People to People Technical Communications Professional Delegation to China—Day 11

Today was our last "professional day" on the trip, and after the usual breakfast buffet, which I ate gloriously alone today, we were off to our morning visit with the Strategic Delivery Organization, Greater China, Accenture, where our Meeting Agenda noted at the bottom: "The washroom at the meeting venue is western style with toilet paper available."

This is the company that one of our delegates, Ann Backhaus—who’s one of my favorite delegates—works for. This meeting was in a somewhat cramped conference room, but we managed just fine.

Accenture is quite famous in China, perhaps globally. It’s one of the "Big 5" in the global consulting industry. In China, they have more than 3000 employees, specializing in four areas: Consulting, Outsourcing, Solutions, and Technical Support.

Our hosts were very gracious, and all three of them, though Chinese, introduced themselves with English names—Simon, Jeff, and Robert. All three were in senior positions in the company.

Simon has about 20 years in I/T and software development. He worked for about two years at IBM in a consulting department. He’s been an executive at Accenture for about a year now.

Robert works in the technology consulting area. His group specializes in solving some of the issues currently faced by China CEOs. He graduated from University of Maryland at College Park. He has worked for EDS, AT&T, Bell Atlantic, and Freddie Mac. Of course, with the recent global financial meltdown led by the U.S., and with Freddie Mac recently taken over by the U.S. government, everyone groan-laughed at the mere mention of it. Someone in our delegation said, "So you’re the one!" Laughter all around.

Jeff was the junior manager in terms of time at Accenture, starting about six months ago. Before that he worked for Unisys on their outsourcing team. He’s a local person, born in Shanghai, lives in Shanghai, and spends his vacations in Shanghai. His specialty area is outsourcing.

The meeting started off with Simon asking us two questions: (1) For how many of us was this our first trip to China, and (2) What have our impressions been of China during our time here? As usual with our group, there was no shortage of people wanting to answer the questions. 🙂

Then we asked them some questions:

Jenny: As businessmen in China, what is your main source of business information?

Linda: When you write plans, proposals, and policies and procedures, here in your office, who does that, and what is their background?

Debbie: Do you get involved with RFPs, and if so, how does that work?

We talked about other topics and observations about the similarities and differences in our cultures:

  • China’s "learning from a master" culture.
  • How the long history affects the rate of change in China.
  • Engaging employees—both their minds and their hearts.
  • "Creative" and "people" work versus "logical" and "machine" work.
  • What today’s employees are looking for—not just the salary, but the complete package including the benefits and the company’s culture.
  • What hiring managers are looking for in potential employees, and how to retain employees once they’re hired.
  • Hiring professional coaches for executives.
  • The best way to train, leading to a discussion on visual communication, and "culturally loaded icons." 🙂
  • A copyright protection discussion, which mostly centered around Microsoft’s actions against piracy of its software in China. It’s estimated that 50-60% of its software is pirated. It has reacted by launching an anti-piracy tool targeting Chinese computer users to ensure they buy genuine software.

At about 20 minutes into the meeting, Jeff announced that free wireless was available in the room, and gave us the SSID and key.

Though I was the minute-taker for this meeting, I did take a few minutes "in the background" to send my final LiveJournal updates to my friend Casey for posting—which really took a load off my mind—as I wanted desperately to post them before leaving, which meant I would have had to either break down and pay the $20 (rip off) that our hotel wanted for a 24-hour period of Internet access, or try one of the Starbucks nearby to see if they offered access cheaper than that.

Casey, thanks again, a million, for helping me out during this trip!

As usual, we concluded our meeting with a certificate presentation to our hosts. Here’s Linda presenting to Simon:


We met our guests—meaning the son, daughter, and spouses of the delegates, who are always having "culture days" with the local tour guides—for lunch, and invited our Accenture hosts along, too. We met at Tai Lake Boat Cuisine Restaurant, and had our by now usual family style Chinese food. Lazy Susan. Beer and soft drinks.

I asked the guests if on the days they met us for lunch, which I think was only two days of the trip, or maybe three, if it was the highlight of their day. No one said no. But, then again, no one really said yes—without sarcasm anyway.


Set straight that it really isn’t all about us, we bid our guests and the Accenture folks adieu, and we set off to our afternoon meeting, which was with HP-China, specifically their Global Delivery China Center (GDCC) in Pudong.

Surprisingly, to me at least, this was the most awkward visit of all of our visits. The room was quite stark, and it was set up theater style—just rows of chair facing a screen, on which was projected a couple of PowerPoint slide presentations. All of our venues up until then had been chairs at desks, in nice conference rooms, often with an audio system so we could hear each other better, and usually with our names in placards on the tables.

