Joe Welsh - Ohio to Oregon to Shanghai and Back

The Great Weight Loss Challenge - 2010

2010-06-17T11:21:00.001-07:00

As many people know due to Facebook, I embarked on the challenge of losing a bunch of weight this year. I can't thank everyone enough for all the encouragement as I have posted progress... It truly does mean a lot to me.

Many people have asked 'how did you do it' and said that this little effort has inspired them to work on their weight... So I thought I would capture some thoughts on what got me from 238 pounds on January 2, 2010 to the 188 pounds I tipped the scales at this morning. Partly to answer the questions people have asked and partly as a documentation for me of what a lifestyle change can do, so if I find myself creeping up in weight again, I know that I control my weight, it doesn't control me. That my excuse of my life being 'too busy' or 'too stressful' or 'too - insert excuse here' to maintain a healthy weight is crap, and that if I am willing to be honest about my choices, I control my weight... I control it going up and I control it going down.

December of 2009 I stepped on the scale and saw something I had never seen before... The first number being a '2' was old hat... it'd been that way since my freshman year in college... and while there was one brief moment during one of my 'diet periods' when I had dropped to 190-something, I imagine that moment could have been measured in hours and not days.

The next number was the surprise... and not the 'found $20 in my pocket' surprise. The second number was a '4'... yup... 240. All of a sudden, all the excuses I used to justify my weight melted away and were replaced with what can only be described as a sense of self loathing. All of a sudden I had more proof than looking in the mirror that I had reached an unhealthy weight. There it was in the black and white read out of the digital scale.

Some of my common excuses:
1) I am too busy to work out
2) I am healthy, my doctor tells me so
3) Our lives are too busy to cook healthier
4) I am big boned, I have an athletic build

These were the main/major themes that I always fell back on to justify my ever increasing waist size.

Now, truth be told, I have probably lost 250 pounds in the last 10 years... 10 pounds one year, replaced a few months later with 15... then 20 the next year, replaced a few months later with 25... then 30, 35, 40... I think you understand.

So between the man in the mirror and the black and white on the scale, I knew I had to do something. I knew the justifications for my poor eating habits and poor exercise habits were just excuses to allow myself the easiest route.

I talked with Steph about how bad it had gotten, and asked for her support in making a lifestyle change. I explained that every year I put on a few more pounds than I had lost on whatever diet regime I tried, and that I needed to do something that we could commit to for the rest of our lives so that I could get off the yo-yo. Not only was every year's weight addition a little more than the loss from the year before, it was harder and harder as I got older to get rid of the pounds.

Diets of the past included Atkins, trying to limit portions, playing a lot of basketball, going to the gym for elliptical/treadmill time... all worked as long as I stayed on them... but the problem I had was that I viewed them as short term solutions... not a lifestyle change. So as soon as I stopped doing whatever I was doing, the weight came back.

I needed a sustainable solution.

One of my boundary conditions for getting healthy was the realization that with a full time (plus some in certain weeks) job, 3 kids, a house full of projects, a yard full of work and a nasty golf addiction my ability to consistently work out is limited. Unfortunately, I don't enjoy running... AT ALL. I lost a bunch of weight in the mid-to-late 90s by running nearly every day and eating a VERY low fat diet. I disliked running so much, I knew it just couldn't be part of a permanent lifestyle change. I love playing basketball, and we play at lunch at work in the summer... but it's outdoor and limited by weather. Finally, the Welsh Family Budget trades any money for a gym membership for greens fees (truth be told, the gym would be cheaper). So I needed to find something I could commit to that didn't rely on regular attendance in the gym or regular running.

Stephanie does 90% of the shopping and cooking in the Welsh household, so any solution/decision needed to be joint. It needed to be something we could both commit to, and something the entire family could live with - she couldn't be expected to make a meal for them and something different for me. She graciously agreed to settle on something we could implement for the entire family.

