Dubya Dodging Shoes

I had to laugh when I saw the video of George Bush dodging shoes thrown at him by an Iraqi reporter. The reporter, it seems, was expressing his dissatisfaction with our president, and in the Iraqi culture, throwing shoes at someone is supposed to be an extreme insult. If this is the worst punishment that Dubya receives for his failed and criminal presidency, he should consider himself lucky. Frankly, I think the guy who threw the shoes will receive a much harsher punishment.

In some ways I feel kind of sorry for George Bush Jr. Except for the brief moment after 9/11, he's never really been a popular president. At his inauguration, people were throwing eggs at him and the limousine he was riding in. It was a cold, wet, and rainy day. There was still much doubt about whether he legitimately won the election. Since he had lost the popular vote to Al Gore, many of us simply did not accept him as the "real" president. Now, as he prepares to leave office, his approval ratings are the lowest of any president in history, even Richard Nixon! His fellow Republicans are are avoiding him like the plague, since just being associated with him will damage their careers. Indeed, the Republican party has pretty much been decimated because of this man. Most of the country now eagerly awaits for January 20, 2009, when Bush finally gets the hell out of office.

"January 20th cannot come soon enough!" is a comment that I see quite often on political blogs. How true it is.

Bush must be feeling some envy for Barack Obama. Once Obama takes over next year, you're going to see an entirely different scene come inauguration day. Much like Obama's election victory in November, it's going to be a major celebration. People will be crying tears of joy once again. There is finally light at the end of the tunnel and the country will finally be able to heal itself from the damage of the past eight years. I'll probably get an email from someone out there telling me that nothing will change, and that Obama is just as bad as any other politician. Whether that's true or not, the point is that Obama is not Bush. For a lot of us, that's all that's important. Let's see if Obama has any shoes thrown at him in the next 4 to 8 years. I'm guessing he won't.

Wall-E and the Strange Behavior of Children

I often get the feeling that my children are stranger than other children. I'm sure their behavior is perfectly normal, but I still feel that way.

I recently bought the movie "Wall-E" for my kids to watch, and for some reason my son Kyle has just become obsessed with Wall-E. Every morning when I take him out of his crib, he starts to say "Walleee! Walleee! and he will go and grab the dvd and carry it around ALL DAY.

I have "Wall-E" on blu-ray dvd, which, for those who don't know, is a high-definition dvd. It's kind of expensive, so I don't really like Kyle playing with it as a toy. However, when I try to take it away from him, he goes crazy and starts crying. He won't be quiet until I give the dvd back to him. I tried to think of a solution to this problem, so I printed out a picture of Wall-E on the computer. It didn't work. He just threw the picture on the floor. For some reason he only wants to hold the dvd. So I decided to buy him a five dollar Wall-E doll which I bought from the Disney Store. I'm hoping he will take to the doll the way he takes to the dvd and forget about the dvd.

So now I've got a daughter who's obsessed with her "Night Night" blanket and a son who's obsessed with "Wall-E." Oh well, I guess it could be worse.

(Pictures: The real Wall-E and the Wall-E doll that I bought for Kyle.)

Christmas Parties - Round 2

On Saturday night, we attended another company Christmas party. This time, it was for my company. Fortunately, both me and Christy were able to attend this time, instead of one of us having to stay and watch the kids. We found a babysitter, and they agreed to watch the kids for $12 an hour.

Unfortunately, finding the babysitter's house proved to be a total nightmare. We were driving at night to the city of Round Rock, following directions that we got off the "Mapquest" web site. We got lost, and we ended up driving on toll freeways four different times. On two different occasions I was in the wrong lane to pay the toll, and a camera snapped a picture of our car, no doubt to send us a bill in the mail in the near future. I didn't really Texas had so many toll roads. I wasn't used to it. In Taiwan, all the freeways require you to pay a toll (about every 15 miles or less), but I thought most freeways in America were actually "free." Eventually, after turning around a couple of times (and therefore paying the toll again), we finally found the babysitters house, and we got to the party about 30 minutes late. No big deal anyway, since most people don't show up to parties on time anyway.