The guy that was designated as our host, whose name was Tim, was quite hard to understand, and he gave us a brief welcome in the small auditorium we were in, and then took us into the hall, where he showed us the history of the GDCC from standalone wall boards with all of the information printed on it. He basically would take a moment to read a date-associated blurb (which we all did along with him, as it was in both Chinese and English), and then he would tell us what it said.

After that, we took a short tour of the first floor of the building we were in, where on our first stop, we peered into a room full of machines, which was a server farm. Next, we moved into a big room cordoned off in quadrants where the workers sat at their desks, mostly at laptops. It was a little warm in there, but no where near like the other rooms we’ve seen workers in. I did note one person with a jacket on, however.

After walking around the room, Tim said, "Basically in this complex, we have four building, each with three floors that all look like this one," ending the tour.

We returned to the conference room, where we had a brief welcome and introduction from a VP and General Manager, who actually "got" technical communication. It was a welcome anomaly on our trip so far.

Next Tim gave us a presentation that started off with some interesting facts about their organization, including that 24% of their employees have Master’s degrees and 0.8 have PhDs. He then whipped through about 15 slides detailing the 13 industries they engage in, and each of those had several bullet points listing on the left side of the slide, their capabilities and skills in that industry, and their applications in bullet points on the right side of the slides. The 13 industries are:

  1. Communication, Media, and Entertainment
  2. Healthcare and Life Science
  3. Consumer Industry & Retail
  4. Energy
  5. Financial Services
  6. Manufacturing
  7. Transportation
  8. Government
  9. SAP Service & Solution
  10. Testing Service & Solutions
  11. Standard Service Architecture
  12. BTO-based Service
  13. BQS (Business Quality Service) & Solutions

I’ll spare you (and me) the capabilities and applications of each.

Next, we had a very stilted conversation with the manager of their Technical Competence Center, during which we eventually ascertained that his group was so far up in the design and development cycle that they had no interaction, or understanding apparently, of the documentation used to communicate with end-users, which is what we do. Things that make you go, Hmmmm.

After he left, we were left alone with the three technical writers that work at this location in China HP, and only then did we have a very fruitful conversation. The team consisted of two Chinese women and one "Western white boy" named Terry.

Here I am at the entrance of the building under a sign welcoming us, which you can’t read in the photo. It was snapped as we were leaving:


After about an hour to freshen up after returning to the hotel from our final meetings, we headed out to Yat’s Restaurant for our farewell dinner. From this restaurant, we had a great night view of Pudong, and could actually see it in spite of it still raining. As it turned out, it rained the entire four days we were in Shanghai.

This dinner turned out to be very, very nice, even though for me, it was my least favorite meal. It was more of what I’d call a "high end" restaurant, and a good portion of the dishes involved fish, which I didn’t want to eat so close to our long travel day home. A nice surprise was that at the end of the meal they brought out this unbelievably huge birthday cake for Vaughnea, as tomorrow is her birthday.

We sang happy birthday to her, and then Shawn taught us the Chinese version of Happy Birthday. So, all of us sang Happy Birthday again in Chinese. Then Nadine, who’s French and joined the delegation from Belgium, sang Happy Birthday in French, for which in addition to myself, the Toronto contingent joined in. Then, someone knew Happy Birthday in German, and they sang that. And finally, even though none of us were Spanish or Mexican-American, a few people eked out Happy Birthday in Spanish. It was all quite fun, and Vaughnea absolutely loved it.

The staff cut the first piece of cake, and it was so inordinately large that we made them give it to Shawn, or National Guide, and all around great guy, as he usually didn’t eat with us, and when he did, he ate like a bird.

We had a touching round of thanks to Shawn, who everyone couldn’t say enough good things about. When taunted for a speech he said, "I’m not going to say a lot of mushy stuff, because I don’t want you to think, ‘Yeah, he says that to all of the delegations,’ but this group really was different in that most of the delegations that I work consist of a majority of men, but this group was mostly women. And most groups don’t tease their guide mercilessly, so that’s been a lot of fun." He said it almost with a little sarcasm, but you could tell that he had enjoyed that part of our time together.

Linda thanked him profusely, and offered the floor for others and several people said very nice things to him. I liked Vaughnea’s words, where were to the effect of, "Thank you for your patience, for your wisdom, for your sense of humor, and for being you." Tell it, sistah!

Our farewell dinner:


All the way back to the hotel, I went back and forth about going out tonight. I have been talking about going to a gay bar the entire trip, though Shanghai was the place that I really had intended to do it, as an IBM colleague of mine had been here a few years ago, and had recommended a bar that he’d actually been to and said was nice, as well as safe.

I was using the excuse of it raining yet again as a good reason not to go, when I knew darn well it was the idea of taking a taxi, which I hate, and the only thing worse being, taking a taxi to a place you’ve never been before, and particularly on top of that, doing so not being able to speak the language.

