69th place on Pikes Peak

I finished the Pikes Peak Ascent on Saturday morning, and thanks to generous donations from friends and family, I raised about $900 for the Ponseti International Association for the Advancement of Clubfoot Treatment ! I can assure you it was the toughest 900 bucks I ever made.

I beat my personal goal by about 1 minute, finishing the 13.3 miles and 7,815 vertical feet in 3:05:03.

Some stats
I finished in 69th place overall (out of 1647 finishers), and 63rd place (out of 1162) among male runners. That's close to the top 4th percentile overall, and in the top 6th percentile for the men. In the 35-to-39-year-old-male category, I was 12th out of 189, which is in the top 7th percentile.

The 1st place finisher was Matt Carpenter (a perennial favorite) at 2:12:56.

Results from the race are posted here.

Play by play
Mile 1: a relatively easy stroll up a gently sloped & paved road through Manitou Springs.

Miles 2-5: "The W's" at the foot of the Barr trail. So-named for the way the dozens of switchbacks look on a map as they climb a steep 2500 feet or so above Manitou. This is a single track trail crowded with runners, and little room to pass. At about mile 3, I started tracking my position - the number of people I passed, the number who passed me. By mile 4, the pack thinned out enough that passing wasn't a problem anymore. In most races, mile markers tell you how far you've run so far. In the Ascent, they did it backwards - they tell you how much distance to the finish line. Its was rather disheartening to see the "11 miles to finish" sign when I was already tired and gasping for air.

Miles 6-9: Finally, a break from the steeps. Still uphill, for sure - there are no significant flat sections on the trail, much less downhill, but it's a welcome break from the W's. Beautiful trail, too. It'd be nice to come back sometime when I could enjoy the scenery.

Mile 10: "We're baaaack!" (the steeps and switchbacks, that is). This is the last mile of tree cover. It's also where I got passed by a skirt. Literally. A woman wearing a pink running skirt passed me here.

Miles 11-12: You break through tree line at 11,800 feet of elevation, right at the "3 miles left" sign. Staring down at me is the east face of Pikes Peak - 2,300 vertical feet to go! At this point my heart is literally in pain from pumping so hard. Except for the top few dozen runners, no one is actually running at this point in the race. It's a fast hike at best. The trail gets really steep again, but now it's also more rugged and uneven, with big rock steps to boot. This is a high-altitude, voluntary version of the Bataan death march, with hundreds of stick-thin runners trudging forward in pain.

Mile 13: No rest for the weary. They saved the steepest, rockiest terrain for last - the Golden Steps! For a few brief moments here and there, I feel light headed, and the pain in my chest (that would be my heart) isn't letting up. I pass a few people who've run out of gas, and a few others who reserved some juice for the end pass by me. I think I improved my overall position by 1 place since I started keeping track about 10 miles ago. I crossed the finish line at 3:05:03, a minute faster than my personal goal.

If that doesn't sound fun, then just imagine turning around and running back down the same trail again. That's what hundreds of people did on Sunday morning for the Pikes Peak marathon. About 70 ridiculously fit and insane runners did what's known as "The Double" - running the Ascent on Saturday and then the full marathon the very next day. And you thought I was crazy!

Less than 2 weeks til race day

It's less than 2 weeks until I race in the Pikes Peak Ascent. I've turned the race into a fundraiser for the Ponseti Foundation, which seeks to improve treatment for clubfoot. So far I've raised about $500 in donations, and I'm hoping to double that amount. I've been training hard, including an adventurous 4 hour solo run up a trail on Mt. Evans. After getting lost and going the wrong direction for several miles, the seldom-used trail got progressively more steep and rocky, then turned into nothing more than alpine meadow with rock cairns to mark the way, then alpine swamp (yes, my feet were soaked), before reaching summit lake at 12,000 feet. From there I kept marching up the road toward the summit. Amy dropped me off at the trailhead (approximately 9000 feet elevation) in the morning, and picked me up near the summit 4 hours later.

Many thanks to all my friends and family who have supported the cause. If you'd like to support the cause, click here for more info.

Chinese tattoos

Chinese characters and themes are en vogue as tattoos these days. Here's a bit of advice: if you're gonna get some Chinese characters permanently tattooed on your body, make really sure you know what they mean.

Some of my Chinese former co-workers are in Denver now, and one of them went to the Dragon Boat Festival a week ago at Sloan's Lake. He was working at a booth for the Chinese American Council when an American guy approach and showed him the tattoo of a Chinese character prominently displayed on his leg. He asked, "can you tell me what this means"? The character on his leg was the Chinese word for "stupid".

How appropriate!

Running for a good cause

On August 18, I'll be running the Pikes Peak Ascent to raise money for the Ponseti International Association for the Advancement of Clubfoot Treatment. You can support this great cause by making a donation to the association in honor of my masochistic endeavor - racing 13.32 miles and 7,815 vertical feet! Information on how to donate is below, but first, here is some info about club foot.

Club foot is one of the most common birth defects, affecting approximately 150,000 children each year. Although the condition is treatable, many children in poor countries don't receive treatment and are disabled for life. Dr. Ignacio Ponseti pioneered a non-surgical method of correcting club foot, and this association is committed to advancing the treatment of children with clubfoot deformity through education, improved care, and research.

My daughter Elizabeth was born with club feet, and thanks to Dr. Ponseti, she is well on the way to a full recovery. Some day, I hope she can hike - or even run - up Pikes Peak with me.

More about the race:
The Pikes Peak Ascent is 13.32 miles long and climbs 7,815 vertical feet (1.5 vertical miles!), ending at the 14,115 foot summit of Pikes Peak. If you're curious to see the race route, here is a link to a very cool Google Earth map showing the trail. Here is how the high-altitude portion of the course is described on the race's web site:

There’s a reason trees don’t bother growing above 12,000' on Pikes Peak. They can’t! Makes one wonder if trees are smarter than runners. Above treeline most runners take 30 minutes or more, some much more, just to cover a mile. What little air remains can’t satisfy the endless stream of zombies hoping only to survive their next step—a death march right out of a scene from Dawn of the Dead. Adding insult to injury, it might start to snow!

My personal goal is to finish in 3 hours, 6 minutes, which would put me in the top 7% of finishers with an average pace of about 14 minutes per mile.

I would appreciate your generous donation! Since I don't have any other way to know how much money my friends will raise, I would appreciate it if you would leave a comment on this blog or send an email telling me how much you donated.

You can make a secure online donation at this link to the Ponseti International Association for the Advancement of Clubfoot Treatment. If you'd rather send a check, please make it payable to: Univ. of Iowa - Ponseti Fund and send it here:

Ponseti Fund for Advancement of Clubfoot Treatment
c/o The University of Iowa Foundation
P.O. Box 4550
Iowa City, IA 52244-4550

I very much appreciate your support in raising money for this great cause!

No more casts

Elizabeth is out of her casts now! We took the casts off both of her legs on Saturday morning after about 14 weeks of casts. She sat in the bathtub for a while to soften the plaster, and then Amy cut through with an old butter knife, which takes a long time, but it means we don't have to worry too much about cutting her. Her feet look almost normal now! Not only that, but now we can give her proper baths and let her play in the pool.

She still has a long road of treatment ahead of here, though. For the next 3 months, she'll be wearing a specially designed brace and shoes for 18 hours per day, and then she'll wear a similar brace at nighttime until she is about 4 years old. These photos show her feet before the casts, after the casts, and with her new brace contraption.

Above: before the casts

Above: after the Ponseti treatment

Above: the new-fangled brace contraption. Doesn't she look thrilled???

10 years

Amy and I celebrated our 10 year anniversary last Friday. We saved a bottle of wine from our wedding day and opened it over the weekend. It was a little past it's prime, but still drinkable.
Ten years sounds like such a long time, but it doesn't feel like a long time. I love you, Amy!

Camping - with 2 kids

Amy and I are camping veterans, and Andrew spent his first night in a tent when he was just over 1 year old. This weekend, we eased our way into a new level of outdoor accommodations, with a 4-year-old and a 1-year-old joining us in the tent. This experiment was somewhat complicated by the Elizabeth's two full-leg casts. We decided to spend just a single night in case the experiment went horribly, horribly wrong. Fortunately, it all worked out. We even had fun, I would say. We camped at about 9000 feet elevation near Keystone, and the toughest part was keeping the kids warm overnight. I'd guess the low temperature was around 40. We bundled them up in hats and gloves, and covered them with multiple layers. Now we're ready for a longer stay in the great outdoors.

Based on a tip from my brother, we drove to Lower Cataract Lake after leaving camp this morning. The aptly named lake, on the east flank of the Gore range, has an impressive cataract feeding into it. The waterfall tumbles several hundred feed down a jumble of boulders and into the lake.

