipt indicating it was by check, also in triplicate, and this receipt I have to fill out whenever I pay money out regardless also. I also have three “stamps” or “seals” or “chops,” each one for a different thing, one of which is used whenever I write a check by the way. The others are used whenever I issue a receipt to a customer, and the last one is whenever the company engages in business with another business through a contract. We’re talking old school, stamp it on a red ink pad first kind of seals, like in the yea olden days. I also have another ledger that I’m supposed to use to indicate money paid in and money paid out every day. I have another ledger that’s for keeping track of money in my bank account, which, by the way, I’ve never had to keep such records by hand ever since I’ve had a bank account, that’s what computers are for right? I will also soon have a specially designed printer that’s meant to only print receipts, and this will cost thousands of RMB and come equipped with a USB dongle that I need to give to the local tax bureau at the end of the month for proper accounting. That’s just a small sliver I’m afraid of the paperwork that now surrounds me.

Also regarding paperwork, our work visas may finally come trough. This last trip to Hong Kong was to get us on our third entry into the country, and this may be the last time we need to do such a thing. The only things missing from the work visa application were some work verification documents I needed and have thus obtained. The entire packet should get submitted relatively soon and with any luck, come this next time when Maria goes home to run and I go home and we go attend Miguel’s wedding, we’ll be coming back on our work visas and won’t have to leave for a year at a time, though of course we can leave if we like for vacations and such.

Hong Kong was great. We wanted to take some more time and actually make this visa trip into a vacation, so we were there for four days and three nights. We found a nice hotel in a nice part of town, though it wasn’t as nice as we thought it would be. First, the beds were hard. It’s my theory that all Asian beds are hard because the Seoul beds were hard, all Chinese beds are hard, and now Hong Kong beds are hard; I think a pattern is emerging. Second, there was no free internet, which is quite inexcusable considering we could get free internet in the subway stations. Third, the power adapter they provided us sucked! I had to jiggle it this way and that before it’ll work and when it did, it needed to be propped so that it wouldn’t wiggle back to a resting position and NOT work anymore. I ended up putting it on top of our suitcase and holding in place with a pair of pants.

Hong Kong was also humid, in March. Wow. I can’t imagine what it must be like over the summer. But it was warm, which was a nice change, but it reinforced my dislike for humidity. I think I just don’t like sweating. The food was very good though, and we took this opportunity to indulge in some good old fashioned Western food which isn’t available in Beijing. First, we gorged on Mexican food. We ordered a bucket (red six) of beers, nachos, chicken wings, a chimichanga, and two enchiladas and were stuffed! Next we gorged on Bubba Gump Shrimp Company. Yes. From the movie. This was on top of the Peak by the way, the highest point in the city with an utterly breathtaking view of the harbor and skyline. Apparently, if we paid 25 HKD more we could have gotten the unobstructed view, but I found it difficult to justify paying money for a view. The ride up to the peak was quite eventful as well: it was a funicular, and at times the grade was over 45 degrees steep.

Hong Kong itself is a city built in levels, with the world’s longest escalator connecting two of them. Lots of fun by the way. It’s very dense, and very tall. It reminded me of LA, San Francisco, and New York, all the cities I love. San Francisco for its hilliness, LA for it’s views of buildings when you’re in the midst of them, and NYC for the sheer verticality and density of it all, plus the mixture of the old and the new living side by side. If you add all these together, you would technically have the perfect place for me to live. It’s even cheaper than those three cities. But it’s humid! And there’s a monsoon season! NYC is also humid, but only for certain, specific, and short times in the year. For instance, NYC is not currently humid. Hong Kong is! All that aside, it was a beautiful place, and we got to hang out with some random Americans I met in my restaurant and struck up an acquaintance with. Very nice people, but very young; I just realized that I’m turning 27 this year, and the guy we went to visit, his younger sister was in town and she is a whole decade younger than I. We also hung out with his girlfriend and their friend from Australia. Good times.

I’ve kind of forgotten what else I wanted to say. I’m hoping to also churn out two more blog entries tonight as part of my writing project. I’m also a little unable to sleep.

So it’s quite late, and I’ve been tossing and turning in bed for a good while now. The issue is that I’ve been all of a sudden sick again, and it’s not been that great of an experience. I really do believe it’s due to the sudden changes in the weather and ambient temperature as opposed to any drastically low temperatures in and of itself; I don’t think my bodies knows what to do when things keep changing! It prepares and is ready for it to be warm or cold, but it can’t handle the shift, and so dies, metaphorically.