The hotel was nice, but the food was surprisingly simple (pasta with marinara sauce, or ham were the main entrees.) We stayed for a little over two hours, until they gave away the four "door prizes." The "door prizes" were four $50 gift/debit cards that you can use anywhere. So the company gave away about $200 in free gifts to 4 people (out of at least a thousand people there.) Not exactly big spenders, but I guess that's just a sign of how bad the economy is right now. I remember the last company I worked for in America, many years ago, used to give out thousands of dollars worth of prizes, to at least 20 different guests. Times have really changed.

(Pictures: 1. A blurry Santa. 2. Christy and two co-workers. 3. One of my co-workers with her husband. 4. A view of the crowd. 5. Another co-worker and her husband (this couple is pretty interesting, actually. She's from Panama City, and her husband is an ex-Army soldier who met her during the American invasion of Panama.)

Riding Out the Recession

It seems like everyone is affected in some way by the economic crisis that's happening here in America. My ex-wife just mentioned on her blog that she was laid off. My friend Jerry Yen told me recently that his company is laying off over 3,000 employees, and he may be one of them, after having worked there for over 10 years. Even Christy and I have doubts about the security of our jobs. I got an email from a supervisor recently that said our hours may start "flexing." This means that, although we may keep our jobs, we might get sent home if there isn't enough work to do.

I've often thought about moving back to California, but currently the unemployment rate there is 8.2%. It's one of the highest in the country. I think if we had stayed in California when we first arrived here back in May, we'd be out of money by now and heading back to Taiwan, feeling depressed that our relocation turned out to be a total failure. Moving to Austin probably saved us from this.

I can't see myself living in Austin forever. Frankly, I can't see myself here five years from now. While Austin has its charms here and there, it's not a very exciting place to live. On the other hand, I absolutely hate moving, and the last thing I want is to be stuck living out of hotels while I'm out looking for a job again. I've been there and done that, and it's not something I would want to repeat anytime soon. For those who read my blogs during the month of June of this year...oh man, was that a stressful time. It's one thing to write about tough times after you've already lived and survived it, but writing it while it's happening is not fun at all.

At the very least, we'll stay in Austin until this recession is over, though God knows how long that will be. We're going to try to ride it out and hope we get through it. Going back to Taiwan isn't really much of an option anymore as it used to be, as their economy is just as bad as the US. I still keep getting emails, though, from schools that want to hire me in Taiwan. I guess I could still find a job in Taiwan, but for Christy it would be tougher. Besides, Christy doesn't seem to have any desire whatsoever to go back to Taiwan. I don't blame her.

Horseshoe Bay

This weekend we travelled to a small, lakeside town called Horseshoe Bay. It's about an hour or so Northwest of Austin. The company that Christy works for was having their annual Christmas party at the Marriot Hotel. No kids were allowed at the party, so I offered to watch the kids in the hotel room (which was free, thankfully) while Christy went to the party. The hotel offered babysitting service, which was actually just a list of about 15 names I could call. I called every number on the list, hoping someone could babysit so I could go to the party. It didn't happen. Every person on the list was either a.) not in town b.) busy or c.) didn't answer the phone. So my Saturday night was spent watching two kids pretending to be rock stars and trashing a hotel room.

I generally like to go to company Christmas parties. It's the one time of year when your employer decides to be generous and give you a lot of free stuff. The dinner is usually good, and then they give away a lot of expensive gifts as door prizes. Christy didn't win anything, but they did give us a pretty nice gift basket.

As for the town of Horseshoe Bay, I couldn't find any place where the lake was accessible to the public. It was all attached to condos and private residences. If you're rich, it seemed like a pretty nice place to left, but for the rest of us, kinda boring. There were also several golf courses out there. Again, though, this was a place primarily for people with expendable income. Had the hotel room not been free, I would see no reason to come here.