Mt. Evans Ascent

A lot of people think runners are crazy. Call me crazy then, because this morning I joined about 350 runners at Echo Lake, at 10,640 feet elevation, and raced them from there to the summit of Mt. Evans at 14,264 feet. Ok, that's an exaggeration - the finish line for the Mt. Evans Ascent was about 100 feet below the summit. I ran the 14.5 miles and approximately 3600 vertical feet in a time of 2:25:15 - I think that was 21st place overall, although I haven't seen the official results yet. My average pace of 10:01 per mile was one #@$%*! second short of my personal goal. I thought I was on track to meet it, but in the last mile, I lost track of the time. I'll blame it on the lack of oxygen. There ain't much of that stuff up there, and every heaving gasp I took in the last few miles was a painful reminder of the low atmospheric pressure. I did pass one guy in the last few hundred yards of the race, so that makes up for it, I suppose.

It was the perfect morning for a race, though. Clear skies, nice temperatures, and no wind, which is very rare in those environs.

The lunacy doesn't end there, however. The Mt. Evans Ascent is just a training run on my preparation for the Pike's Peak Ascent in 2 months. That one will be more of a fast hike than a run though. With more than twice the elevation gain over just 13.1 miles of dirt trails, Pike's Peak will be much tougher.

Dr. Ponseti

We met with Dr. Ponseti yesterday and from all the glowing reports I’d heard about him I practically expected him to walk on water. He didn’t do this for us, but I can see a definite improvement in the position of Elizabeth’s foot in the cast. He expects to change the cast on Monday and then have a tenotomy (a procedure to improve the up/down motion of the foot) performed next Friday. After this procedure we will be able to return home.

There are at least 4 families staying in the Ronald McDonald House that are here to see Dr. Ponseti; one from Canada, one from the Domenican Republic, and one from Mississippi. Add in our Colorado family with the Chinese born baby and it’s quite a crew.

The local media was at the hospital doing a piece on Dr. Ponseti yesterday and we were asked to sign a media waiver and all that good stuff. I doubt we will make it on TV though since Elizabeth screamed like a banshee through most of the visit. Everybody loves a 93 year old doctor curing the world’s children, but nobody wants to listen to my daughter scream.

I’ve heard that crying during the casting is pretty unusual and I believe it. Elizabeth cries whenever I touch her right foot – even if it is just to play “This little piggy”. I know that this does not cause her pain and I’ve felt what the doctors do and I’m sure it is not painful either. Uncomfortable, maybe, but not painful.

Iowa City is a pleasant enough town. We went to a concert in the park this evening and had a good time. The town has a nice everyone-knows-everyone feel and the parks are really nice. We also went to the children’s museum today and Andrew had a lot of fun there.

Iowa City

We made it to Iowa and managed to keep our sanity. I think this is in large part to the portable DVD player that my brother loaned us - Thanks Jason! We'll see Dr. Ponseti today and are staying at the Ronald McDonald House in Iowa City. The facilities are perfect for families and are open to the families of any child under 18 being seen at the hospital here. We have a room of our own which is like any hotel room - except with a sleep number bed. However, there are also shared facilities that make things much more like being at home. There is a playground, several shared kitchens and a big dining room, a play room with tons of toys and a staff that really knows how to take care of people. The Lions Club brought in dinner for everybody last night which was a relief after being in the car so long to not have to brave a restaurant or cook.

Off to Iowa to see Dr. Ponseti

After 6 weeks of casts, Elizabeth's right foot, which was more deformed than the left, isn't making the progress we hoped for with her club foot treatment using the Ponseti method. Her doctor, Daniel Hatch, recommended that we visit the man himself: Dr. Ignacio Ponseti, who pioneered the method decades ago. The good doc is 93 years old - that's right - ninety three! And still practicing medicine. Now there's someone who loves his job. He does have another doctor working with him now, at least.

The good news is that the expert doctor is available to work this us. The bad news is that he's in Iowa. Iowa City in fact. Amy, her mom, Andrew, and Liz all loaded into the family wagon this afternoon and headed east. That's 15 hours of driving with 2 kids in the car, and no scenery worth seeing. I won't be surprised if the 2 adults need some professional help after they arrive, too. Fortunately, Iowa City has more physicians per capita than any city in the US.

The clan will probably be in Iowa for a few weeks, and I'll be living a bachelor's life back home.

Big Head Todd at Red Rocks

Last night, Amy and I went to see Big Head Todd and the Monsters at Red Rocks - the world's best concert venue. Jeremy Lawton, who plays keyboards and a mean slide guitar for the band, is my college roommate and fraternity brother, so and it was great to see him on stage in front of a big crowd. The Samples had a good opening set as lightning storms lit up the sky over the city, and as soon as they left the stage, the skies opened up over the amphitheater, pounding us with a 10-minute hailstorm. Someone in the row in front of us brought a big tarp, which we crowded under to wait out the storm. It was great show!

Moab

For Memorial Day weekend, we loaded the kids into the 4Runner and headed to Moab. I've been there four or five times now, and never get tired of it. Amy and I rarely visit the same place twice - we usually are much more excited about experiencing something new. Moab is the rare exception. Even after all these visits, there are still plenty of new places nearby that we haven't yet explored.

Day 1 - Arches National Park
We spent most of the day on a 6-mile hike in Devil's Garden. Andrew was a champ - he hiked the first 4 miles by himself (a new distance record for him), without even asking me to carry him. In fact, I think a rock climber may have been born. He was fearlessly scrambling up and over boulders and up steep slickrock - always with a parent positioned next to him in case of a slip. The last 2 miles he spent sleepy piggyback on mom, while dad carried Liz and the family's daypack. Elizabeth endured her journey on my back quite well, too.

Day 2 - Behind the Rocks
On Saturday we skipped the crowds and 4-wheeled and hiked some seldom-used trails west of Moab to a couple of nice arches and through Conehead canyon. We passed only a single 4-wheel drive vehicle on this 2.5 hour hike. After lunch, we did some 4-wheeling to Picture Frame arch and let Andrew scramble on the rocks again.

Day 3 - Canyonlands National Park - Island in the Sky
Canyonlands is vast - over 300,000 acres surrounding the confluence of the Colorado and Green rivers. The views from here definitely rival those at the Grand Canyon, and the variety in the landscape is definitely greater. Once again, there are some fantastic, short slickrock trails that are perfect for the family.

Day 4 - back home after meeting my dad for lunch in New Castle.

Farewell, Tango

We said goodbye to our dear old dog, Tango, today. Here she is last night with me and the kids.


Our Chow-German Shepherd mix had a hell of a life. Amy and I found her at the Denver Dumb Friends League about 9 years ago. She was a 3-year-old stray dog who ended up at the pound. There's not a lot of demand for dogs this age, so she languished in her plexiglass enclosure for many weeks, and her time there was about to run out. We visited the place and spent time with a few of the dogs. The first few were hyper and licked us a lot; then we spent a few minutes with Tango. She was mellow and friendly, and didn't lick us once. That sealed the deal.

Tango was an accomplished escape artist. She actually pried a hole in our chain link fence -- with her teeth -- large enough to escape through. That happened sometime in the first 4 hours we ever left her in the dog run in the back yard. I came home at lunch to check on her, and panicked when I found her missing. By the time I typed a "lost dog" flyer on the computer, I found Tango - sitting patiently on my front porch. We figured out that all she needs to be happy when we aren't home is a view outside where she can watch and wait for us to return home.

Tango was also an accomplished mountaineer, having summited 11 of Colorado's 14er's (14,000 foot peaks) with me, including a snow-covered Mt. Sneffels on Memorial Day weekend.

She hung in there after our 6-month round-the-world trip in 2002, when we left her in the care of Amy's brother and sister-in-law, Jason and Jan. She stayed loyal again when we left her with my Mom while we spent 4 months in China last year. (Thanks a ton to Jason, Jan, and my Mom for the many times they kept Tango for us!)

It's been tearing at my heart for months now to see her deteriorate. The worst part is that in the past few weeks, her happiness faded completely, and when she looked at me, her big brown eyes looked sad and confused, wondering why she was in so much pain. When
that happened, I knew it was time. It was heart-wrenching, but I know it was the best thing to do for her.

Tango, we'll miss you!

Going mobile with two casts

Elizabeth is now wearing her 4th pair of casts in the series of about 8 pairs of casts she'll need to correct her bilateral club foot. The casts aren't painful, and don't seem to bother her at all. She gets around pretty well, although she can't quite crawl. The casts are thigh-high so they won't slip out of position so easily, but despite that, her right cast has slipped out of the correct position in each of the first 4 weeks. Her right foot is more bent than the left, so the foot hasn't been pulled up as much yet, which makes it easier for this cast to slip down.

This video shows just how mobile she is despite the fact that she can't bend her knees or ankles.

Being a big brother

Now that Andrew has been a big brother for almost 2 months, we asked what he likes about having a sister and what he liked about being an only child. Here is what he said.