The point though, is that while I’ve been sick, I’ve been either not very productive at all, or decently productive on some of my web projects. So assuming I spend half my time productive, half of it not, and a good potion of the rest asleep or in a daze, accounting for time to spend with my Maria of course, I should have time left everyday to blog. Right? So why is it that I don’t, and why is it that it’s been nigh on three weeks since anyone’s updated this blog?

I think it has to do with the actual concept of blogging. Before now, as in, literally a couple of minutes ago, I was suffering quite contentedly in bed, unable to sleep, dreading the possibility that I might be disturbing Maria’s rest as well. And my mind was racing. I was thinking about my restaurant’s website (which isn’t up yet), my art website, which is up here, and some new stuff I’m planning to do for my choir, which, obviously, isn’t up either, neither is the West Campus site. Incidentally, this would be the first time I’m plugging my art website…everyone go and look at it! It represents the “best” of Beijing’s urban youth, or so the propaganda page tells me.

West Campus, incidentally, is a school I’m starting in Beijing! It will at first only offer year long intensive Chinese language and culture courses, hopefully starting Fall 2010, but will move on to offer full study abroad options for a liberal arts education, hopefully with a Fall 2011 availability so we can start searching for partner US institutions. Grandiose, no? They also get a website, one to provide information, brochures, contact information, and a way to register online…hmmm…I wonder if I’ll get paid for any of this web work; they’re all decently complicated…

Um…but yes my mind was racing, and I was even mentally ranting to myself, “hmmmm…this would make a good blog post.” So here I am, finally. Partly also due to he fact that I got tired of lying in bed unable to sleep and I wanted to spec. out the requirements for the IFC website.

So what this post will be about then is just a mish-mash of everything’s that’s been going on, with the hopes that it will make some greater sense, and that it will in some small way make up for the lack of anything interesting floating around here. Ah I’ve also modified the layout a bit to have static headers and footers; I’m not sure I like it…

So I think the restaurant’s a good place to start. We’re switching owners. My aunt and uncle, God bless them, are no longer going to be working with us, thank God. This means that we have to find somebody to buy out their 50% stake in the restaurant for $$$K, plus work out some way to repay the $$$K RMB that they “loaned” to the business to cover operational costs. Without going into too much of the details because I’m not entirely sure I’m at liberty to say at the moment, it’s being worked out, and it should be good.

What I am most excited about is the possibility of greater interactions with a local farm that my father is associated with. This should allow us to get good dairy and meat supplies, plus develop new foods like homemade cheese! I’ve been missing cheese in this country, and I have grandiose dreams of being Beijing’s one and only source for freshly made mozzarella. There is also the possibility that we may partner with another good friend of ours and jointly open yet another restaurant in the same complex as Connections. This will be a all vegetarian restaurant, specializing in fresh juices, fruit and vegetable cocktails, and entree size salads, something wholly lacking in this country. This will also entail greater cooperation with the farm as we will need to grow the entree salad vegetables, things like endive, mescalin, arugula, also things either lacking or inconsistent in this country, and which I will even admit to missing. Again, I have grandiose dreams of being Beijing’s one and only source for fresh, home grown, specialty vegetables.

I am also leaving my role as full time manager of the restaurant, mostly because it’s too time consuming. I have faith and confidence in my staff and the training I’ve provided them, and will still be on hand in a very part time manner, perhaps a couple of hours every other day. I’m going to promote on waitstaff and one cook to be my eyes, hands, and ears while I’m away, and they will be responsible in my absence. We’ve been kind of operating this way for the past week, mostly due to circumstance since I was sick, but also due to premeditation because I was just sick of being there 91 hours a week, and things seem quite smooth. Again, I have faith.

The only other thing interesting about the restaurant is that I think I’ve finalized with my choir, the IFC, the option of using Connections as their “home away from home,” or “home base,” the most pertinent bit of which would be the using of it as their ticket distribution hub. I needn’t tell you all the great benefits this entails. I had always wanted a stronger tie between the restaurant and my choir, and this provides it. Part of the reason why I got a piano for the restaurant was so that there can be impromptu rehearsals, sections, or other music related events, open mics, sing alongs, etc. that can happen at the restaurant and involve the choir. If I can be the one and only place to get tickets for our upcoming concerts, then that’s a step in the right direction. The website I’m spec’ing out for them is to give them the ability to handle online ticket sales on their own without using a third party service that charges an obscene service charge per transaction. Plus, it looks like my Epiphany music center idea may come to fruition at some point relatively soon as well, and all these things will work so well together I just know it.