So January 2, 2010 we agreed to start living The South Beach Lifestyle. I am not going to turn this into an infomercial for South Beach. It's what worked for us, but it's not, in my opinion the end all be all in getting to and maintaining a healthy weight. My aunt Patrice is 50-something, eats whatever she wants, drinks what she wants when she wants and runs regularly... she has a lifestyle that keeps her weight and her body healthy. We have friends that do Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, etc... I really believe it comes down to 'what can you commit to doing consistently for the rest of your life'. I think, for us, South Beach is that.

South Beach is one of the many 'low carb' eating styles. High in lean protein and vegetables, it shuns processed flour, sugar and empty carbs. There are plenty of carbs to be eaten, focusing on veggies and whole wheat and whole grains. I like to think of it as a 'kinder, gentler Atkins'. A very good friend used this eating style to get healthy, and showed me that it's completely reasonable to do this forever... not just until the weight is gone, then back to unexamined eating habits.

So we decided on 'how'... but what was the goal? What was I trying to accomplish. I decided that 40 pounds was the goal. That would get me to under 200 pounds... A weight not consistently carried on this frame since high school. It was completely arbitrary. I did a little more research and decided I would like to get to 'normal' on the BMI - I was technically 'obese'. Now I know that there are limitations with BMI, as it's just a ratio of height to weight. I know it doesn't take into account muscle mass, but since I don't go to the gym, I have at best 'average' muscle tone. It seemed a little more scientific... but it also said that 40 pounds was a cop out... a good start. The new goal became 183, which translates to 24.99 BMI, which means for the first time since high school I would be 'normal' and not 'overweight' or 'obese'. Then the goal changed 1 more time. It's now a 180 pound goal. I want to reward myself when I hit my goal with a pizza and beer night. And I don't want to have to really look closely at my weight and adjust eating habits after that reward, so the thought is, get to 180... have my 'za and beers and then still be at or under my 183, where I hope to maintain.

So we started. Stephanie started to shop the outside of the supermarket... veggies, fruits, meats. In January of 2010 I ate more broccoli than I had in the entire rest of my life (all 35 years). This is not an exaggeration. I am a very black and white person, so I was, you could say, fanatical about making sure I adhered to the program. Very restrictive on carbs for the initial phase, slightly relaxed in phase 2, then even more relaxed in phase 3.

The weight indeed did start to melt away... extremely consistently. I averaged about 2 pounds per week from 02 January to 17 June. 23.5 weeks and 50 pounds.

The beginning of April I started an experiment... or I thought I was starting an experiment. One of the criticisms of the South Beach Diet (and other low carb eating plans) is that by cutting out bread and sugar and beer and pasta you are simply reducing calories... that weight loss is simply calories in/calories out. All the glycemic index mumbo jumbo was masking the fact that you were eating less calories. (Side note - it's interesting this is a 'criticism'... a program that lets you eat whenever you are hungry, but still limit calorie intake and lose weight... what's bad in that?)

So, a friend of mine had lost a significant amount of weight simply limiting his calories and working out. 100% a calories in/calories out program. Watch his intake, bump up his calorie burn with swimming and running. He looks great, by the way. He was using an App called 'Lose It' (gratuitous product plug) to set up a goal weight, determine net calories he was 'allowed' to consume and track his exercise. I decided to use the App to see if the reality was simply that the South Beach program was limiting my calories without my realizing it... which I would have been completely fine with.

The plan was to eat exactly how I had from January 2nd to April 3rd, but measure all my portions and track the calories. I learned 2 things during this experiment:

1) I had NO IDEA what a serving size really was. I would load up my salad with cheese and dressing, as they were 'low carb' not realizing I was at least doubling, if not tripling, the serving sizes.
2) When I knew what a serving size was, and knew how many calories were involved, I couldn't keep adding cheese and dressing and stuff to my salad!

So, from April to today I have adopted a hybrid plan. I am eating using South Beach principles. I will use these principles forever. Lean meat, veggies, whole wheat/whole grain breads and pastas. Eliminate sugars where possible. But I have also been using the app to count calories. It's been interesting to learn what a serving size of things really are. I realize how much 'extra food' I was putting in my body.