Things he liked about being an only child:

• Playing with only mommy and daddy

Things he likes about having a sister:

• Playing "zooms" (cars) with her
• Having her next to him in the car seat
• Hugs
• Sharing food with her
• She's cute
• Making funny sounds with her
• Making funny faces with her

We're glad the second list is longer than the first!

Pikes Peak Ascent

A while back in this blog I pondered the possibility of running in the Pikes Peak Marathon - 26.2 miles and 7815 feet of vertical - up and then down again. The uphill part will of course be tough, but it's the downhill part that really scares me. My recurring nightmare was that I'd be cruising the downhill half of the run, in a weakened state and with knees throbbing, and take a nasty head-over-heels spill. Ultimately, I decided to just do the uphill half of the race - the slightly more sane Pikes Peak Ascent. I have until August 18 to get in shape. Pikes Peak or Bust!

Successful surgery

My mom had surgery today to remove her cancer. Not only was the surgery successful, but the doctors also reported the great news that the cancer hasn't spread to her lymph nodes. Less than 2 weeks after her diagnosis, the cancer is gone - hopefully for good - and she's on the road to recovery! Our prayers have been answered.

Convert iTunes to mp3 with QTFairUse

Apple iTunes is great - if you have an iPod, anyway. If you're using any other player, iTunes protected AAC files are useless. I have an old Creative MuVO USB mp3 player that I listen to when I'm running. (A good set of rockin' tunes helps me pick up the pace.) I use iTunes for 2 reasons:

• I can't download the music I want anywhere else (for example, the Hillbilly Hellcats, a great rockabilly band)
• I got a gift certificate

In the past, I've burned my iTunes to CD, then re-ripped the tracks in mp3 or wma format so I could get them on my mp3 player. That's a great way to do it, assuming you actually want them on a CD. But what if you don't even want to put the tunes on a CD?

I found a good solution. Download a sweet little tool called QTFairUse and fire it up. This tool converts your DRM-restricted AAC files to unprotected m4a (MP4) files, which are playable in iTunes. QTFairUse updates your iTunes library so it uses the new m4a files instead of the old AAC files, and it also keeps any ratings or other tags you've added to the tracks. It will convert specific files you select, or it can convert your entire iTunes library. Now you can use iTunes to convert tracks to mp3 format, and voila - you can now play your tunes on any mp3 player.

The dreaded diagnosis

My mom called this morning with some bad news. She has breast cancer, the same disease that claimed her mother, aunt, and maternal grandmother. Fortunately, she discovered it very early. The tumor is small, and will probably be removed within in a week. We don't know yet what other treatment she'll require, but we're hopeful that she'll beat this thing, thanks to early detection.

At the moment, she seems to be more concerned about how her illness is going to "inconvenience" other people than she is about her own health. That's my mom, though. So selfless it's exasperating!

Hang in there, mom! We're all pulling for you.

Cast number two

Elizabeth got her 2nd pair of casts on Wednesday. The process starts at home, where Amy soaks her old casts off using a warm bath and vinegar. The plaster soaks off in only about 20 minutes. So far there is no noticeable improvement in her foot position, but it's not expected to be noticeable until the 3rd or 4th cast.

Then it's an hour and 15 minute drive to Greeley. Yep, Greeley. Dr. Hatch is the only Ponseti-trained doctor we could find in the whole state, but it's worth the drive.

At the doctor's office, Elizabeth sits in Amy's lap while the doctor and 2 nurses put the casts on. It takes about 30 minutes, and Elizabeth spends about half of that screaming. You can't blame her for that, I suppose. Fortunately, Amy is able to keep her content part of the time with a bottle and a toy. One week down, seven-to-nine weeks to go!

Cast number one

Elizabeth had her first visit to Dr. Daniel Hatch yesterday to start her club foot treatment using the Ponseti method. She now has thigh-high casts on both legs. For at least the next 8 weeks, she'll be visiting the doctor weekly to gradually move her feet closer to the normal position, getting a new pair of casts each time.


They look horribly uncomfortable, but fortunately they don't seem to bother her. The casting process evoked a fit of ear-piercing screams, though, and she was having a bad before it even started; she was running a fever, acting fussy, and obviously not feeling very well. Poor girl! THe good is that she has gotten over that trauma and today she was in a much better mood.

We may have seen her first fit of jealousy today, though. As Liz sat watching mommy, Andrew came and sat in mommy's lap, and Elizabeth instantly burst into a fit of tears. How dare he sit in her mom's lap!

China Blue

I just finished watching China Blue on PBS - a documentary about a factory in China making blue jeans. Even though I spent 4+ months in China, I was stunned by what I saw. A 17 year old girl left her farming family with 100 RMB (about $12) in her pocket to find work in a far-away city. She found it at the Lifeng factory, where she not only worked, but also lived in the factory dormitory, sharing a room with 11 other girls - not women, but girls as young as 14 years old. Among the revelations that stick in my mind:

• She earned only about 6 cents per hour
• Minimum wage and overtime laws were completely ignored. She often worked 15 hour shifts, and sometimes more than 24 hours in a single shift - with no overtime pay.
• Unions and strikes are illegal. Anyone attempting to organize would likely be jailed. Thought China was a communist/socialist country? Think again.
• The factory owner said, categorically, his rural workers are not only uneducated, but cannot be educated and cannot learn a work ethic.
• Workers' first months pay is withheld as a "security deposit", and they are never paid it unless they receive "permission" to leave the factory, which of course they are never granted.
• She worked more than 3 months before receiving her first pay. In the meantime, she had no money. Need medicine? Sorry, you're SOL.
• Under public pressure, the international companies that buy from China started sending inspectors to verify working conditions. Factories know in advance when the inspectors are coming, and coerce workers into lying about working conditions and pay to keep the inspectors satisfied.
  

She and all her coworkers were virtual slaves of the factory, rarely leaving the premises. During one long shift, she left to buy an energy-boosting tea (for 6 cents) from a street vendor. She was fined 2 days' wages for leaving.

You can't pin all the blame on the evil factory owner here, though. He faces intense competition from within China and elsewhere, and he couldn't possibly compete if he were to follow national labor laws - as long as other factories continue to break the law.

I'm sure many of my own clothes were made in China. And there's no doubt that working conditions in other countries - India, Pakistan, wherever - are just as deplorable. So what to do? I suspect it would be pretty difficult - and fairly expensive - to fill my closet with clothes that don't weigh so much on my conscience.

New gig at IP Commerce

I accepted a job offer today to be Director of Integration Delivery at IP Commerce, a company based in Denver. The company is building a software platform to enable and simplify electronic payments over the internet. So what will I be doing? Building and managing teams of developers that will build software to connect the system to various banks and payment service providers. I'm excited about the opportunity, and I'll be among friends - I've worked with many people there in the past.

I've enjoyed my 2nd tour of duty with BoldTech, and the unique opportunity I had to work in China and build a cool video web site at the same time. This new position should be a great opportunity for me, though, and I look forward to it.

Token white guy

I don't have too many opportunities in my life to be the person who is adding racial diversity to a business-related function. I did, however, have that opportunity while working in China last year. My company's China office quietly invited me to a career fair in Hangzhou, where I would ostensibly help the recruiting effort. My main qualification, as is turns out, was my undeniably Caucasian appearance, which apparently lends a certain international credibility to a Chinese company's operations.

Now I'm considering changing careers to be a professional Caucasian. Consider this story I found today in my daily email from steepandcheap.com, of all places.

Last night I ran into a friend who had just returned from living in China for three years. He taught English and mostly stuck to Beijing, but he said he found another job that allowed him to travel a bit even if it didn't pay too much money. Chinese companies would pay him to sit in on meetings. It wasn't for his advice or his mediating skills, they brought him in so their company would look more international when they had meetings with other companies. It was a pretty good gig, he said he only had to talk once, but it was a ten minute spot in front of 600 people while pretending he was the designer of some project. Apparently national media was there and the whole thing was pretty stressful. The whole thing sounds like an 80s movie I would watch on a Sunday afternoon.

I'm highly qualified for that job. In fact, I can't think of anyone who is more clearly Caucasion than myself. Time for a new career?

Talipes Equinovarus

Elizabeth was born with club foot, scientifically known as Talipes Equinovarus. Hers is bilateral, and more severe on the right foot than the left. Club foot is the most common birth defect, and fortunately, it is treatable with a very high success rate.

We of course knew about this before we adopted her. Part way through our adoption journey, we joined the waiting child program, which matches orphans with special needs to adoptive parents. One of our motivations for adopting was to provide a loving family to a child who might otherwise never have one. Kids with special needs are less likely to be adopted, so we felt like this was the right thing to do. We are fortunate enough to have the means to correct Elizabeth's condition, but if she were to stay in China, there is no saying when or if she would receive treatment, and how good her treatment might be. While finalizing our adoption in Guangzhou, it was inspirational to meet several other couples who were adopting kids with even greater needs than Liz - including conditions such as cleft palette and deformed limbs.