Which is a great segue for that topic! I got Cary, my father’s business partner, interested in Epiphany. I think he’s always been half way interested, though no one’s taken the initiative to develop it really. My father had done some work, and I’ve built off of that to come to where we are now. Again, without going into too much details because I may not be at liberty to say, but it’ll be good, and it’ll be THE place to go for all your classical music needs in the “heart of Beijing” so to speak, or so the propaganda page states ;)

Also since I am no longer going to be the full time manager at the restaurant, I’m relegated myself to the status of “owner,” which means I get paid when the restaurant is profitable, or if and when that is. This means I’ve been on the prowl for a normal job, hopefully something in a programming vein. I had interviewed with and received a very decent job offer from Pixomondo, a visual effects company opening their Beijing office. Unfortunately, the timing had sucked because I was just getting deep into the running of the restaurant so I turned their offer down. Or more, I didn’t respond when they asked me if they could negotiate my offer with me…my defense on this issue is that I was really busy, as I’ve always been, and it was during New Years so things were extra hectic. But yes, I should have gotten back to them no matter what and it’s my bad for not. The point also being then that I feel awkward approaching them again since I sort of brushed them off earlier. I’ve also interviewed with Wokai.org, a micro-financing company. They’re in first round interviews, and they’re supposed to get back to me. And if any of you reading this know of any good PHP Programmer jobs, let me know! I’ve already been thinking about posting to this blog post photos of my new Connections menu, I think I’ll also post my resume. I NEED A JOB!!! PLEASE HELP!!!

Our visas are also expiring, again. This will be our, what, third entry? Haven’t figured out where to leave to yet, but need to soon, we have just under a week left to clear immigration. Part of the other reason a “normal” job sounds appealing is that they should be able to help me sort out my work visa issue. At the moment, the stand still is that VSM hasn’t gotten back to me yet on my employment verification letter, which is the last thing I need before one round of work visa applications with my father can be filed. They’ve sort of fallen off the face of the earth at the moment, I wonder if they’re alright…But since I’ve stepped back from the restaurant, this next trip promises to be much better, and longer, and more fun, I promise, my dearest Maria. I know I’ve been sucking lately, being sick, being busy, but I promise better times ahead.

Whoo I’m on a roll aren’t I! And real tag happy :)

Regarding Maria, since a lot I’m not at liberty to myself say, I will say that she did very well on the GMAT, finished her MBA applications to Tsinghua and BiMBA, is plowing her way through her Chinese government scholarships, was NOT late for any scholarships at Tsinghua or BiMBA, and has many promising projects coming up involving Chinese lawyer and my father. And that’s all I’ll say.

Let’s upload that menu now shall we? And don’t laugh at the over the top English; it hasn’t been edited yet.

Let’s also get the resume uploaded shall we? Download now

And now I’m feeling a little dehydrated and shaky. I should probably stop now as I think I’ve got most things covered, and those that I haven’t, I’ll try to list out real quick. I also need to upgrade this WordPress install before I’m finished.

1) We’re still looking for an apartment. We’ve had a reprieve because my mother’s not coming until June, but that’s feeling like it’ll be here real soon. We’re playing around with the option of living in the complex that Connections is in because we have so many things going on there (Connections, Epiphany, the new vegetarian restaurant), plus we also want to start our own business so it seems also appropriate, but there’s a lot of logistics involved with that mostly due to the fact that it’s commercial real estate and so is more expensive and lacking a kitchen and plumbing.
2) My best friend from high school’s wedding is coming up in mid-May, so we’ll be both going back to the US around then. Maria’s going to go earlier, see some family, and run her first marathon in Cincinnati! I will, unfortunately, be unable to attend. But this should mean we’ll have exciting things to look forward to come October and the Beijing marathon :)
3) I only need 40 some odd words to get to 2000 at this point, so I’m just stalling and rambling until then. It seems like a nice, round, number, and may very well be the longest blog post we’ve had. I had been toying with the idea of separating this one entry into multiple entries, and just post them all at the same time. But that also felt stupid. Not that this monster of a post isn’t stupid in and of itself, there’s just no lesser evil with those two choices…

Edit:

Already had to correct a couple of typos, and I just realize I never tested the new sites I’m developing in IE, because I don’t have access to IE anymore! I should get around to that huh…?