After finally "sucking it up" and "just doing it," I set out. After a few minutes wait in a short line, the bellman called up the next cab and asked me where I was going. I handed him the address, written in Chinese for me on Tuesday by Leo and the concierge, and the bellman told the address in Chinese to the cabbie.

The cab ride was incredibly long, and the only thing that kept me from not starting to get very worried was that Leo had told me that it should be about 21 yuan to get there, which is between $3.00 and $4.00. I’m quite sure this cab ride would have been between $50 and $100 in the States. It was so far, but I kept watching the meter, and when it hit 23 yuan, the driver pulled to a stop.

And then the panic started as he pointed around and asked me a question, which of course I understood not one word of. I looked around where we were and we were not at the front door of a place called Eddy’s, which was the name of the bar I was going to. He veered the taxi off the road into this area that wasn’t a parking lot, but sort of an island between two roads that met in a V, and said something else.

I started getting this sick feeling, and I thought, "If I don’t see this bar before I get out of this taxi, I’m just going to have him take me back to the hotel. This is not the kind of place that I’m going to go looking down side streets or back alleys, which are not unusual locations for gay bars even in a country where they’re not so frowned against."

I got out the piece of paper that was written in Chinese that the bellman had read to the cabbie, but that he hadn’t seen, and I handed it to him. He was so gracious. He looked at what was written, focusing on the 1187 street address I think, and looked all around for me. And then he made a noise of recognition and pointed over to the second business on the right down one of the streets meeting there in that "V" intersection, to a red, neon light in the window that said, "Eddy’s." Thank goodness. I Xie-Xied him profusely, gave him 30 yuan, and walked over to the bar.

It was a dimly lit quaint little bar, not very big at all in terms of square feet, and cool music playing, but actually a little too loudly for my taste. I did what I do in American bars, which is to say, stood along the wall taking in the scene and not talking to anyone. Though it was a small bar, they had two or three guys walking around taking your drink order if you preferred that to going up to the bar, which was in the center, with three sides being seating, and one side containing bottles on display.

I said, "A beer, please," when one of them asked me if I wanted anything.

"Will [some Chinese beer name I couldn’t discern, of course] be okay?" he asked.

"That’d be great," I said, having no idea what kind of beer that was.

"30 yuan," he said when he returned.

I moved around to three or four spots on the bar, checking out the scene. I’d say there were about 30 people in the place, maybe 8-10 westerners, and four ladies, whom I assume were Lesbians, but only because they were in a gay bar, not because they "looked like" Lesbians, whatever Lesbians look like, especially in China.

While I stood in one spot, these two guys came in and they came and stood next to me. One was a white guy, and the other a Chinese guy. The white guy said hello to me, and I just stuck out my hand and said, "Hi, I’m John."

"I’m Jack," he said, "And this is Dean." Jack was from Singapore and flying back tomorrow. Dean was very outgoing, and as it turned out, he knew a lot of the people in that bar, as several came up and said hello to him.

One was a cute, Chinese guy, whom Dean introduced to Jack and me as Carter. We talked for about an hour. He was a young kid, still in university, in a pre-MBA program. He’s never been to the States, but would like to move to NYC next year. His English was quite good, but we were often standing right under the speaker, so I had to ask him to repeat things now and again.

He told me that I looked like the actor on The King of Queens, which of course I’ve never seen. He couldn’t remember his acting name. Anyway, he said that he thought that the actor was very handsome, which was very sweet. (Turns out it was Kevin James.)

He asked me how old I was, and I when I said 51, he said, "No way. You look 35." Who could not like this kid? 🙂 He asked me how old I thought he was, and I said, "Oh my god, you’re just a kid. You can’t be more than 21 or 22."

"21," he responded making a very brief facial expression that said, "I’m not that old!" as if 21 or 22 was way off and so much older than he actually was. Ah, youth.

I asked him if this bar had ever been raided or if there is ever any trouble with the police here. He assured me that there wasn’t, as the bar pays the government to make sure it stays that way. Pays them monthly.


I was glad to have ventured out on my last night in China to end up having a little time with people like me. Gay people all over the world having similar experiences. Carter talked about not being out in his life, his wanted to be assured that he can "pass as straight," and his plans to tell his family only after he has graduated, has a job, and his own place to live.

There’s always that fear of being disowned, which is most likely heightened in China due to the one birth rule. After all, you know the parents who have been lucky enough to have their male offspring, are probably not going to take to well to the fact that their son is probably not going to produce the heirs they want, and need, to perpetuate the family name.

Last day of work this month, Deer Hunting w/Jesus & Robert & Katherine…

I wore shorts and a t-shirt to work today. Among other things, I created an announcement about my trip to the staff, which is now posted in the Staff News section of the Office of Information Technology home page: OIT staff member talks technical communication in China.