We are opting to treat Elizabeth using the Ponseti method, which is a non-surgical way to manipulate the tissues back to a normal position. Although Ponseti is usually started at a younger age, it also has been very successful on older patients. Liz will go through a few months in casts, and then spend many more months with a brace. With a little luck and God's will, she will be completely normal when the treatment is finished.

Liz's first appointment is this week, and I'll be tracking her progress in the blog as she goes through the process. Here is a photo of her feet now.


Since Mia Hamm, the famous US soccer player, was born with club feet, we know that people can fully recover and live normal - even extraordinarily athletic - lives after treating this condition.

Envysion is live!

Since July, I've been working for BoldTech Systems as a consultant to Envysion, a start-up company in Boulder that provides web-based video management solutions. This is the project that brought me to China to lead a great team of developers in building Envysion's new web-based video application. We officially released the web site to the public this week, although several customers had been using it prior to then in a beta version.

Check out the site here! Note - you will need to use IE on Windows XP. We'll be adding support for other browsers and platforms in the future.

Back home with the kids

After 2 weeks in China, we're back home with the kids. Kids - plural - I'm not used to that yet! Our long flight home from Guangzhou included an unexpected overnight stay in LA, since our flight arrived in LA an hour late and we couldn't catch our connecting flight to Denver. After passing through immigration in LA, Elizabeth is now a US citizen!

Amy devised a great scheme for getting us some extra space on the plane. We knew there were about a dozen empty seats on the 777 - with 3 seats on each side, 2 aisles, and 4 seats in the middle. So we requested seats near the rear of the plane, and got the window seat and 2 aisle seats (A, C, and D), with an empty seat (B) in the middle. We were hoping, of course, that no one would take that one middle seat at the back of the plane, and we got lucky - since both the B and E seats were empty, we actually had 5 seats for the 4 of us, which meant Andrew could lay down flat on 2 seats and Elizabeth had her own seat even though we only paid for a lap ticket.

Back at home, all the grandparents have had a chance to meet their new granddaughter and we're getting over the jet lag. I've been up since 3 am.

Adjusting to a new family

After spending her first 10 and half months at the orphanage and in foster care, Elizabeth is faced with a big adjustment now. All the people and places she is familiar with will be replaced by strange new ones. The first day we had her, she was completely cheerful and smiling. By day two, though, she lost her smile and her appetite. She threw up and had diarrhea. It could be been due to food, or just physical illness, but I suspect the stress of her new reality was a big factor. Days three through five with her new family brought a gradual improvement in her mood and apetitie. On Sunday, day six, we had a bit of a breakthrough. Our room was hot and stuffy, and she seemed listless. Amy and I took Liz and Andrew to the hotel pool, and were overjoyed to discover that she loved being in the water. We set her in an inflatable floatie we brought with us, and that big smile reappeared as she floated around the kiddie pool and watched her big brother splash and play. It was fantastic to see her and Andrew playing together, too.

Elizabeth's birthplace

Today we took a 90 minute journey through the countryside of the Jiangxi province to Elizabeth's birthplace in Fuzhou (in the Linchuan district). The district is home to about 1 million people, which makes it a small city by Chinese standards. She was found as a newborn at the Hua Li restaurant, a non-descript eatery along the town's main road. A dozen or so people, including several small children, were gathered outside as our van pulled up. Foreigners like us are an extremely rare sight in a town like this, so folks were very curious to see us, and especially the little blond-haired boy, who everyone says is piao liang (beautiful). Everywhere we go, people ask about Elizabeth and what she is doing with these strange-looking foreigners. We've learned to tell them ling yang, which means adoption. Our adoption agency has a guide for us, Evelyn, who is usually with us on our outings. Repeatedly, Evelyn has translated the locals' reaction - they say that Elizabeth is lucky and will have a great life with us. It's heartwarming to know that people here understand and appreciate what we're doing.

The Hua Li restaurant in Fuzhou

Galactic Peace and Pocari Sweat

Our hotel in Nanchang is the Galactic Peace International Hotel. No kidding. Crazy name, but a really nice hotel. For about $70 per night, we have an extra large room with a larger-than-king-size bed (call it the Emperor size), huge TV, spacious bathroom, and plenty of space. Besides the nice room, it also has a nice pool, gym, and all the amenities you'd expect. The concierge will even retrieve Pizza Hut for westerners who don't want to venture out into the crowded streets.



One American family is here with their 3 and 5-year-old boys, who provided Andrew with much need playmates. We offered to take the kids to the People's Park, which is one of the nicest city parks we've seen in China. Their mom asked how we would get there, and we said "by taxi, of course." That nixed the deal. Apparently they'd been on 1 other Chinese taxi ride and the experience was too harrowing for them. It is true that the simple act of crossing the street here is a death-defying experience, and a typical cab ride will raise your blood pressure.

The Galactic Peace is near the city center, and is a popular place with adoptive parents. We're sharing the hotel with both American and Spanish groups who are here adopting. It's been good to share our experiences with others.

You might be wondering about the 2nd half of the title of this post. What is Pocari Sweat? Well, Elizabeth was sick for a day or two, and we were looking for something like Pedialite for her - electrolyte replacement. A trip to the local Wal-Mart led us to an "ion supply" drink called - you guessed it - Pocari Sweat. Sounds tasty, eh?

Wondering what Wal-Mart is like in China? Not so different the Wal-Mart experience in Lakewood, Colorado, actually. I'm one of the only people in the whole place speaking English, and everything there is made in China.

Ba Ba

Ba ba is the Chinese (Mandarin) word for "daddy". It's also the word for "poo poo". Ok, technically they are different words because they're spoken with different tones, but to tone-deaf westerners, they sure sound a lot like the same word. I guess that means I should think twice about trying to teach Elizabeth to say "ba ba" because she might think I'm issuing a command for her to do something.

Surprisingly, she's fairly well potty trained already at 11 months old. All you need to do is sit her on the baby potty and whistle, and she knows it's time to pee. If you add a carefully-toned "ba ba", she knows it's time for #2.

Her first night with us went quite well. It did take about 30 minutes of crying before she fell asleep, but we were pleasantly surprised that she slept all the way through the night; we'd been warned that she likes a midnight snack.

Presenting Elizabeth Grace Swanson

At about noon today (March 6 China time), we welcomed Elizabeth Grace into our arms and our family. She is a big girl for an 11-month old, with 4 teeth and a big smile! She will officially be our daughter a few hours from now when we sign some papers. Andrew is enjoying his new role as big brother, smothering her with gentle hugs and kisses and being very concerned when she cries.

Lousy LAX

We arrived on time at LAX, dreading the 4-hour layover until our 11:50 pm departure to Guangzhou on China Southern airlines. Since Frontier and China Southern don’t have a baggage agreement, we had to pick up our checked bags and check in again with China Southern. The long underground hallway to the baggage claim was a throw-back to the 70’s. A myriad of brightly colored tiles decorated one wall and the place is lit up bright enough to be a surgery room. The baggage claim area looked like something you’d expect to see in South America, with decades old carousels, construction, and decor. To top it off, a high-pitched whine pierced the air, apparently the result of security alarms on various doors. The whine begins when someone opens a secure door and continues long past it’s closing. After a long wait for our bags, we learned that the international terminal is a separate building and made our way there, where the official airport signs marked with “China Southern” led us through throngs of people of all nationalities – to the wrong aisle. After wandering a bit, we finally found the China Southern desk on a different aisle, surprised to see about a hundred people in line already, more than 3 hours ahead of flight time. After a long wait here, we were chosen as the lucky winners of a bonus security check of our baggage! We carted our load to yet another long line. After a few millennia in this queue, they finally deemed our lugged safe, so we could go get a bite to eat before the marathon flight across the pacific. It was about 2 and half hours since we landed! Good thing we had that long layover.

Next we passed through security on the way to our “gate”, and I use the term loosely here. The gates at LAX’s international terminal are a crowded cattle call with doors opening straight onto the tarmac, where diesel powered busses, packed almost as full as a city bus in China, haul weary passengers for about 5 minutes to odd, free-standing jetways out in the hinterlands of the airport. Finally we packed ourselves into our 3 seats in row 30 of the fully-booked Boeing 777.

Day 1 to China

It’s been a long ‘pregnancy’ - 18 monthts since we decided to adopt – but our wait is nearing an end. At 6:10 pm on Saturday, we departed DIA to Los Angeles on Frontier Airlines (with a mountain lion and her cub emblazoned on the plane’s tail). We didn’t give Andrew a nap earlier in the day, hoping he’d sleep on the flight, and he did. We’re all anxious to meet Elizabeth for the first time! Just 3 airports stand between us now: L.A., Guangzhou and (formerly known as Canton) and Nanchang, the capitol of Jiangxi province.