• 200 g (.46 lbs) extra-lean hamburger patty, pre-formed, individually-wrapped
• 1 sesame bun, preferably frozen
• Shredded white “cheese”
• “Pickles,” otherwise known as ZhaCai, literally “Pressed Vegetables” (no dill was harmed in the making of this pickle)
• Garnish: 1 lettuce leaf, sliced tomatoes and onions
• Seasoning: Salt, pepper, Worcestershire sauce, red cooking wine, cooking oil

Equipment:

• Spatula
• Saute pan and lid
• Stove
• Microwave
• Pizza oven

Directions:

• Season both sides of patty with liberal amounts of Seasoning
• Put patty in saute pan on high heat
• Cover with lid to cook
• When bottom looks “done,” flip, cover, and repeat
• When both sides look “done,” put in microwave for 1-2 minutes at your discretion
• Put back in saute pan to cook away any excess liquids that may have escaped while microwaving
• At this point, put sesame bun into pizza oven to defrost/toast
• Sprinkle top of patty lightly with “cheese,” then put into pizza oven to melt
• Wait 2 minutes for everything to finish in the pizza oven
• Place patty between sesame bun, top with Garnish, and you’re done!

To serve:

• Prepare a small pile of deep-fried, frozen french fries
• Create an elaborately European, but small, side salad, complete with vegetable “towers” and hash-patterned drizzles of dressing
• Arrange everything delicately in quadrants on a square plate
• Provide an individual crock of ketchup

Promise: This will NOT be how I serve my new hamburgers at Connections Bar & Grill. I just wanted to show just how far we’ve come and in such a short time.

Shortly after arriving in Beijing, I responded to an ad seeking teachers of legal English. “LegalCo” promised a light schedule and a few bucks, and I thought it might be interesting. LegalCo deals in teaching professional skills, law firm p.r., translation, and lawyer placement; I toured their office; I discussed with them my suitability for their available position (they had me penciled into their schedule before I even showed up, as it turns out) and I started doing things with them. They asked me to give a short talk on a topic of my choice within the field of Legal English to a promised audience of 100 students at one of China’s most prestigious universities, and I agreed. Thereafter they asked me if I’d like to tag along to a visit to one of China’s leading domestic law firms and dinner. Sounds good!

I probably spent too much time preparing for the lecture. I’ll return at some later date to the “Chinese people don’t take a schedule seriously” idea, but suffice to say that although they wanted to make sure I could fill 40 minutes, they still had to tell me to stop talking. Dude, I was on a roll, I had (legal writing!) powerpoint slides left, and I was enjoying listening to myself talk. :) I am a grammar fanatic, after all.

The day itself took forever, though. I was promised 250 yuan for a 30-40 minutes talk. The campus itself must have taken over an hour to drive to (in one of the LegalCo’s vehicles). Not to mention that it was pouring rain…anyway, the day began with me subwaying across town, walking to the car of the main employee I deal with at LegalCo (whom I’ll call S), and driving around trying to find this Australian tax lawyer, R, who was to give the talk at the Chinese law firm (on negotiation skills). We eventually found R, made it to the firm, found an elevator that would take us to the right floor– after some false starts, and got set up for his talk. The room filled with Chinese lawyers, most apparently no older than myself (although maybe the Asian gift of enduring youth affected my perception of their age). Many of the girls were dressed like American high school students. Sparkly dresses, tiered skirts, novelty shoes. What? The guys mostly wore jeans and dress shirts. I was wearing full formal suit-skirt and pumps, R was in a decently formal suit, and S at least wore wrinkled khakis. Even though I wasn’t on the schedule, a few people had questions for me too. I really wish I could understand the introduction that people give for me (in this case, by S). The law firm presented me with a neat little gift, formally presented, which turned out to contain a chunk of lucite with a dragon seal –functionally, a business card holder. Pret-tay nifty! Chinese paperweight!

Next step: after dropping off R, we drove to the University. The U has two campuses, one quite close to where I live. This was at the other campus. S admits he is not a great driver, and traffic was horrible, and the weather was also quite bad. We had picked up C, a Chinese law firm partner, at the law firm, so S and C and I drove first to the wrong town by accident and then to the right town, and to a fancy restaurant near the U. We had good food, a somewhat … inelegant meal, in terms of conversation, as I speak only English and C speaks only Chinese. S did some interpreting, but mostly went back and forth between speaking to his two guests. It was a neat place, we took pictures, and entertainment was just starting as we were leaving. I expect it was quite expensive, although of course I didn’t see the menu or the bill. Our event was supposed to start at 7, and at 645 we were still at the restaurant. Sigh. People just aren’t concerned with schedules? They also didn’t let me know when the bill came, and didn’t let me contribute. Apparently I’m the invitee, and it’s the inviter who pays. Plus they don’t let people who are just starting out, which apparently includes me, pay. Okay, for now! I only owe a thousand people already …

By the time we made it to the U, we were several minutes late and the room looked restless. It was packed, though, and no one looked like they were ready to give up their seat. A few people were standing against the back wall, too. We had some technical issues–resolved, and one of the speakers didn’t show (a guy from the British consulate supposedly was on a business trip). Whatever. Regardless, C and I got a million questions, and we didn’t end up leaving until 3 hours after we got there. Can I please go home now?