I picked up Katherine Chandler at the airport at around 6:30, and we went to Elmo’s Diner in Durham for dinner. I had quiche and she had a Greek Grilled Cheese sandwich, which she loved.

We met Robert at Manbites Dog Theater to see Deer Hunting with Jesus, which Katja was directing. It was a staged reading of an adaption of Joe Bageant‘s book Deer Hunting with Jesus: Dispatches from America’s Class War.

There was a scene about three-quarters of the way through that had the three of us in absolute stitches. We thoroughly enjoyed our evening.


I dropped off Katherine at my house, and ran down to Flex for just a little while. Joe didn’t go out tonight, and I spent most of the time talking with Steve Harris.

I wasn’t there more than an hour, leaving at just a little bit after midnight.


I hate how I’m consistently running about two days behind on my blog now. Gotta remedy that soon.

A Stan-level staff meeting, work turnover meeting, and the State Fair…

Good week for… Bad week for…
Health-food stores, after Italian researchers isolated an erection-inducing plant compound in a widely sold Chinese herb known as Horny Goat Weed. The compound, icariin, may be as effective as Viagra, researchers said. Biological warfare, after a West Virginia man was charged with battery on a police officer for passing gas in the direction of the cop who had pulled him over for drunken driving. A prosecutor later dropped the battery charge.

—From The Week Magazine 10/10/08—


Our manager worked from home today with a massive head cold, which I appreciated. I truly would not like to be on a plane for 13.5 hours with a cold.

We had a staff meeting today for everyone who works for my boss’s boss—so about three departments of 25 or 30 folks. I volunteered to take the meeting minutes.

In the afternoon, I met with my officemate and teammate, Rhonda, where I filled her in on the work I’ve been doing in case anything comes up while I’m gone that she might need to handle.


Our P2P delegation leader, Linda, asked me to update a table for her with everyone’s areas of expertise and personal goals for the trip, which will be used in our introductions.


After a lot of traffic drama for Joe, he and I took the bus from Hillsborough Street out to the State Fair.

Joe’s work gives their employees two free tickets to the fair each year, so we used those, and went there solely to eat. We did a good job at it, too.

With and alternating salty and sweet agenda, we started off with Polish Sausage gyros with grilled onions and peppers. We got some root beer at the A&W booth. Next was a funnel cake with powdered sugar and glazed apple chunks on it. On to salty—french fries with vinegar.

Our final, sweet, stop was in a tent-like area, where you got a big plastic bowl upon entering and the candy was $2.50 a pound. They had hundreds of tubs with hundreds of kinds of “penny candy,” several of which I haven’t seen since being a kid. We actually didn’t go too wild there, and walked out with just under two pounds worth.

On the way out, we were looking for the place to buy fudge, but we didn’t try real hard, and never found it. Having gotten totally disoriented walking around there and gorging ourselves, we had to ask a cop to direct us to the entrance we had come in through, as we had to return to that particular one to catch the bus back to Hillsborough Street by my work.


Joe came up and saw my office, where I checked the Method Road city bus to see if it was still running. It was about 9:45, and the last run was at 10:13, so I sent him on his way, and caught that one home.

Work stuff, an affirmation from our P2P leader, and a fun night of dancing…

I attended the OIT Web Team Meeting today, wrote an e-mail to Marc Hoit, our CIO, about his blog, and I responded to a director who is in a workgroup charged with creating “an ideal information technology or information services department at an Asian women’s university.” He wanted some input on what people thought would contribute to such an environment.

I worked on a bunch of Remedy tickets of folks who are participating in Drupal migration projects. I wrote an OIT News article about my China trip.

I provided Jude (my boss) and Stan (her boss) my China trip itinerary, with which they’ll determine how many, if any, days of my trip I can count as work days.


Over the past two days, I’ve created and managed a table to make sure that each day of our China trip is covered by a volunteer blogger. This resulted in an affirmation from our delegation leader:

Thanks so much, John!  You have truly been such a great support to me…  I am appreciative beyond measure…

Linda


Dancing was pretty fun tonight. A cute, fun guy named Tom was there, who turned out to be the partner of this other guy, whose name I don’t know, but who is there a lot with Joe and Jose.

Joe, Jose, and Rob were not in attendance tonight. Carl, Bill, Geromy, Michael, Rick, Rob, and of course, myself, were.

Carl taught Boot Scootin’ Boogie as Tom wanted to take a lesson, as well as this other guy named Scott, who was sitting talking to him most of the night.

Back to work, a class, scripts filled, a run to MBD, and a drink on the lanai…

I caught the 8:25 bus today, and Barry, one of my neighbors, and this other sort-of regular at our stop had a little chat. The lady works for the federal government, so was off yesterday for Columbus day. Barry works for the university, as do I, so both state employees, who did not have the day off yesterday. I took a sick day for my trip to Rhode Island.