Still, the hotel was nice (as most Marriots are), and there was a lot of nice scenery surrounding it. I guess if Christy still works for this company next year, we'll probably be back. For now, though, we've got one more Christmas party coming up next weekend. My company is having one in Round Rock, which is not nearly as far as Horseshoe Bay.

(Pictures: 1. The Marriot Hotel in Horseshoe Bay. 2. Christy and the kids. 3. The "Oriental Garden" outside the hotel. 4. Christy and her boss. 5. More Horseshoe Bay scenery.)

Pet Peeves

I think one of my biggest pet peeves has always been poor spelling and grammar in a professional situation. I'm not talking about typos and grammar mistakes that you come across regularly in personal email (and blogs!) I'm talking about big, written displays in retail stores and restaurants, as well as "company-wide" email that is sent by supervisors and CEO's.

In Taiwan, where the English language is distorted and destroyed on a daily basis, one could go crazy trying to decipher all the bad English. I'm still scratching my head over the giant sign outside of Taipei 101 which read "COMMING SOOM!" Taipei 101 is probably one of the most visited tourist attractions in Taiwan, so this is pretty embarrassing. To see more examples of this, you can check my old blog entry here: http://kenberglund.blogspot.com/2008/04/taiwans-wacky-english.html

Taiwanese people, though, are not native English speakers, so you really can't blame them for trying. What bothers me is, here in the USA, I continually receive company email from management and so called "superiors" who can't seem to put two complete sentences together. For me, it's a bit frustrating to work under people that you feel should be under you.

I remember back when I was working for this company called SCAN in the late 90's, I got "talked to" for correcting a fellow employees email. I didn't do it in public. I sent a private email explaining when to use "there," "their," or "they're." This employee got furious and told her supervisor, who then complained to me. Had it just been a one time thing, I would have ignored it, but this particular person made the same mistake over and over. In my mind, I was just trying to save her from further embarrassment, but it wasn't taken that way. Some people are extremely offended if you try to correct their English. To this day, I still get email at the hospital from someone who reminds me to "tell the patient it is there responsibility." Now I just sigh and click the delete button.

When I was in college, there was a Taco Bell restaurant on campus. This was during the days of the "Yo quiero Taco Bell!" talking chihuahua doll. They had an enormous display which read "THEIR BACK!" (referring to the dolls). I told the cashier about it.

"Oh, we don't have anything to do with that. Management sends us those." she told me.

"But, you know, this is a college campus. It looks bad." I reminded her.

"There's really nothing I can do about it." she answered.

And so it goes. The dumbing of America continues.

Losing Weight the Chinese Way

It's very difficult to find an obese person in Taiwan. They do exist, and I have in fact seen a few, but it's a rare sighting. It's like trying to spot a celebrity in Hollywood. They're there, but it takes a lot of looking.

I've often wondered how the Chinese people stay thin. The things they eat are often deep fried and do not look healthy at all. When I first arrived in Taiwan, the food kind of scared me at first. I would walk by these blue trucks that were selling food, and it just looked awful. I didn't want to eat chicken feet or deep fried duck heads. So for quite some time I was just eating noodles and sandwiches that I would buy from 7-11. So basically, just out of pure disgust of the local food, I started losing weight. Not exactly a great plan, but it worked. I went from 205 lbs to 179 over the course several months.

So today I'm reading a story about three obese Americans who moved to China to try and lose weight, and it seems to be working:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20081202/hl_afp/healthchinausoffbeat_081202081540

I thought this story was kind of funny, since I've been telling some of my overweight friends for years to try living in Taiwan for a while if they want to lose weight.

Now that I've been back in America for 7 months, I've gained some of that weight back. Not all of it, thankfully, but about 10 pounds. I'm trying to be careful, though, and not fall into bad American habits of wanting to eat too much junk food. In a state like Texas, where restaurants boldly and proudly claim their portions are "Texas Size!", you really need to be careful.