We packed S’s car with two more people, who we then dropped off (they have something to do with LegalCo…I think…they were never properly introduced). I got home so freaking late. So…30-40 minutes, eh? I returned home more than 11 hours after I left.

S is an interesting fellow, and he and his colleague D have explained to me their views on the Chinese legal system at some length. It is clear that China is in a transitional period, as western ideas of the rule of law and the desirability of avoiding corruption are gaining some ground, but the old ways prevail. Sounds like bribery is the way it is.

S also mentioned that he didn’t think it’d be hard for me to get a job in a domestic or international law firm. I told him: no hurry. For now, I’ve accepted a job as a “legal associate”–a very loose, part-time gig for Sean’s dad’s co. Still, I’m doing some legal work, and it’s very interesting. It is *not* California litigation (read: I have no experience in this area). So I am happy, but I am not actually content. I wasn’t planning to work here. I am supposed to be studying. As things are going, I think it unlikely that I will be happy with my GMAT score if I take it on the day currently scheduled. (Ignore, also, the fact that I don’t currently feel like going to business school.) The plan was to study, do my apps, learn Chinese. These things have *not* been my focus since showing up in this fancy city. I need to re-think, prioritize, and maybe even buckle down and work hard or some shit. Most unpalatable.

So I now own a restaurant! I am the general manager, and soon to be proper 25% owner. Or at least, all of this is pending actual finalization but for all intents and purposes I’m already doing the work and have been for no pay for some time. I’d like to think that I’m properly incentivized (huh…Firefox doesn’t think that’s a real word?) and so all my efforts, plus so much more effort in the future, will be worth it.

No matter what though, it is all terribly exciting. Imagining the renovations, because we’re changing the layout and the kitchen, imagining the new menu. Basically, this restaurant was already my father’s, but it’s not been doing too well per se, and my cousin, the previous general manager, wanted to change it to a YuNan Hot Pot franchise.

Hot pot for those of you not in the know is like Japanese shabu-shabu. In its simplest form: there’s a big pot of boiling water that you put vegetables and meats into to cook then eat. It’s really popular in China, among the Chinese, and especially in winter when it’s cold out. I’m not that into it myself though.

The restaurant was also supposed to be a Western restaurant, and the other shareholders didn’t want to move away from that idea. The new shareholders, plus myself, wanted to focus our direction. Right now, it’s like we’re a European restaurant, serving really fancy looking and sounding things like ox tongue salad and cylindrical potato salad with curry powder. All good in and of itself, I think since I’ve never had the desire to actually try it, but nothing out of the ordinary and just not good enough to draw the real fancy European crowd.

So we’re shifting focus. We want the tourists. We want the expats (the poor ones ;) ). We want the foreigners who are missing a good, old fashioned, American breakfast, pancakes and waffles and all, because you can’t get those in China! So all day breakfast, really good burgers and pizza, and apple pie! And beer, lots of beer, in bottles and on tap, and a soda fountain, and liquor…All the things that make diners in the States so good.

We’re working on the new layout right now, because we’re getting booths and opening up the new dining room in the back.

We’re working on the kitchen because they need more griddle space for the burgers and breakfast foods.

We’re finalizing the new menu (mostly me…) so we’re coming up with food we want to serve and how to cook it. Lucky me gets to cook all these things for the first time next week to a panel of tasters as well. This also means we’re setting up new suppliers.

We’re also getting new waitstaff and new cooks. It’s like starting complete anew, a clean slate. We’re writing hygiene regulations, I’m writing up employee operational procedures, I’ll need to write up the new recipes, I’m writing up employee incentives and review policies, we’re coming up with a whole new marketing strategy. It’s a big project, but I have high hopes.

My hopes and estimates, assuming we’re a raving success, which of course we will be, will have us making 3 million RMB a year, minus 50% to costs, split 4 ways.

I’m excited, scared, stressed, pressured. I’m anticipating having to work 100 hour weeks to get this thing off the ground, because we’re starting with a very skeleton crew, only 2 waitstaff and 2 cooks, plus me. But it will be worth it, I keep telling myself. No matter what it’ll be an experience.