Since today was the last day that I could adjust most of my benefits (tomorrow is 30 days since my start date), I updated my NC Flex benefits, the Health Care Flexible Spending Account to be exact, to defer $200 into it for calendar year 2008, since I paid a $20 co-pay for my Hep A shot visit, and I’m going to get about $185 in prescriptions filled tomorrow.


I was in a Drupal training class from 9:30-11:30. It was taught by Don, and there were about 15 people in it, including my team, and several of the liaisons representing teams who are about to move content into Drupal.

I grabbed two hot dogs for lunch at Coffee Haven. They were okay, but were those red, red hot dogs that “they love down here.” There was a time during which I wouldn’t touch them. Now, I only eat them if they’re the only kind available, or close by when I’m pressed for time, which was the case today.

I worked on the Drupal Inventory Worksheet, reviewed and commented on our CIO’s proposed Strategic Operating Plan.

The 6:00 bus didn’t arrive until 6:15. I was beginning to think I had missed it.

I got a funny birthday card from Suzanne in the mail today. At some point, probably after my China trip now, I’m going to capture all of my cards in an entry. I like doing that.

I checked in with mom and dad to let them know I had received their birthday call, and was in Coventry for Uncle Frank’s funeral. In her classic way, my mother said, “Yeah, I’ve been doing alright, considering my leg (the one she just had replacement surgery on again), and the car accident I was in a couple of weeks ago…”


I filled my car up tonight—making it to 3-weeks with one tank. For posterity, gas was $3.39 a gallon. Which reminds me, I saw it for $2.79 at a gas station in Rhode Island when I was there.

I stopped at K-Mart, where I ended up leaving my prescriptions to be filled over night.

Back at home, I addressed 50 envelopes for Manbites Dog, and then drove out to Durham and put them in the theater’s mailbox out front. I drove by Robert’s as the moon was full and beautiful, and I thought we might have a drink on “the lanai.”

He generously offered me some crackers with a cheddar cheese and roasted red pepper spread that was delicious, and some ginger ale. We sat on his deck long enough to gaze at the moon, have a sip of drink, and say we did.

Back home I tweeted this:

Back. Bonus: Visited Robert, got fed, had a “drink on the lanai under a full moon” and got a kiss goodnight. 🙂 SWEET!

Uncle Frank’s Memorial service, a lunch recption following, and my birthday…

Though my alarm was set for 9:00, I was up at 8:00 after about 10 hours sleep. Felt good.

Aunt Annette and I had coffee and cinnamon toast, while we talked about the updating of her will, which she wants to do soon. She expressed concern about not having a co-executor to name, and I told her she was welcome to list me as the co- or contingency executor, if she wanted to.

She seemed incredibly relieved and grateful.


Karen and Joe arrived at about 10:00, and the rest of the crowd trickled in between 10:45 and 11:15.

One family member, Gail, after saying she remembered me when “you were this high,” asked, “How old are you now?”

I wasn’t thinking and started to say 50, and then stammered, “Actually, 51, today. Today’s my birthday.”


Uncle Frank’s memorial service was in a little catholic chapel, and everyone—around 15 of us—sat, what reminded me of, on “the bride’s side.” That is to say, we were all on the left side of the church.

Ironically, in retrospect, the “guest of honor” was up on the altar on the other side of the church—the box, and small bag of cremains.


I had so many mixed emotions sitting through mass. It’s been forever and a day since I’ve been, and I’m pretty sure the last time I went was for the funeral of co-worker’s daughter ten years, if not more, ago. Some of my thoughts, not necessarily in the order I had them:

  1. I can’t believe I remember all of these responses… “Thanks be to God.” “And also with you.” “Through Him. With Him. And in Him. In the unity of the Holy Spirit, all glory and honor is Yours, Almighty Father, forever and ever. Amen.”
  2. I’m surprised these people behind me know the words, too. I’m quite sure most of them do not attend mass regularly, if ever.
  3. What is it about humans that they would choose to return to a place, from which so much pain has emanated, for some “closure.” “The catholic church” was a huge reason that my aunt and uncle gave up their daughter for adoption. It’s never been kind or welcoming to me as a homo.
  4. Did he just say, “…our parishioner, Frank…”? He wasn’t a member of this church.
  5. I wonder if that priest has ever done or said anything inappropriate to that altar boy.
  6. That’s all that’s left of a life. That box and little bag over there.
  7. Should I take communion? The “rules” say I shouldn’t. Will there be so few people taking it that it’ll be embarrassing?
  8. Oh my. There are only kneelers on the first row. I wonder how many knees we’re going to hear creaking as everyone kneels, most of us all the way down to the floor.
  9. When the priest said, “Can I impose on someone to bring the gifts to the altar? My first thought was, “Oh no, they are not going to pass the basket.” and then “Do they mean move the cremains to the altar from that table?” then, “OH, he’s talking about the water, wine and bread for the transubstantiation!”

