…or “why I suck at it.”

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 VS Media 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…?

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Posted by sean x. l. on March 8th, 2010 - 3:21 am
Filed Under :: china
Tags :: apartment, blog, business, Connections Bar & Grill, epiphany, IFC, job, racing, rambling, travel, visas, vs media, West Campus

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Having successfully hopped, skipped, and jumped over to Korea for the sake of sorting out our visas, I thought I’d put down some of my thoughts on the entire process and Korea in general.

1) Everything’s expensive there, basically the same price as in the US, but in won, which makes everything looks horribly expensive because it’s just about 1,000 times more worthless than the dollar. So a can of pop will set you back 1,000 won…

2) Hotels, transportation, entrance fares, etc., i guess this means durable goods and services, cost the same as the US. Our hotel was 135,000 won a night and it wasn’t that good. Food’s thankfully cheaper, especially the good Korean food, with lots of yummy sides!

3) It is quite a short flight from China, so if you really need to sort out your tourist visa and get in on your next entry, it’s not a bad choice, though, as mentioned, expensive. It only takes like two hours, and there’s good public transportation from the Seoul airport. But it’s far! ICN, the new one, the only international one, is 75 km away from Seoul. It takes an hour and a half by public transportation bus, probably longer by subway (we didn’t want to try it), and supposedly an hour by taxi, but that’ll set you back 100,000 won, or 100 dollars.

4) Do take the subway to try to get around. The maps are convoluted, they actually try to draw the lines to scale and have every little turn show up, but they go everywhere, are quick, inexpensive, and relatively frequent, though not as frequent as Beijing’s. Seriously, the maps suck; they’re dense, they’re angular, and one map doesn’t look the same as the next so there’s no consistency and where a station was on one isn’t where it is on another. It’s just all wrong. And the colors all look the same to me…

Otherwise the subways are more than sufficient as a means of getting around; certainly better than LA’s ;)

5) They do all sort of speak English, sorta, kinda, not really. I’ve never been comfortable with the idea of going to an Asian country that I don’t speak the language in, this is why. It’s like, there’s lots of good looking street food, but I can’t ask if it’s vegetarian for Maria to eat. The good news is that the language is not tonal like Chinese, so you can read and pronounce it as it looks when written in English. The written language also looks pretty good; I think Maria and I had figured out some of the underlying patterns by the time we left.

6) We were able to get street food though, and very good ones: baked goods shaped like a fish with sweet red bean paste in it. The lady was making them on this huge, rotating waffle iron type machine with fish molds on it. We had been walking around for a while that night actually, looking for street food, unwilling and not ready to call it a night without more dessert.

7) In China, anyone staying the night has to register within 24 hours with the local police department; tell them you’re here, where you’re staying, give them a photo, etc. These usually last for as long as your visa allows you to stay in the country. So like good little foreigners, we had registered immediately when we first got there, and like good little foreigners, we had left the country before both our visa and police registration had expired. We assumed that this meant we had some leeway on the whole “24 hours, must be registered” thing, because technically our previous registration hadn’t expired. NOT TRUE! Apparently, it’s whenever you enter the country, you have 24 hours to present yourself to the local police department. Not that anyone gave us trouble with it since we were a full day late, but, well, I can see problems arising.

8) As far as personal updates go:

a) My IFC concert has been postponed due to difficulties in getting the required government approval to sing Handle’s Messiah
b) Renovations at my apartment may finally finish, next week; there’s light at the end of that tunnel
c) I’m not sure I want to work for my father anymore…but that’s a much more complicated matter that I’m not sure I want to touch upon here
d) My great uncle passed away Monday morning. He’s the first of my relatives to pass away for me, and the first funeral that I will be attending this coming Sunday morning
e) As great as this apartment is that I’m staying in, I’m not sure I want to any more either, considering that at some point my mother and her entire family will show up, and most likely for a lengthy period of time.
f) I am still sick. Blah.

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Posted by sean x. l. on November 26th, 2009 - 12:42 pm
Filed Under :: china, reference
Tags :: funeral, reference, Seoul, tips, travel, visas

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We’re finally here! And there’s so much to talk about but so little time and really energy on my part to write it. We left Sunday night/Monday morning, one of those effective vs. actual thingies. We had a little trouble getting our carry ons approved by the airline. Apparently, there’s a 7 kg weight limit, which is just over 15 lbs. Now my thinking is, my laptop probably weights 7 lbs, Maria’s laptop weights probably 5 lbs, and then there’s the actual bag itself and we’re pretty much at 15 lbs now aren’t we? So I’m thinking, this is entirely, and completely, unreasonable. Thankfully they didn’t ask to weigh my laptop bag, but our two actual pieces of carry on, as in none personal item, had to be weighed. After a good bit of complaining, I managed to convince them to let me take one of them; we had to leave one behind with my father to bring over. It’s a little unfortunate because we had planned on having the contents of that bag with us, so we’ve been a little under stuffed while we were here.