One way ticket from China

Tomorrow Amy, Andrew and I will board a plane for Guangzhou China. A few weeks later, our daughter Elizabeth will have a one-way ticket back to the USA. Stay tuned for updates on our journey through China.

Star Wars - the telnet text movie

The tech geeks out there will get a kick out of this one.

Open a command window (or shell, if you happen to be on *nix) and enter this command

telnet towel.blinkenlights.nl

(For the non-nerds in the audience, if you don't understand this, don't lose any sleep over it.)

Who the hell has the time to make stuff like this???

Solar panels for free?

A company called Citizenre is claiming that they will install photovoltaic panels on your home for no upfront cost, then charge for the electricity generated - at a lower cost than your local utility charges for the same kilowatt hours. You can read more on Wired.

If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Especially when the business model smells of multi-level marketing, which this one does. Nevertheless, it's an intriguing idea.

Xcel energy's Solar Rewards program pays $4.50 (part rebate, part renewable energy credit) per DC-watt of capacity when you install a PV system. That's designed to cover about half the cost of installing a PV system, which runs in the $20,000 ballpark for a typical home. I'd like to know how much Xcel spends per watt to build a new coal-fired power plant?

Back to China!

Our adoption agency called yesterday with good news. They received our travel notice from the Chinese government, which means we can travel to China as soon as we can schedule the necessary appointments with the US Consulate and the various Chinese agencies. Most likely, we'll be going over around March 5 and returning 2 weeks later, with Elizabeth (a.k.a Fu Ni Ying) in tow!

Energy Efficiency

Today I attended a seminar on home energy efficiency put on by the Colorado Energy Science Center, which is loosely affiliated with the National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL) in Golden, Colordao. It was informative, and inspired me to look more closely at improving my own house, which was built in 1971.

Coincidentally, today's Rocky Mountain News had an article on green homes.

A few years ago, we had cellulose insulation blown into the attic and it made a huge difference, most noticeably in the summer. We found that we didn't need to run our swamp cooler nearly as often, nor nearly as long, after our attic is well-insulated. The house stays more comfortable, and it cost only a few hundred bucks.

Did you know that the avergage home leaks 60% of its air every hour? Yep, that means you're paying to heat the neighborhood with your furnace. That's usually the best place to start - fix problems with insulation and leaky windows and doors. If you're house is old like mine, your walls may not even have insulation, and even if they do, it may have settled or been installed poorly, which makes it nearly useless. To remedy this situation, you can have insulation blown into the walls to fill those gaps, and it's supposedly guaranteed not to settle if you find a good vendor to do the work.

How about replacing your incandescent bulbs with compact fluorescents? These run on 25% of the power, and last 10 times as long. Their quality has improved recently, too, with the use of electronic ballasts that reduce some of the flicker and slow starts that plagued earlier incarnations. You still want to avoid the cheapest, lowest-quality CFLs, though.

Now I just need to figure out how to harness the 60+ mph winds that regularly blast us here on Green Mountain to generate electricity. I can use the savings to pay to fix my roof which keeps getting shingles blown off.

Para-sledding in Wyoming

The scene:

• February 3, on the high plains south of Laramie Wyoming.
• Steady winds of 30-40 mph out of the west, with gusts of 50+ mph.
• Lots of blowing snow.
• About 15 degrees Fahrenheit.

The equipment:

• One used tarp, about 12 ft x 6 ft
• About 60 feet of rope
• One sled (later replaced with a $10 Kmart inflatable "tube" sled)
• Really warm clothes

Add it all up, and you've got para-sledding!

Amy, Andrew and I spent the weekend with my sister Lynette and her husband Jeff Morris on their 40-acre spread south of Laramie. After battling the brutal winds all the way up I-25 and then on I-80, I figured I could get my revenge by putting all that blowing to some good use.

Jeff and I rigged the "sail" and had some fun while the wives watched with amusement from the comfort of home. We both got a few good runs in, although next time, I'd use a bigger sail for more speed!

Like I've said before, enjoy the snow, and in this case, the wind too!

Elizabeth Grace

That's the name we've chosen for our daughter. We still don't know when we'll travel, but we hope it will be in the next few months. We'll go to the Jiangxi province in China and see for the first time, followed by several days at the American consulate in Guangzhou (near Hong Kong) where we'll finish the paperwork. Upon arrival back home, she'll be a US citizen!

Enjoy the snow

For the 5th time in 5 weeks, Denver is getting pounded with a snowstorm. You've got two choices when faced with this situation. You can whine about having to shovel your driveway, yet again, and complain that the city is doing a crappy job of plowing the roads, or you can enjoy it! I feel like a kid again when it's snowing. I wake up early, subconsciously sensing the early glow brought on by billions of ice crystals reflecting the pre-dawn sunshine, and anxiously jump from bed to see the sublime flakes falling. This morning, I watched a bit of "Thomas and Friends" with Andrew before donning my running gear, including gaiters, gloves, hat, and trail running shoes, and went for a run on green mountain.

Not into running? How about sledding? If you don't like sledding, there's gotta be something wrong with you. There's nothing like zooming down an icy hill at dangerous speeds to bring back fond memories of childhood.

Too cool for sledding? Haul the family up the hills for some skiing or boarding. Yesterday, we trekked up to Breckenridge, visited my brother, and took Andrew skiing. The snowflake lift at Breckenridge exists for the sole purpose of providing ski-in, ski-out access to a bunch of homes and condos. It starts from the edge of town on Four O'Clock road and deposits skiers a ways above the base of Peak 8. From there, you've got perfect green runs for teaching kids how to ski. They don't check lift tickets here, either, so no worries about money.

Andrew was giggling with excitement as we took 3 great runs down the easy slopes here. The faster we went, the bigger his smile got. A think a skier was born yesterday.

Pillow Fight League

Look out, WWE - there's a new kid on the block. The Pillow Fight League! What could be more fun than watching women with stage names like Boozy Suzy and Betty Clock'er duke it out with pillows?

Read more about it here.

Pike's Peak Marathon

I've been running for years, and I completed my first marathon - the 2005 Boulder Backroads marathon - with a time of 3:18:25. That's about 7:34 per mile, but 8 minutes and 25 seconds too slow to qualify for the Boston Marathon (for my age group). I finished 47th out of 697 people, which I think ain't too shabby.

But that was all on relatively flat roads. This year, I'm considering running the Pike's Peak Marathon, with an elevation gain of 7815 feet to the summit at 14,110 feet. I remember finishing the Boulder Backroads, exhausted, thinking that it was nuts to run 26.2 miles. But by now, the pain isn't as vivid in my mind, and I'd like another challenge. I've got a few weeks to decide - registration opens on March 1st, and they fill all the slots quickly.

Our adopted daughter!

Introducing the soon-to-be newest member of the Swanson family...


Her Chinese name is Fu Ni Ying, which roughly translated means lucky, brave girl. She was born on April 15, 2006.

Amy and I started the adoption process in August 2005 through Chinese Children Adoption International, a really great agency which is located in the Denver metro area. We decided to adopt because we know there are so many children who, without adoption, would grow up in an orphanage or in a foster home. We chose China because of it's abundance of abandoned girls. We also learned that many of these kids are born with conditions that would be easily treatable here at home, but due to lack of funding and lack of availability of health care, often go untreated in China. So then we signed up for the waiting child program, which connects adopting families with children who have a variety of medical conditions. Last week, we received a call from the agency that brought us together with Fu Ni Ying, who has club feet - both of her feet are turned inward. This will probably require many months of treatment to correct, but most people with club feet, if they receive good treatment at a young age, recover completely. I understand that Mia Hamm, the famous soccer player, was born with club feet, and she obviously gets along just fine now.

So what's next? Sometime in the next 2-4 months, we'll travel to China and bring her back home with us! Until then, we'll be anxiously waiting!

7 hours driving for 3 hours of skiing

This morning, Amy and I sent Andrew to Grandma's house so we could enjoy a day of skiing. (Thanks, Mom!) We were on I-70 by 7 am, but the icy roads from yesterday's snow storm made it slow going. It took 2 and a half hours to get to Mary Jane - a drive that usually takes less than 90 minutes. We hit the slopes at about 9:00 am, and enjoyed some great powder. The snow underneath the new Eagle Wind lift, on the back side of Parsenn bowl, was great. While waiting to get on the lift, I overheard a guy say that Berthoud Pass -- our route back home -- was closed due to an avalanche. We stopped at my trusty 12-year old 4-Runner for lunch, and confirmed the news on the radio. A huge slide took out 2 cars and closed the pass, probably for the rest of the day. We were fortunate - we drove through the same spot 90 minutes before the slide. Check here for some photos.

That led to a 4-hour drive home, through Kremmling and Silverthorne. Not our best day ever in the mountains.