After mass, we caravaned to the Hong Kong Buffet, which was one of my uncle’s favorite restaurants, where our party of 13-15 enjoyed a nice meal over the course of an hour or so.


We had just about an hour back at the house, just the four of us: me, Aunt Annette, Karen, and Joe.

I said my goodbyes to Aunt Annette, and Karen and Joe graciously took me to the airport.

I carefully guarded three books that Karen gave me that my uncle (her father) had written for her, and which I’m going to try to put on DVD.


My flights back were uneventful, albeit unexpectedly crowded for a Monday night. Perhaps because it was Columbus Day, a holiday for many business travelers, who were perhaps doing their normal Sunday night travel on Monday night.


I’m fifty-fucking-one.

Flying up to Coventry and hanging out with Aunt Annette, Karen, and Joe…

I was up at 4:45, and at the airport by 5:45. I parked in Lot 3, the “Purple Lot,” and was in line at U.S. Airways by 6:00.

I had my laptop, a suit bag, and a small bag that I’d normally take as my carry on bag, but was checking today, since I had three items. I was absolutely annoyed that I had to pay $15 to check that little bag.

Retrieving my stuff at the end of the security conveyor belt, I had walked around to the other side, since it was so crowded and shit was spurting out and piling up at the end of the belt, but within about a minute, Brunhilda came toward me, “Sir, I need you to move back around to the other side.”

There, I put my suit bag on the stack of empty containers, while I gathered my shoes, laptop, and the gray bin with my wallet, cell phone, watch, and change in it. “Sir, I need you to move your bag off the empty bins.” (There were two piles of empty bins, and no one was trying to put an empty one back on either pile.)

I made a face, and grabbed my bag, and then she began to wheel that stack of empty bins, which was on a dolly, and she ran over my toe. She knew that I had just about had it with her by then, and she said, “Oh, excuse, me. I’m so sorry, sir,” and went around me.

On my way to my gate, I stopped for a bagel, where the cash register had just “gone down,” and where the two people working there were trying to manage math in their head, using English as a second language to boot.

Overall, not a great start to my day.


We had an uneventful, on-time departure for my RDU to LaGuardia flight. The plane was small—two seats on each side of the aisle. The guy next to me was hot, but slept the entire time.

I devised my Thursday and Friday blog entries en route, and listened to Eva Cassidy’s Songbird CD on my iPod Touch.

I had seat 7A on both of my flights today, and my gate out of LaGuardia was Gate 1, with a 45-minute layover. I started on my PowerPoint presentation for my China trip while I waited, and pretty much got the first five slides done.

The flight from LaGuardia to Providence was on a tiny plane, nine rows total, and propeller-driven. Of the 36 seats, only 13 were occupied, so we had plenty of room to spread out.


That flight arrived 30 minutes early in Providence, which I still can’t quite figure out. Something was wrong there. The flight time I had in my Palm Pilot was from 9:30-10:54, which is nearly an hour-and-a-half, but I’m quite sure the flight attendant (and later the pilot) said that it was a 45-minute flight. And then we landed so early, which was more in line with the 45-minute announced flight time, than the time I had in my records.  I checked my printed flight reservations and sure enough, it stated the flight time as one hour and 25 minutes.

I don’t know. Who cares. It’s said and done, and I arrived safely.


After retrieving my bag, I found Aunt Annette and Karen, and after tearful hello hugs, we headed back to Coventry.

Before we unloaded my stuff from the car, we walked across the street to Annette and Frank’s three-car garage, which Frank was going to make into a little retirement house for them, where Karen’s husband, Joe, has done a phenomenal job in going through.

My uncle had an incredible collection of all kinds of things for stone masonry and building. Piles of hammers, piles of chisels, piles of trowels, and piles of a lot of other such things. All kinds of leftover wood, wires, drills, saws, huge buckets of nails, screws, four or five gas containers, four tool boxes, and a huge stone cutting machine with diamond-edged blades on it.

Joe is such an incredibly nice guy and has been working over the last several weekends clearing out and straightening up the amazing collection of clutter that the place had become.

I took a compass that was laying on my uncle’s work table. It’s one of those old compasses that used to be used in math classes—V-shaped with a steel point on one end and a little pencil stuck in the other end.


I also took a key chain that says “Açores” on it, and has an eyeglasses screwdriver hanging on it. Both my uncle’s and my dad’s heritage is from the Azores Islands of Portugal.


After checking that out, Karen, Annette, and I came back across the street, where I unloaded my stuff, and the three of us enjoyed cocktails and some snacks.