Here’s the menu, as finalized as of two days ago :)

Breakfast

Breakfasts include one cup of coffee or choice of one juice
Toast comes with: Butter and a selection of Jam
Cheese varieties include choice of American, Swiss, Cheddar, or Mozzarella
Toppings for Pancakes, Waffles, and French Toast: Syrup, Fresh Fruit of the Day (e.g. Strawberries, Blueberries, Bananas), Chocolate Chips, Whipped Cream

Simple 1 � Two Eggs and Toast
Simple 2 � French Toast or Pancakes or Waffle
Chef’s Choice � Two Eggs, Two Pancakes, Two Strips of Bacon and a Sausage Patty
French Toast Combo � French Toast with Two Eggs and Your Choice of Ham, Bacon or Sausage
Three Egg Omelet � Choose any three of Cheese, Bacon, Ham, Mushroom, Spinach, Broccoli, Chile or Bell Peppers, Olives
Juices, Tea (refillable), Milk and Coffee (refillable) � Apple, Orange, Grapefruit, Pineapple, Tomato
Cereal and Milk

Create Your Own
Mix and Match Any Three � Bacon, Ham, Link Sausage, Sausage Patty, Eggs, Cereal, Grits, Fruit, Home Fries, toast, hash browns

Beverages

Beer On Top: Heineken, Yanjing, Tsingtao, Guiness
Juices, Tea and Coffee:
Apple, Orange, Grapefruit, Pineapple, Tomato
American Style Coffee; Espresso
Lipton, Oolong, Lapsang Suchong, Earl Grey
Full Bar

Burgers

All burgers come with French Fries
Double the patty for 10 RMB
Veggie or Mutton patty available for free

Chiliburger: Cheddar Cheese, Beef Or Vegetarian Chili
Classic Cheeseburger: American Cheese, Pickles, Onions, Lettuce, Tomato, Ketchup, Mustard, Mayonnaise
Hawaiian Burger: Mozzarella Cheese, Pineapple, Lettuce, Teriyaki Sauce
Italian Burger: Mozzarella Cheese, Marinara Sauce, Basil, served on Garlic Toast
Mexican Burger: Cheddar Cheese, House Special Hot Sauce, Lettuce, Cilantro, Sour Cream, Pico De Gallo, Chili Peppers

Create Your Own
Bun: Sesame seed hamburger bun
Patties: All-beef, veggie, mutton
Cheese: American, cheddar, Mozzarella
Sauces: Ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise, 1000 Island, ranch, House Special hot sauce, salsa, marinara sauce, beef/vegetarian chili, sour cream, Pico de Gallo, teriyaki
Toppings: Lettuce, tomato, onions, cilantro, pickles, sweet relish, grilled onions, grilled bell peppers, saut�ed mushrooms, chili peppers, pineapple, bacon, fried egg

Pizza

All pizzas come with tomato sauce base and mozzarella cheese, unless otherwise noted or created by yourself

Supreme � Onions, Bell Peppers, Black Olives, Sliced Tomatoes, Mushrooms, Pepperoni, Sausage
All Meat � Pepperoni, Sausage, Bacon, Ham
Vegetarian � Onions, Bell Peppers, Black Olives, Sliced Tomatoes, Mushrooms
Hawaiian � Teriyaki Sauce, Ham, Pineapple
Mexican: Cheddar Cheese, Chicken, House Special Hot Sauce and Salsa, Pico de Gallo, Cilantro, Chili Peppers
Margherita: Olive Oil, Fresh Basil, Sliced Tomatoes

Create Your Own:
Cheese: Mozzarella, Cheddar, Parmesan, Swiss, Stilton
Sauce: Tomato, Teriyaki, House Special Hot sauce, Alfredo, Olive Oil
Vegetables: Onions, Bell Peppers, Black Olives, Sliced Tomatoes, Mushrooms, Pineapple, Spinach, Chili Peppers, House Special Salsa, Pico de Gallo, Italian Seasoning
Meat: Pepperoni, Sausage, Bacon, Ham

Sides
Mozzarella Sticks: Marinara sauce dip
French Fries
Side Salad
Cup of Chili: Beef or Vegetarian
Chips and Salsa: House Special and Pico de Gallo
Spaghetti: Bolognese or Vegetarian Marinara Sauce
Soup of the Day, served with French bread

Breakfast Sides
2 eggs, any style
2 strips of bacon
2 sausage links or patties
2 pancakes
1 waffle
1 order of French toast
Hash browns
Home Fries
Toast
Yogurt

Sweet Things
Apple Pie
Date Squares / Apple Bars
Ice Cream
Fruit Platter

And for the sake of creating the necessary tags, the other businesses we’re involved in are:

FTC Art/Gen-Next
PDL
FTC

Maria is at a trial class today at Tsinghua University. I don’t remember if we had mentioned this earlier, but she wants to attend either there or Beijing University (Peking University) for their MBA programs; Tsinghua SEM iMBA and BiMBA respectively. They’re both “international” MBA programs, targeted to foreigners. It’s been three hours since I dropped her off; apparently it’s a long class.