Earn my turns - from the backyard

I've been waiting a long time for enough snow to ski on Green Mountain, the 6,800 foot hill and open space park adjoining my backyard. After we got our second blizzard in 8 days, dropping about 3 feet of snow, the time had come! Yesterday I put climbing skins on my telemark skis, and went from my backyard, at about 6000 feet of elevation, to the summit.


The powder was perfect, and I got a great run of about 600 vertical feet. I earned my turns, as they say.

Later in the day, I went with Andrew and Amy up to bear creek and we cross country skied from Little Park to Lair 'O' the Bear. A great way to enjoy the snow.

Lightning in a blizzard

Last night, my family was eating dinner at home during Denver's second blizzard in a week. It's December 28, it's below freezing, heavy snow is falling and the wind is blowing hard. Amy and I both saw a bright flash out the window, and then looked at each other in disbelief. "Was that lightning?" she asked. "It couldn't be, " I said. "It must be some truck's headlights. I've never seen lightning in a snow storm before."

Boom

Did I really just hear thunder? Maybe it was just the wind. But then a few minutes later, we saw another flash. This time, I opened the window a crack and listened carefully. About 5 seconds later, I heard the unmistakable rumble of thunder.

Good Things

After reading through the comments on our blog it appears that we have done an awful lot of pointing out things that are different in China. Not all of these things are bad, just different; pointing them out is not the same as complaining about them. We haven't done as good of a job at pointing out the things we really enjoyed.

Public Transportation: The bus system in Hangzhou was really good. With light rail coming near our house soon I'm hopeful that I'll be able to use public transportation here more, but somehow I doubt it.

The Food: Yes, picking bones out of every last bite of food was annoying to us, but the flavor of most everything we ate was really good. Much better than Chinese food you get in the US.

The People: Most everybody we met was very generous with whatever they had, especially with Andrew. We rarely encountered a day out when Andrew wasn't given some fruit, candy, or small trinket by total strangers. The people we knew personally were also very helpful with everyday things like translating menus and showing us around town.

The Parks: We really enjoyed being in a garden city like Hangzhou. Compared to other Chinese cities we were in the number and quality of public spaces was excellent. Walking around the lake and the surrounding hills could easily make any afternoon enjoyable.

The Community: Our apartment was in the "burbs" of Hangzhou with many young families. It was great to watch Andrew play with all the kids in the courtyard. It was nice that the ladies at the store got to recognize me. I didn't hesitate to let my son ride the horse in the front of the store while I gathered up the few things I needed. It was a small store so I could hear him call to me from anywhere in it, still I'd never do that in the US.

The Experience: All the new things we saw every day made each day unique and fun. For the amount of time we were in China, there was little chance of getting in a rut.

Sleep deprivation

Between jet lag and late-nights working with the gang back in Hangzhou, I haven't gotten much sleep lately.

• Saturday (on the plane): 2 hours of half-sleep
• Saturday (at home): 2.5 hours
• Sunday: 5 hours
• Monday (Christmas): 8 hours - finally!
• Tuesday: 5 hours (after working til 3 am with the Chinese team)
• Wednesday: 3.5 hours

The surprising thing is that I seem to be doing fine - despite Amy's protestations that it's made me grumpy (that's actually due to a combination of the work situation and daily cleaning of dog messes). Maybe 3-4 hours of sleep is all I need?

Wildlife

It's been a while since I've seen any wildlife. In Hangzhou, and the rest of China, I never saw any wild animal larger than a bird - and not many of those, either. We didn't even see any roadkill.

Back home in Lakewood, I went to sleep last night to the chorus of a yapping pack of coyotes. This morning, I went running (in the snow) on Green Mountain, just outside my backyard, and spotted a whole herd of deer. I almost always see deer on my morning runs here, and often see foxes, coyotes, racoons, and rabbits. All of this just a few miles from downtown Denver. It's good to be home.

My Fabulous House

We really liked our apartment in Hangzhou, it far exceeded our expectations. However, I didn't realize how comfy our own home was until we had been away from it for so long. I've always thought we had a nice enough house, not the nicest or worst among the people we know. What I didn't know was how nice it is to have carpet in the bedroom and a washer big enough to wash your comforter. The strangest thing to me is how big my kitchen sink is - it just seems monstrous.

Bye Bye Daily Adventure

Although it was exceedingly pleasant to be able to ask the butcher at the store today for exactly what I wanted, I already miss the daily adventure of living in China. My biggest adventure today was having to shift into 4 wheel drive to make it up the driveway while trying not to stall the car because it had a dead battery after 4 months of sitting unused.

I'm unlikely to go looking for bed sheets and accidentally stumble across the wholesale meat market complete with live fish and a big sign stating "Wholesale cuts of American Beef" complete with pictures.

I didn't even have to bargain for anything. I tried bargaining for the guy at Checker to install the new battery in the truck, but it was a no go. Boring, Boring, Boring .....

Zai jian, Zhongguo

Goodbye, China! We're flying home today. If all goes well, we'll depart from Shanghai airport Saturday at 6:05 pm, and land in Denver on Saturday at 5:55 pm. That's right - we arrive 10 minutes before we left. Ah, the magic of timezones!
We really enjoyed our stay here. It was a great experience. We look forward to being back home, though.

Hooters in Hangzhou

Hooters - that uniquely American sports bar chain - has set up shop in China. They have 2 locations in Shanghai, and one in Hangzhou which opened yesterday. We joined another ex-pat couple there after dinner, mainly because I was curious to see what it would be like in China. Hooters sends some of their American waitresses to China to train their Chinese counterparts, and they've done a pretty good job of replicating the American Hooters experience here. They wear the same tank tops and orange shorts, and they're really friendly and talkative, which is very uncommon among Chinese waitresses, in my experience at least. Andrew repeatedly asked us, "why aren't they wearing pants?"
My Chinese co-workers didn't seem to understand the appeal of such a place - in fact, sports bars are almost non-existent here. One of the problems is that satellite TV is illegal, and you don't get much in the way of good sports on Chinese television. The Shangahi Hooters put up a satellite dish anyway, but the landlord in Hangzhou isn't willing to break the law, apparently.

Friends

Before we came I imagined that I would spend my time hanging out with the wives and children of Brad’s co-workers. The wives would be much like my friends at home: highly educated women whose husbands make enough that they have the option of staying home. They would of course all be fluent in English.

The reality is, of course, much different. Most of the guys Brad works with are young and don’t have wives or children. I can’t think of even one of his male co-workers that has a child living in Hangzhou. Some of them come to Hangzhou to work leaving their wives (who also work) back in their home towns near their parents. There are a couple of female co-workers with kids around Andrew’s age, but they are obviously working with Brad all day, not hanging out with me.

Both parents work in nearly all the families here. In most cases there is also a resident grandparent or nanny to watch the kids. When that’s not the case, there is always daycare. There is one family in our complex where the mom works and the dad takes care of their daughter nearly full time. They both speak fluent English and their 5 year old does too. We’ve had a good time getting to know them, but I’m not sure our association rises to the friend level.

So what do I want from a friend? Somebody that I can discuss more than the weather with. We can complain about our husbands, our respective governments, and our kids to each other. The Chinese people we have met have been more than generous with their time, advice, translating services, babysitting services, and especially food, but not so much their innermost thoughts.

I’ve made many acquaintances but very few friends. The few friends I have made are expat wives like myself. They are fun to hang out with and we can easily talk, but I am leaving a little disappointed with not having made any good Chinese friends.

Frost in Hangzhou

On my run this morning, I noticed something new - frost on the grass. Today -- Dec. 19 -- is the first day it's been cold enough for frost in Hangzhou. A few weeks ago, it was about 45 degrees F inside our office, but they finally turned on the heat a few days later. I don't mind a cool office, but when my hands get so cold it's hard to type, that's too cold.

Tiger Leaping Gorge

I finally posted photos from our 4-day trek through Tiger Leaping Gorge back in Oct-Nov. Amy blogged about it in the post There ARE Stars in China. It was 4 days of good hiking and unbelievable scenery on the eastern edge of the Himalayas. Check out the photos on Flickr.

Things I'd never get used to

As the end of our stay in China approaches I find myself getting nostalgic and finding things that I will miss. There are a few things though that I'd never get used to no matter how long we stayed:

traffic: No matter how many times we come millimeters away from hitting the guy on the bicycle or a car pulls in front of the bus without looking I always cringe.

Public vomiting: I can't remember the last time I saw anybody throw-up in public in the US - maybe in 4th grade. It doesn't seem to be a big deal here and every few days I see somebody leaning over the gutter and the rest of the world passing them by without a second glance. Once they have finished they continue on with their day like nothing has happened. Thankfully most people make it to the gutter, though more than once I've seen puddles on the public busses.