Uncle Frank’s cremains were on the table, most of it in a good sized black box, and a little bit in a red draw-strung bag. The box was for Annette. The bag for Karen.

Around the next May timeframe two things will happen with them: (1) Most will be buried at a local cemetery, and (2) Karen and my aunt will go to Arizona, and spread a bit of them in the Grand Canyon.

Karen and Annette brought out a stuffed quahog with a birthday candle stuck in it for me, and I said before blowing out the candle, “To my favorite uncle in the whole world,” to which we all smiled through tears.

An hour or so later, Joe came back over, and we had Bacalhau—a delicious Portuguese cod fish dish that my aunt made, along with some mashed potatoes. Yum. Yum. Yum.

For dessert, we had some most delicious pistachio cake, made by Karen, also served with a birthday candle in it, and all of us sang happy birthday to me. 🙂


After that late lunch, we walked back across the street to see the work that Joe had done while the three of us were drinking and snacking earlier, and it was incredible how much he’d gotten done in that little bit of time!

We walked around the back of the place, and checked out the piles of stone back there, and talked about what the little house that my uncle had planned to build was going to look like. He had it all thought out, of course. Karen kept saying, “Every time I see this, it just breaks my heart. He had this all planned out, and it would have been done, too, if all of this hadn’t happened to him.”


Back at the house, we sat around the table upstairs, and Annette and Karen detailed the final week with my uncle. It was an incredibly taxing week on them, extremely painful for my uncle, and left him so sad in the end as Karen was the only child that visited him during his time in the nursing home and at home under Hospice care. Heartbreaking.

Later in the evening, Karen and Joe, especially Joe, told a lot of funny postal stories, most of them about dogs, as they both work for the U.S. Postal Service—Joe still a letter carrier, and Karen working in human resources now, but having been a carrier for eleven years.


Karen and Joe left at about 8:30, and by 9:00, Aunt Annette and I had both retired to our rooms.

I checked in with Robert by phone, finished this blog entry, and then worked for about an hour on my PowerPoint presentation for my China trip.

Manbites Dog board meeting, a birthday lunch, and finally installed year-old SW…

I went to bed way too late, and got up way too early.

I attended our Manbites Dog board meeting from 10:00-12:00, during which—after failing miserably at applying little stickies to invitations—I successfully, and in some cases quite beautifully, addressed a little over 100 invitations to our upcoming fundraiser on November 8, 2008.

Ed, with the patience of Job, ran the meeting while the rest of us gave our divided attention to making various contributions on the handmade invitations.


I picked up Robert at his new place, and after a short tour—it’s adorable! (much like himself)—we headed over to Symposium in the Durham Tobacco Warehouse area for my birthday lunch. Oh, before we left, he gave me the greatest card! It’s a picture of a fat lady on the front, with her mouth opened, and it says, “You’re not OLD until the fat lady SINGS.”

When you open it, this incredible operatic-sounding woman holds this outrageously long note—complete with a fabulous ending including a slight echo. I loved it.


Back in Raleigh, I had every intention of attending Chaotic Elections! A Mathematician Looks at Voting, for which I’d actually registered, but when my alarm went off after a one-hour nap, I turned it off, did a very quick calculation myself, and promptly went back to sleep.


I did two loads of laundry, during which I reviewed—and added comments to—Sarah’s proposal for our presentation at the 2009 STC Annual Conference in Atlanta next May. The submission deadline is 10/20/2008.

After that, I finally installed two software programs I bought in September of 2007. Yes, 2007, over a year ago—Microsoft Office 2007 and Adobe Acrobat Professional. I installed them on both my laptop and my PC.


I have to be at the airport for 6AM tomorrow. I set my alarm for 4:45 and hit the sack.

Some cards, negative money numbers, a couple brochures, and “bundle packing”…

First thing this morning, I wrote, by hand (that ancient art) in three greeting cards: a sympathy card, a “just because” card, and a thank you card.

En route to my morning coffee, I dropped them off at the post office that’s two blocks down from my office. Having such things around me is one of my favorite things about working for NCSU.


During lunch, I walked to the State Employees Credit Union, two blocks in the opposite direction of the post office, and I entered into a long line from which I saw two tellers clicking and typing away at stations that have “Please Use Next Window” in front of them. Evidently, they were doing credit union business that was more important than serving customers who were waiting in line. But I digress…

Of the two stations that were open, both had customers doing more than a quick transaction. One of the two tellers of those two stations was having a conversation, loud enough to hear in the line, with a young college kid. It went something like this:

Student: So, can you tell me exactly when I overdrew?

Teller: Well, on October 3rd, you electronically moved $1.83 from checking into savings. And then, you wrote a $3.00 check.

Student (with attitude): So you’re telling me—$1.17—that’s what made me overdraw?