At the gate, some kind of middle management looking official for the airline with too much time on his hand gave me a similar amount of hassle for the one bag that I was able to bring on. He said it’s too heavy, I said if it’s too heavy, how come I was approved by the lady at the terminal to bring it? (I neglected to inform him that I had wheeled and dealed my way into that one…) I think my logic was overwhelming enough that even though he threatened to get his supervisor to come look at the bag, as I passed him on my way up the plane we simply exchanged polite nods and smiles. So we were on our way, properly!

The flight was uneventful. Taipei was hot and humid, like mid 80s at 6 in the morning. It took us forever to find our terminal because their flight information TV screens scrolls really slowly, and Maria wandered around and got us some drinks while we waited. The flight to Beijing was uneventful as well. And I think they must have made some kind of policy changes at the Beijing airport but immigration was VERY easy to get through. It’s like they’re trying to make sure they do everything quickly. We got through the health inspection with no problems, although I found the infrared fever sensors neat, got through immigration with no problems and faster than I’ve ever done so before, got our bags (the bright green ribbon really helped, I’m glad we chose that color to adorn them with), and waltzed through customs with nothing to declare without any issue.

We met my cousin at the airport, got two taxis, filled them both with our suitcases, and left the airport. Having surpassed all necessary gate keepers, we had made it to China.

The taxi ride was, again, uneventful. I couldn’t help noticing all the young trees that they had planted, all the construction projects going on, and just how different the skyline really looked. Apparently, and it may be wrong, but there are 40 million people all trying to live here, so I can understand the need for more and more apartment complexes. But it’s perpetually building, and not like in the States where there’s some foreman wearing an orange vest talking on a phone not really doing anything; work is actually being done. It’s also the 60 anniversary of some National Holiday for the Communist Party? So everything’s being adorned with very pretty flowers and there’s been lots of military exercises apparently. There’ll be 8 days off work for these people come early October.

That first night we dropped our stuff off at my father’s apartment, then walked over to the local grocery store to purchase some supplies, notably shampoo and conditioner. My cousin went with us and he gave us the general feel for the neighborhood. Obviously, we had no good idea which one was the conditioner, but there were lots of very nice Chinese women working for the grocery store who tried to help. We also got soap, toothpaste, and Diet Coke, or more precisely Coke Light. My grandparents had been napping when we arrived, but were awake now and were able to instruct us on how to get our temporary residency cards.

We went down to the local police station, a monument to bureaucracy with shelves and shelves of exactly the same colored and shaped binders. The lady who helped us was very nice, though we had to wait a little bit because she was dealing with some other people before us who had a whole slew of issues to complain about. Again, and I think this is new, but like at the airport and immigration, there were these little buttons with cartoon faces on it, from very happy looking to very sad, meant for us to use to rate their performance. Since this was our first time registering, we needed photos so we walked half a block to a photo store where a very decently Photoshop savvy Chinese woman took our photos, cropped them down to the appropriate size, adjusted all the levels manually, straightened, and duplicated into a grid of fours to print for us. By this point, our temporary residency cards were ready, and we headed back to my father’s apartment to chat with my grandparents.

In short, they’re old. 93 my grandmother and 95 my grandfather. We wanted showers, and to spread things out a bit. We all agreed to get dinner along with my cousin and his wife.

I think I’ll end it there for now. I just got called by my grandmother to go and get lunch. I still need to write all about our adventures yesterday, but I’ll leave that for another time, NOT another day, and hopefully this blog will be all up to date.

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Posted by sean x. l. on September 23rd, 2009 - 8:42 pm
Filed Under :: china
Tags :: beijing, china, family, travel

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This may be a long post; readers forewarned.

Completely irrelevant to anything regarding the actual “meat and potatoes” of this post, I have a suspicion that the Blogger suite of sites, particular its Javascript and maybe some of the $_SESSION options, don’t work with the latest version of Firefox on a Mac. Granted it’s just a suspicion, but it’s very buggy how it does or more importantly does not work very smoothly. I’m using my desktop right now and the entire user experience is just so much better.

Also sort of irrelevant, I feel as if I’m almost just cruising through my days, and that each one of them kind of swings on by with a surreal tinge, like I’m watching myself live my life, day to day. It’s definitely related to how close I, we, are to leaving, my own envy related to Maria’s not having to work anymore, and a general sort of distractedness due to all the logistics involved in making the upcoming move a reality. Not that it won’t be a reality, that much is guaranteed, but more that it’s all almost overwhelming in some ways that as far as my actual work is concerned, I just can’t seem to be that concerned. Not that I’m slacking off at work, or doing any less than the best that I can; it’s just lost some of its glamor.