Things are in progress as far as a whole slew of things that are going on.

Connections Bar and Grill: This is the restaurant that it appears I will be taking over shortly as General Manager. There’s been a good bit of family politics going on involving disagreements with the current GM and some potential investors, but that’s all being taken care of and I’d rather not get into the details and/or specifics because I’m not sure I should. Suffice it to say, I am figuring out how the current supply chain works, we have two cooks who can prepare everything on the menu, and one experienced waiter. This is a major staff cut, which just means a lot of work for me. The idea is to keep the restaurant afloat until the NEW restaurant can come to fruition. We’re changing the focus entirely, moving away from the relatively fancy fare to simpler stuff: all day breakfast, burgers and pies. Did you know you can’t really get a decent Western breakfast anywhere in Beijing? Specifically, pancakes and waffles! Same with pie?! So the new menu will have full breakfast, specialty burgers, and seasonal pies. My first task will be to keep Connections running AS IT IS until the new investors are ready and the new direction is ready, then we can close down the restaurant, renovate the kitchen and interior, print up new marketing, and “turn over a new leaf” as it were. This blog will soon be filled with excruciating detail about the whole “running a restaurant” schtick.

More is going on now with the Swiss helicopter people. New/additional investors have been found.

The idea behind Epiphany (that idealistic one where we want to imbue passion into the musical souls of the masses of musically educated but passionless Chinese through social music making and performance thing) has been shifted a little; we are out of money, don’t have the original venue we wanted (though I think we have a new and even better venue, right behind Connections and on the 10,000 sqm roof of the complex), but we’re moving forward. I think the idea now is to find other people who do have money and steer them in the proper direction.

A new company was formed to handle some “Remote Medicine,” whatever that is; apparently it might be relevant to something one of Maria’s good friends does, so we will be in touch with him.

Cow Farm! Mmmmmmmmmmmmm, I think we want fresh milk, yogurt, and cheese…

FTC Art and Gen-Next (the young, urban, born post 1980s, Beijing artists thing) is moving along nicely. I’ve got all the separate bits working now, the only thing left to do is tweak and perfect the silent bidding system. As I look at the scale of this project I’m doing for my father, it’s surprisingly how large it’s gotten. In one of the older posts I broke down all the different bits of it, but suffice it to say, I might be undercharging him for only 700 USD. Either way. This will be online soon, expect its announcement here. This may be the only place online to find the modern art of Beijing for sale…and I’m not talking about a specific person’s personal site; we’re actually gathering and representing currently 8 but soon to be many more artists and their works.

Oh, and I guess I’ll be doing something very similar with fashion…? I have very little details about that right now.

Maria will also be taking a trial class at BiMBA on Thursday. She’s going to study for the GMAT all day tomorrow, that’s happening relatively soon.

Well this post is long enough, the original idea was just to introduce expat-blog, so I’m going to end with that.

As an aside…I’m wondering if I should re-vamp my tagging system…

I know, the original point was for convenience, same with the cell phone (I have to text “YE” to some number to check the balance, then call some other number to refill it using a card I buy from a newspaper stand…?…), but I’m finding it to all just actually be a complete pain! Why can’t I give them my bank account, and they’ll just bill me, like it is in EVERY other civilized country that I’ve been in? I don’t want to have to go out and make sure I fill my cards, of which I’m going to have many, and make sure to swipe it in front of the electric meter or I’ll have my power turned off. Just take my stupid money, please!

So that was the rant against prepaid stuff. Just as a point then, in case anybody is reading this…

Gas and electric utilities are prepaid, you’ll see a meter that indicates how many “units” you have left at the meter. If you’re low, below 200 for electric, I don’t know what for gas, you can swipe your card at it and it’ll refill it. You get this card from I don’t know where, and you refill it at a bank. It was much easier in the States when they just took money out of my checking account.

Cell phones you can buy from any China Mobile store, and you can pick the type of plan you want. There are two kinds of prepaid, plus one that’s more traditional and akin to the contract plans in the states. You refill your prepaid phones using cards you buy from newspaper stands and the likes. There’s a scratch off spot that’ll have a special password code that you enter when you call some number from your phone and this’ll add the balance.