Pollution: Smog, cigarette smoke, and more than anything NOISE

Bedding: I'd have to get some fitted sheets made if we were staying longer

Comments on the Comments: Admittedly I have seen public vomiting in the US due to public drunkenness which is definitely not a problem in China. It's been awhile since I've closed the bars down and I'd forgotten this. Bourbon Street was much more disgusting than anything I experienced in China. No matter what, standing in a puddle of puke on a public bus is not fun and I would never get used to it. On pollution: no matter where you are if your boogers are black every day it is too polluted. On traffic: there are crazy drivers all over the world, but it seemed to me that more drivers were crazy in Hangzhou. Also, when you put pedestrians, bikes, and cars in such close proximity things tend to get crazier. In the big cities we visited (Beijing and Shanghai) traffic seemed less out of control, though more congested.
Except the pollution these are not necessarily things I'd like to change, just things I'd never get used to.

Is that a tour group?

We've mentioned several times the Chinese tour groups that pervade every tourist site following around their leader submissively wearing their bright colored hats.

Today Andrew and I watched Ice Age. During the scene where the Dodo birds march themselves off a cliff to extinction as a chaotic but cohesive group Andrew turns to me and asks, "Is that a tour group?"

Another note on tour groups: Today I went to the China National Silk Museum. This museum is quite large and very informative. They have some beautiful silk clothing on display and a very in depth description of the life cycle of silk all the way from the eggs of the silk work through weaving the fibers into cloth. All of this is complete with English signs that actually make sense (they even correctly used the term anthropomorphism). I was very impressed.

The last room in the museum is the only room that we saw any tour groups in, they avoided the rest of the museum. What was in this last room? There were 4 old style human powered looms set up with people weaving at them. Two of the looms were so large that they took 2 people to operate. The cloth the weavers were creating was beautiful and the whole process intricate and fascinating. Even this was largely ignored by the tour groups. On the other side of the room was a fashion show. Having the two things going on in the same room at the same time was so weird. The fashion show lasted 10 minutes at most and the models looked like the could not be more bored. They showed off an array of silk clothing and then the tour groups were hustled off into one of the 3 stores that reside in the museum complex. Once at the stores a sales man gave them a pitch that I can only assume included how to tell real silk from fake since he was lighting stuff on fire (real silk will not remain aflame and smells horrible when burned). After this, the women shopped and the men went outside for a smoke. Then it's back to the bus ...

Priorities

Elong (the online travel agency - see previous post) may not have the technology to process a credit card without a very complicated procedure, but they do have the technology to search the web for references to them. I suppose that technology could be somebody that gets paid $1 an hour to Google "elong" and read any new entries that come up. However they do it, the day after our previous post Brad got a phone call and I got an email expressing apologies for the mix up and giving us some VIP points. I'm not exactly sure what the VIP points are good for, but it was a nice gesture anyway.

The whole situation really wasn't elong's fault. They are not the one's that canceled the flight and the fact that they called us and spoke to us in English to tell us that the flight was cancelled was more than I could have expected from another travel agency. As mixed up as the situation was, it was far better than arriving at the airport to find out that the flight was cancelled and it would be 21 hours until the next flight.

The way we handle money in the US is so abstract and removed from purchasing. We have our paychecks deposited into the bank directly. They send us an email once a month telling us how much money we have. We make purchases with a card that holds a magnetic strip containing a sequence of numbers that get transmitted somewhere else. We get an email once a month telling us how much we've spent. Once I have both emails I electronically transfer money from one place to another to pay for everything I've bought in the month. I use so little cash that I once put a purchase for 75 cents on my credit card.

The requirement in China for the physical pieces of paper (cash) representing value and the paper receipts representing the transfer of cash just seems crazy to me. I suppose I should be thankful that I don't have to use the barter system and pay for my airline tickets with chickens and whisky. (We once paid for a place to sleep in Laos this way - actually we gave our guide cash who paid for the room with a chicken and a bottle of whiskey)

Really when you think about it cash is no less an abstract representation of value than numbers on a computer screen. I think I prefer the latter.

Tickets Please

For the most part, travel within China is not too expensive. However, getting the tickets can be an ordeal sometimes.

First of all, it is very difficult to use a credit card which means that you are dealing in large quantities of cash. Our trip to Lijiang cost around $1000 for the three of us. If we were buying in the US, we’d simply tell them our credit card number and be done with it. Even if we had to pay cash we’d hand over a thin stack of ten $100 bills. Here you first head to the ATM to take out as much money as the machine will allow. Luckily we have a high limit ATM near us that lets us take out $300 (or so) at a time. I am able to do this 3 times before the machine cuts me off. This still leaves me $100 short so Brad has to go to a different bank and use his card to get the rest. After combining our cash we have a large stack of eighty 100 RMB notes to hand over to the guy delivering our tickets.

The ticket delivery guy arrives and he has our tickets in hand, but speaks no English. We assume he’s the right guy and proceed to count out our money for him. All this takes place in front of the BoldTech security guard. We don’t know how much he makes, but our best guess is around $20 a day. It’s a little odd counting out so much cash in front of him.

We book our tickets online through elong.com which generally works out pretty well. However, while we were in Yasngshuo elong called to tell us that the flight we booked had been cancelled and we needed to choose another flight. One should think that this is not a problem, but you would be wrong. Since elong does not have an agent in Yangshuo we want to handle the change via the phone. This is just not possible. The new tickets are cheaper than the old tickets, but we can not just exchange them for some reason. Elong accepts credit cards, but phone authorization is not enough. To pay by credit card you must fill out a form and fax it back along with a copy of your passport and the credit card. So to do this you need internet to download the form, a printer to print it and a scanner or a fax to return it. Finding all of this in a small town in China is next to impossible, but I suppose it might be done. After begging them to authorize the purchase via the phone to no avail we decided it was best to just use a local travel agent. This meant getting cash for the new tickets. For some reason ATM’s in Yangshuo are particularly fickle and it took trying three different machines, but we finally found one that worked. We managed to communicate what we needed to travel agent who spoke no English after waiting some time for our receipts to be printed somewhere else and driven over to his storefront, we had our tickets in hand.

All that remained now was to get the refund on our original tickets. Brad had a co-worker call the travel agency affiliated with elong in Hangzhou that had originally issued the tickets. The had to call elong to confirm that we were entitled to a refund, but they said it should be no problem, just bring our receipt in. Luckily I had kept the receipt even though these were e-tickets and I was told I would not need it. We asked if they could deliver the refund as they had delivered the tickets. Not a chance, not even if we paid a service fee for it. The agency was located in a part of the city that I had never been to before but it wasn’t too much trouble to find. When I arrived and gave them our tickets they acted as if they had never heard of the situation though we had just talked to them less than an hour before. They had to call elong again, but in the end I walked out with a fat stack of cash.

Something that would have been so simple in the US that it would have taken a five minute phone call took several hours and had us running all over 2 different Chinese cities, but it all worked out in the end.

Build it and they will come

The Chinese have taken speculative building to a whole new level. All around Hangzhou, high-rise apartment buildings are sprouting like weeds. From my apartment, I can see dozens of cranes busy at work within a mile radius, and it's the same all over the city. Dozens of other towers have been recently built. Of the thousands of units available, though, only a tiny fraction is actually occupied. A huge, riverfront tower nearby is nearly dark at night time, with only a handful of lights on. I've been told that wealthy people are snapping up real estate as fast as they can get it, despite having a fat chance of finding renters any time soon.

All this construction is powered by cheap labor from rural China. I'll get into that topic in a separate post, though...

Longji Rice Terraces

After Yanshuo we traveled North to the Long Ji Rice Terraces (also called Dragon’s Backbone Terraces). In this area the local people have terraces whole mountains for cultivation of rice. The sight is really spectacular on so many levels. It is really beautiful, even in the cold mist that pervaded when we were there. Contemplating the amount of work that went into creating and maintaining the terraces is staggering. The people that live here are of two minority tribes, the Yao and Zhuang. It is designated as an autonomous minority region, but I’m not really sure what that means. The two villages that we visited, Longji and Ping’an, were both Zhuang villages. The Zhuang women are famous for their very long hair.

We arrived in the morning and walked up to our hotel in Ping’an. I didn’t realize this before we arrived, but it is around a kilometer from the parking area to the village up steep stairs. This was not a good place for the rolling suitcase so we paid somebody $1.25 to load our suitcase up in a big basket and carry it up to the Li Qing Hotel for us. After having some noodle soup for lunch we set off for the nearby village of Longji. There is a maze of paths through the terraces and after asking the way several times we finally made it. Longji was interesting primarily because there are no hotels and restaurants catering to the masses of tourists as there are in Ping’an. The old houses and the narrow walkways through town are fun to walk through and the village is small enough that there is not too much worry of getting lost.

It was a cold, foggy day and our hopes of seeing terraced fields stretching into the distance were for naught. The clouds occasionally parted long enough to see the next rise in the hill, but never farther than that. We spent the evening huddled around the fire watch a DVD.