More irrelevant, but at least short: Google runs my life, and though a little narcissistic and probably creepy, I’m listening to my own music as I write this.

Relevantly, my trip back East and to OH was a HUGE success. Mmmmm and I just can’t help it with my silly references…Nonetheless, it was so. The flights out to NYC went by without a hitch. My aunt dropped me off at the airport on the day of, which would be last Thursday, everything was on time, and my Emily picked me up from LGA. New York was hot. And humid. Much more so than I remembered. Apparently it was also thunder storming, but thanks no doubt to my arrival, all that stopped. The days were beautiful, but hot and humid. Sweating up a storm. Reminds me of the stories I’ve heard of India in the summers; three showers a day.

Friday was spent first at SLC where I said “hi” to as many of the people that were there that I knew, saw the new food service provider, whose offerings look very appetizing, did a minor bit of networking care of my Emily, then lunch at Wild Ginger, where I’ve had lunch so many times yet its allure never diminishes. They’ve made a couple of changes, not altogether bad ones at that. Then it was a hop on to the subway to go to the Planetarium at the Museum of Natural History to watch the star show, as narrated by Whoopi Goldberg. Yup. So much fun :)

Dinner was at Citrus, the Spanish/Japanese fusion place, where due to my not enjoying sushi in most forms I had a nice angel hair pasta. We also discovered that though my friends claim to be sushi eaters, they do not appreciate the as I’m told finer sides of sushi that entails such “delicacies” as Uni or sea urchin roe.

I also realized on that trip that I have no idea what “Combos” are, and still don’t (Sorry Emily! I promise to eat them soon!). I do have a bag of such though and they’re sitting on my desk.

Some hanging out on my Emily’s floor, watching Seinfeld, watching Warlock play Street Fighter 4 ended the evening, and Saturday was off to the airport. Now the original plan had been to hop on an Amtrak and make my way up to first Boston then RI where I had wanted to visit with Maria’s Emily and her husband and their newborn nephews. Not that I don’t still want to, but the logistics involved in making that particular leg of my journey East and to OH a reality proved beyond my abilities, for the time being. I would still like to meet them, and obviously Maria enjoyed her time there a lot, and I plan to, but that will have to wait until another day.

I made it to OH without a hitch, even flying through ORD. And I’m only realizing now that these posts may make more sense if I provided things like external links. I’m not about to go through this currently exceptionally lengthy post and make the links, but at least going forward, if I remember, where appropriate, they may surface. Um, but OH. Ohio is quite beautiful. I half joked that I enjoyed it for its fields, its grass, the low laying hills, small streams and rivers, very Shire like. The other half of it well, I really do enjoy it. My Sarah made an interesting point that part of the appeal of living in places like the Mid-West may be to get away from all that is hectic about living in the big cities, and that the simplicity it offers may be a true comfort, and that though this sounds very appealing, it may be in a way be viewed as giving up on the complications. Still.

I was picked up from Toledo, OH by Maria and her Sarah, who was a lovely person and who had a lovely daughter. Findlay itself I found very appealing on a couple of levels. The homes were gorgeous, the “downtown” historic and very walkable, the cicadas or as they call them “locusts” very soothing. And you know I have the same feelings about NYC, minus the simplicity. Sitting with my Emily outside the Museum of Natural History and people watching, then walking the Upper West Side falls under the category of things I’ve enjoyed most in my life. OH! And we got tea, at Alice’s Tea House (Thanks to Kimmie), where I managed to enjoy that elusive specter of fresh made scones and clotted cream. Delicious.

I finally got to meet Maria’s parents, which was tremendous. They have a lovely house by the way, very Mid-West in my romanticized mind. They took me to Dietz’s (I hope I spelled that right) where we got ice cream. Maria’s bringing me caramels too :). We then walked to the tail end of a hot air balloon festival, and though there were none in the air by that time, that would have been the first time I’ve ever seen them, and I was excited. Maria and I then walked up Main St., literal “Main St.,” not “proverbial” or “metaphorical” in any way. We passed a couple of bars where they were playing a game that involved tossing sandbags into a hole a little bit away…I don’t understand. We walked to a coffee house where Maria had OH Boba. It was attached to a bookstore that had an entire section devoted to “old” books, the sorts of books with character. We sat on big comfy couches, drinking our respective drinks, watching the street outside. It was freezing in there. One thing I will say is that though purported to be worse, OH was actually much less warm and humid than NYC, surprisingly, but with all places that do get warm and humid in the summers, they love their AC, and blow up a storm. And though my feet were killing me by then, we walked around the University of Findlay, which has a lovely campus and one of those picturesque calendar worthy main slash original buildings. Apparently they specialize in mineralogy and toxic waste removal.