Only locals, meaning people with ID cards, can sign up for telephone and DSL service. There’s a form in triplicate that needs to be filled in, all in Chinese, then you take it to a guy behind a teller and they give you what you want. Since it’s DSL, and DSL only, you’re bandwidth is limited by the type of line that’s in place, and since my current apartment, great though it is, is in a very old part of town, my available speeds are limited by the old lines. Of course, I can shell out to replace the ENTIRE block’s lines, but that’s a whole other can of beans… The real problem with this method of signing up for phone and DSL service is that if you want to make any changes to it, you need to bring along the original person that registered it for you. So when we first got to the apartment, the service had lapsed for some reason because somebody wasn’t paying it for some reason and I had no idea who it was so when I went to the telephone bureau or whatever it was called with my cousin to try to sort it out and get our service reinstated, they couldn’t do anything because we needed the original person who registered it there with us, and of course, we have no idea who that is! Apparently, if we were unlucky, they wouldn’t have been able to set up service without this “person” there. So I spent a harrowing afternoon and much time on the phone trying to track down who the original person was, and if they’d be able to come with me to the telephone bureau to sort things out. Obviously, we were lucky, and that particular branch of bureaucracy decided to ignore the original person. But still, it’s pretty annoying.

And now the phone doesn’t work for some reason even though I’m sure it was working when the people came to install my service and I had originally thought that since there was a slot for batteries and no batteries that getting batteries would fix it but it didn’t and now I have no idea what’s wrong with it and I just want a landline phone because I’m paying for it damnit and it’s free to receive phone calls so it’s cheaper than my cell phone to use if someone’s calling me and now my father thinks it’s the new DSL line that killed it and if that’s the case, then I have no idea what to do…

So the word of the day is…CONVOLUTED!

But as the title says, EVERYTHING’S GOOD!

Everything is actually so very good, it’s absolutely great. It’s been three weeks, and even longer soon and we’ll be celebrating our one month anniversary of moving to China. Impressive how quickly the time has flown.

Perhaps our greatest triumph of recent note is acquisition of cheap produce. And I mean CHEAP. For the equivalent of $1.50, we purchased 3 lbs of bok choy, a bulb of garlic, a huge thing of ginger, one whole leek, 1.5 lbs of spinach, 5 tomatoes, and 1 head of napa cabbage. For the equivalent of 20 cents, we bought a block of fresh tofu. We also got 6 eggs, and two apples, spending in totality less than 3 dollars. And everything’s fresh. We had originally be stymied when it came to purchasing produce because, I suspect, we live so close to the center of town, where it’s very much a tourist part of town, so the usual on the street vendors of vegetables are lacking. So I did some exploration, clued in by some sightings of produce that Maria had this morning on her run, found that what she saw was actually people selling non-edible plants, wandered around randomly some, and came upon this trove of edible greenery, tucked away in some completely out of the way alley.

So that’s part of the everything’s good.

Another part of what’s good, though this may be more neutral in its respects, are all the “businesses” we’re involved in, and the quotes are there to indicate some vacillating on my part in declaring these are viable, things that I want to be involved with businesses, or “head in the clouds” type things that may be best touched with a ten feet stick.

But, to count, we are, I am, Maria may be or is (I’m lumping things together):

1) Becoming part owners of a Western style restaurant, of which I will be the general manager of. This restaurant will need to be renovated and retrofitted from its original inception into an “All Day Breakfast” and “Burgers and Pies” place, with alcohol. I have a plan to make this a 2 million yuan a year business (that’s 300K US) and to have it be self sustaining within a year so that I can move on to more important things, like expanding the restaurant onto the GORGEOUS roof that we have open to us.

2) Creating a online gallery and silent bidding system for the world at large to purchase “Young, Urban, Beijing” original art created by the born in the post 1980s crowd.

3) A good bit of fund raising, apparently…

4) Something to do with Swiss helicopters…?

5) Something to do with proteins…

6) Editing essays and/or teaching Legal English.

Obviously, some of these have more well formulated actual ideas than others. It’s all a lot of fun, but quite busy heh.

Um, but everything is good, and it’s late, and I can’t sleep, but I really should, and my schedule’s all messed up but I intend to fix it, if I have to stay up all night I will fix it. The idea being, I will get up tomorrow, if I sleep, and stay up all day, and I’ll be right as rain again.

Speaking of rain, the weather’s been lovely here! Perfect Fall, actually, something I realize I’ve not seen in a while.