The next day was more of the same weather so we walked around Ping’an trying to get a feel for the people and village life. Amongst the hotels and coffee bars there are pig sty’s and chicken coops. For every man passing with a load of bricks to build his family’s guesthouse there is a woman passing with a bucket of slop for the livestock that will soon be dinner for the family or a tourist. Besides the village residents it was interesting to see the Chinese tourists. Like us, they come out of curiosity, and their impractical shoes and fancy city clothes are a stark contrast to the traditional outfits of the residents.

After about 24 hours of bitter cold weather we left for the airport and Hangzhou. We were disappointed to never have had a good view, but glad to have come none the less. See more photos here.

Yangshuo

Last weekend we traveled to Yangshuo. We stayed at the Outside Inn which is located in a little village about 5 km outside of Yangshuo. The tourist sign introducing the village states that it has 10 part members of the Communist Party. I’m not sure what a part member is or why this is important, but we had a good time there.

On the first day we were there we rode bikes up one side of the Yu Long River to Baisha and back down the other side. The rough road and trails made for some bumpy riding, but the small farm villages and amazing karst formations made it all worth while.

The most interesting part of the day was visiting the market at Baisha. Any kind of item necessary for daily living could be found there. Everything from pirated DVD’s (75 cents each) to plow blades to live chickens, rabbits, and fish for dinner could be found. We had a hard time spending money here. We parked our bikes behind a sugar cane stall and offered to pay for the privilege, but our money was refused and they insisted that we take some sugar cane to chew on. We walked around for a bit and ended up standing under an awning to wait out a rain burst where an old lady gave us some oranges. After the rain cleared in a few minutes we tried to buy some of her oranges, but she too refused our money. When we insisted she ended up giving us even more oranges, which we in turn had to give away to others since we didn’t want to carry so many. After poking around for awhile we had a bowl of 25 cent noodle soup (very tasty) and headed back to the bikes. I felt like the market was a glimpse into genuine rural life in China. There were no tourist items for sale and not once did we hear, “Hello, lookee lookee.”

What we did hear throughout the day was, “Hello, Bamboo?” The lack of tourists at this time of year combined with the sheer volume of bamboo rafts available made this call a nearly continuous part of our day. We did finally take a ride on a raft the following day and it was a pleasant respite from pedaling. Unfortunately, due to unlucky timing we ended up in the middle of a Chinese tour group playing loud Chinese opera music and asking their oarsmen to get close to us so they could take pictures of Andrew.

Before the raft trip we cycled to Moon Hill and climbed up for some beautiful views of the area. Later in the evening we ventured into Yangshuo proper and walked up and down the main drag and had dinner. The tourist scene is alive and well there and you can buy your post cards and t-shirts with no problem. When we were there the tourists were predominately Chinese, but there is no shortage of pizza and banana pancakes indicating that this is a popular place for Westerners too. The thumping music and constant sound of vendors vying for your attention made me glad not to have stayed too close to here.

For more pictures check out our flickr site.

The Menu of Bad Things

Andrew is very curious about all the things that can go wrong on any given form of transport. He always wants to know what kind of emergencies can happen. Will the train derail? Will the airplane catch on fire? What happens if you open the door while a car is moving? He never fails to point out an emergency exit out of a building.

Most recently while the movie showing emergency procedures was showing before take off he wanted to read the “menu of bad things.” By this he meant the safety instruction card showing pictures of what to do in every possible scenario.

Yangshuo photos

We returned last night from our last big sightseeing trip in China, this time in Yangshuo and the Long Ji rice terraces, both near Guilin. We'll write more about it later, but I've posted some photos from Yangshuo at Flickr. Yangshuo and Guilin are famous for their karst formations - vertical pinnacles of limestone - surrounding the countryside. I also added the link to My Photos on the right under Links.

Clothing Drive

When we leave China we will be donating many of the toys Andrew has acquired while we are here along with some clothes he has outgrown to an orphanage. This is actually one of the orphanages sponsored by our adoption agency so the donation has special meaning for us besides putting the stuff that just wont fit in our suitcases to good use.

I came up with the idea to do a clothing drive at Andrew's preschool to gather up more stuff than we had. Considering that the preschool he attends is in a neighborhood where most residents are in the top 10% of wage earners and tuition is about what government statistics say the "average income" for a Chinese worker is I thought that the kids and parents might have a few things that they could part with.

I first mentioned this to Andrew's English speaking teacher. I could tell that she didn't really understand what I was trying to get at so I didn't pursue it. Next I talked to one of the other parents who is fluent in English. (His 5 year old is also fluent in English, Mandarin, Shanghainese, and now they are working on Spanish.) I started out by explaining what I wanted to do and then asked him if people would find this culturally strange. His reply was, "Yes, very strange."

So what do the Chinese do with their old items? They pass them off to friends and relatives and when their usefulness there has passed they go to the household workers (nannies, cleaning ladies, etc..) and when they are done there they go out into the trash which gets sorted piece by piece for recyclables and other "valuables". If something has any usefulness left in it at this point the trash man (or woman) will either take it home or sell it.

Andrew's Big Adventure

Andrew and I went to Shanghai together yesterday in a fun day just for him. I hadn't decided for sure that I was going to go, but when the, "Mommy can I get up now?" alarm sounded at 5:45 I decided we had plenty of time to make the 7:15 train to the big city (Apparently Hangzhou's 4 million isn't big enough).

We took a 2 hour train ride and caught the light rail to within a kilometer of the Shanghai Children's Museum. We had fun there learning about submarines and the space shuttle. We then went to lunch and Andrew's favorite Chinese eatery, McDonalds. After listening to Christmas Songs with Chinese words over lunch we spent the rest of the afternoon window shopping and playing with the displays set up in the toy store. It was then off to the subway and back to the train station for the journey home.

To top off the day when I got to the train station I was able to tell the cab where to go without pulling out my map or address card. He said the name of the restaurant in our complex, Waipo Jia (Grandma's Kitchen) so I knew that he knew right where he was going. I was so proud of myself.

Andrew's Little Sister

One of the questions Andrew gets asked by complete strangers is, "Do you have a brother or sister?" His answer is usually, "Not yet, maybe next time we come to China." This usually confuses them quite a lot.

I think this intrigues them since nearly every 3 year old in China is an only child.

If they speak particularly good English I may explain our adoption plans, but generally I just leave them confused.

Ex-pat Thanksgiving

This was one of the most interesting Thanksgivings I've ever had. We had a buffet dinner in Kana's Pub, a Chinese Bar run by an Indian man (Kana) in celebration of the American "food festival" of Thanksgiving.

While most Americans living here have either a kitchen adequate to cook a proper dinner or opted to spring for the $35 buffets at either the Hyatt or Radison hotels we thought our experience might be more unique.

The food itself was mostly traditional, turkey, mashed potatoes, green salad, etc. I have to say I really enjoyed to Indian influence on the deviled eggs. For $13 we got all you can eat and drink (wine - from Spain, beer - from Denmark, and soda) and we stuffed ourselves.


We went out with another couple from BoldTech, Michael and Aleah, who recently arrived and will be staying for a year. There were several other Americans at the bar and many of their Chinese friends. Early in the evening a friend of Kana's with a 5 year old half-Chinese daughter introduced himself to us as Cliff Connors. He acted as host for the evening and took pictures of everyone. Andrew had a great time playing with his daughter and I ended up playing pool with one of his employees, named Raining, for much of the evening.

There was no pumpkin pie so we went across the street to a Starbucks copycat place and had chocolate fondue for desert. It was a tasty way to cap off a very pleasant evening.

Fuyang

Today we joined my coworker, Patrick Ding, on a day trip to some sights near the city of Fuyang. Our first stop was the Jiuxiao Biyun Cave. It was a good thing we had Patrick to translate, and Patrick's college buddy, a Fuyang native, to guide us on the 5 different buses it took to get there. I suppose if we had just hired a cab from downtown Fuyang (after the first 2 buses), we would've been able to get there, but it would've cost a few more kuai (Yuan). The cave, discovered in 1980, claims to be the largest single cave room in the Asia-Pacific region, and I believe it. It's by far the biggest cave I've visited. The path around the perimeter of the dome-shaped room is 1.5 km (about 1 mile), and it has several massive columns and many other interesting formations.

After lunch, we motored on to Longmen (Dragon Gate) town, which contains architecture and history from the Ming and Qing dynasties. The old town is a labyrinth of narrow alleyways, and a guide is must so you don't get lost. Again, our trusty translator Patrick saved the day since the guide didn't speak any English. More than 90% of the people here share the same family name - Sun - and are decendants of the Wu emperor Sun Quan. It seems that a large percentage are also involved in the business of stringing badmitton racquets (usually translated as badminton in China) - people all over the town were busy working on these, and Patrick tells us the local racquets are famous in China.