On Sunday Maria’s mother was kind enough to make Zuppe Toscana, that wonderful soup of potatoes and cream and Italian sausage they make at the Olive Garden. She was kind enough to send us the recipe and so I shall be making it, vegetarian of course for Maria, but maybe with those properly spiced tofu Italian sausages they have in the fancy vegetarian sections of the grocery stores, the idea being that the veggie version was lacking some spice.

I was supposed to leave on Sunday. Maria’s cousin dropped by and offered to take us to the airport, not that Maria was leaving with me yet, but they wanted to catch up, and we all chatted in the car and once again, a lovely person.

We get to Toledo airport, I say my goodbyes, I try to check in to my flight, and it’s canceled. All flights in and out of ORD are canceled. Bah! And the reason behind such inconsideration, “weather.” I had two choices: they would pay for a taxi to take me to Detroit where there was a “chance” that I “may” be able to get on a flight that will get me in Monday afternoon, late for work anyways. My other choice was to rebook for the same set of flights, 24 hours later. I opted for the second since it looked like I was going to be missing work no matter what.

Hmmmmmm, and it appears I’m getting things confused. Zuppe Toscana was Monday’s lunch, my last meal in OH. Sunday was Panera, my first and only experience there, and they had lovely iced tea and an equally lovely clientele. After that we went driving around Findlay and its outskirts. Lots of country side, things that amazed this particular city boy. Things like fields of corn and soy beans :) We also made our way over to the reservoir which was large enough to have boats sail on, then over to a local park with a boardwalk around a man made lake. I don’t know why, but I have an affinity for man made bodies of water. It actually really reminds me of China, and were I not so sure that I was in OH, I would have been able to convince myself that we were in one of the palaces in Beijing.

So after my flight was canceled, back to the original chronology of the story, we went to a Chinese fast food place and all sat around chatting. Maria’s mother was there as she had gone to Toledo to visit the mall to do a little shopping before she has lunch with the governor of OH. Neat. So though annoying, I managed to get an extra night with my Maria, in OH. I suppose worth it ;)

The next day we slept in; we needed it. Maria had had very little sleep while in RI with her Emily and the twins, and I, well, don’t know how to take care of myself heh. I was also determined to get back to LA no matter what. And to that end, I was relatively successful, as successful as is possible I suppose given the circumstances. My flight that was supposed to depart at 6pm didn’t leave until 9pm. I got in quite late, and had an interesting experience catching a cab in LA. I think that would be only my second time ever in one in LA. I walked up and down the terminal a good while before I figured out what I was supposed to do, which was join the relatively long line all waiting for a cab.

So, in short, I would like to call that a success. I’m a little distracted right now with something that’s come up with work, so I hope it’s not too apparent that I’m rushing a little to get this post finished. But as always, I hope to write more tomorrow.

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Posted by sean x. l. on August 21st, 2009 - 3:00 am
Filed Under :: pre-china
Tags :: friends, small town, travel

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So it’s been a while since I’ve posted, mostly due to the fact that I was at first at my mother’s after last Tuesday, then hopping across the country first to NYC then Findlay, OH. To be short for now, because I’m exhausted, it was a very good trip, and I got to meet Maria’s immediate family, her best friend, and her cousin, which actually set my mind at east an awful lot; I had been exceedingly worried that they’d be worried that she was heading out of the country with some homicidal maniac. I think they liked me. I certainly liked them a lot.

I also got to see my Emily. I’m making the distinction here because Maria’s Emily is her sister, the one with the twins, not to be confused with mine, the one in NYC. I also got to see Charlie, Kimmie, and a whole slew of people I hadn’t seen in a while, all of whom I really wanted to see, so, again, in short, the trip was a relatively huge success. The only minor hiccup would be that my flight back to LA was canceled due to “weather” in Chicago. This accounts for why I’m a day later than I originally thought and much more exhausted than I originally thought, which is why I’m going to end it for now, to continue tomorrow.

Also, I think my countdown’s getting a little out of hand. I think the new date of departure is going to be September 21st, 2009. Not to say that September 11th, 2009 is not of equal importance. That WILL be my last day at work. Ah I also got to see my Sarah, again the distinction being that Maria’s Sarah is her best friend who lives in OH, and some other people, and it’s just been so busy I can’t seem to end this shortly though I ever so badly want to.

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Posted by sean x. l. on August 19th, 2009 - 5:53 am
Filed Under :: pre-china
Tags :: family, friends, travel

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