Uh, what part of negative numbers don’t you understand? It’s as negative at -$0.01 as it is at -$2000.01.

To be honest, he lost me at the $1.83 transfer to savings, not to mention the $3.00 check. Get it together. You’re a young adult now.


I had a productive day at work today, finishing up an OIT Expo ’08 handout for Dan and the AVTech/ClassTech teams, and getting halfway through a similar handout for the Security and Compliance team.

I attended a Drupal information architecture-type meeting with Jude, Jen, and Alan (one of our customers), and I got started folding my 100 copies of the OIT Services trifold for the expo on Thursday. I took the rest home with me.


I listened to some NPR podcasts both to and from work today, including one called, “1000 Essential Recordings You Must Hear;” another called, “Covering San Quentin: A Behind-the-Scenes Look” at how, among other things, the gymnsium has become one massive cell; and a gem called, “How to Pack Everything You Own in One Bag.”

Of course, with the one bag, 44-pound limit for luggage on my upcoming China trip, my ears perked right up on this one! After listening to it, I posted this to our delegation Yahoo group:

This investment of 5 minutes and 13 seconds might be the only chance most of will have of even coming close to packing what we need with a 44-pound weight limit.

It’s a podcast, but you can listen to it directly from your laptop or desktop. Doug Dyment, whose Web site onebag.com is devoted to the art of traveling light, is planning an international trip to both India and Russia, two places with very different climates, and he’s doing it all in one CARRY ON bag.

His two biggest tricks: Don’t let any space go unused, and wrap your clothes in bundles. I’d never heard of the bundling technique, and really didn’t get it until I looked at the diagram on the NPR website:

Click on image to enlarge.

Listen to, or read the transcript of, the story: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90297199

Best,
John


At home, I had dinner, folded the rest of those trifold brochures, and had instant message conversations with both Robert and Joe.

I got to bed at a decent hour. Yay.

A memorial service date, updated “scripts” plan, workout, dinner out, and some pool…

We were up around nine this morning, and I made Cheddar omelets; sliced, fried turkey ham, and toast for breakfast, accompanied by coffee, of course.

Robert was an absolute dear washing a tie for me that I might be able to use on my trip to China. Thanks, my sweet!


At about 1:00, I finally turned on my cell phone to find a voice mail message from my aunt. Unfortunately my uncle’s wish to donate his body to the Anatomical Gift Program at Brown University was not able to be honored due to that open wound in his chest that never healed.

To that end, she is going to have a memorial service on Monday, October 13th, in Rhode Island. This presents a challenge for me in terms of time off from work, but I’m going to talk about it with my manager tomorrow. I really want to be there.


I logged into merckmedco.com to see what the implications were to my switch from IBM to the State, both of which use Medco for their prescription plans. After a very frustrating 20 minutes or so trying to figure out the difference between a member number, a subscription number, a group ID, and a bin ID, I called their toll-free support number, which I was surprised to find staffed on a Sunday afternoon.

A very seasoned support person took care of everything I needed, and before we hung up I said, “I want you to know that I very much appreciate that you were able to do everything I needed done without transferring me to a bunch of people, and I thank you for calming me down.”

She seemed delighted to hear it.


I got back to the gym today, where I accomplished the following:

 Exercise Category

 Exercise Type

 Duration

 Comments

Resistance

Lower Body

40 minutes

 

Strengthening

Ab Crunches

15 minutes

300: 10 sets of 30 reps

Cardio

Elliptical

20 minutes

Hills setting, Level 4, 372 calories burned


Joe and I met at Hibernian at around 5:30, where we had envisioned enjoying a Bloody Mary at one of the tables out front on the sidewalk. Well, evidently, everyone else had dining alfresco on their mind, too, in this beautiful weather.

Instead of waiting, we walked directly across the street to Stool Pigeons to enjoy “Half Price Sunday” (all food on their menu is half-price), and drink their Bloody Mary’s.

However, before seating ourselves, I just checked with the wait staff to see if they were still doing HPS, and as it turned out, they weren’t!

We walked down Glenwood to 518 West instead, and had their Bloody Marys (aren’t we flexible?), and got two “pizzettes”—the “Quatro Formaggi” and the “Italian” without the onions or green peppers.

Our waiter was dropdead gorgeous, and at one point, while Joe was using the restroom, he came to our table with some bread, and I said, “You are a very handsome man.” He smiled, and said, “Thank you very much. I appreciate that.”

After dinner, we stopped across the street at Turkish Delights, where we each had a cup of coffee and split a “Flaky Pistachio and Almond Baklava.” Yum!


We intended to spend just a couple of hours at Flex, which we actually stuck to tonight. We played just a couple of games of free pool, but quit after two, as the table is so unlevel, that all the balls end up along the one rail by about halfway through the game.

We left just before “Drag Queen Karaoke” started. Yay!