I cut back on the calories, but eat whenever I am hungry (I think this is where the food choice in South Beach help - the food sticks with me, avoids the 'blood sugar effects' of carbs so I get hungry less). But I see myself eating less volume of food... and I am not hungry... this clearly means I was fueling my body with more food than needed.

Part of why this has worked for me is that I don't require a lot of variety in my diet. I am OK with eating the same or similar things day after day after day (I say as I eat my standard lunch of chicken sausage with artichoke and garlic, cucumber salad with 1 tbsp of Olive Oil and Vinegar Newman's Own Dressing (gratuitous product plug #2). Every day I have 1-2 ounces of dry roasted peanuts. 80% of the mornings I have an Atkins shake for breakfast. I don't get bored or tired of the same or similar things day after day.

But without a doubt the single biggest reason this has worked is the support of my wife. She has changed how she shops and how she cooks. She found the money in the budget for the increased grocery bill (shopping the outside of the store is more expensive than the inside with it's packaged and processed foods). She puts up with my constant measuring (I have brought my scale to the table for dinner and taken it to restaurants to measure portion sizes). She puts up with my nearly daily updates on weight, calories consumed, etc. Without her support and encouragement this would not have been possible... OK, another side note... that paragraph sounds like an Oscar acceptance speech... apologies, but I am not deleting or editing it. She rocks and this was as much because of her help as my discipline.

A common question I have gotten is around enjoying eating. Have I missed anything, have I had to sacrifice anything, am I hungry all the time. The answer is 'I enjoy eating, if I am hungry I eat, and of course I miss stuff!'.

I miss pasta, but not more than I enjoy weighing 50 pounds less.
I miss ice cream, but not more than I enjoy weighing 50 pounds less.
I miss eating an entire dish of 7 layer dip with my friend Brian, but not more than I enjoy weighing 50 pounds less.
I miss an occasional beer, but not more than I enjoy weighing 50 pounds less.

Did I stop drinking? Kind of... I drink less for sure, although I didn't drink that much to begin with. I drink wine and alcohol instead of beer... as can be attested by my friend Matt, who's bottle of Jamison's I polished off half of at his BBQ a few weeks ago. :)

I also found that there are plenty of replacements we have made that lower both the carbs and calories in our diet...

1) Replace ground beef with ground turkey
2) Replace bacon with turkey bacon
3) Replace sausage with either chicken sausage or turkey sausage
4) Replace beer with wine and whiskey
5) Replace sugar filled desserts with sugar free or no sugar added dessert treats... a favorite dessert in the early summer has become strawberries with whipped cream - that was my 20 pounds down treat!
6) Replace starchy side dishes (potatoes/rice) with veggies
7) Replace white bread with whole wheat or whole grain bread
8) Replace white pasta with whole wheat pasta
9) Replace whatever pasta sauce we would normally buy with the sauce with the lowest amount of sugar
10) Replace products containing High Fructose Corn Syrup with those that don't (Note: I don't think HFCS is evil - and agree with the commercial that it's fine in moderation... but it's in EVERYTHING, so how the hell am I supposed to moderate it? And what's 'moderation'?)

No beer in 6 months? No desserts in 6 months? No bread in 6 months? No rice or pasta in 6 months? No, not exactly. I have had treats here and there. I have just been smart about them and not used them as a slippery slope to giving up the lifestyle.

Five Guys Burgers and Fries for birthday dinner. A chocolate chip cookie at Val and Matt's BBQ. A couple thin mints one night on a particularly low calorie day. A dessert treat almost every night (Sugar Free Jello Pudding, or Watchin' Carbs Sugar Free Fudgscicles). Strawberries with COOL WHIP (yum, I love Cool Whip). 1/2 bottle of Jamison's at a friends BBQ (that was bad idea). Copious amounts of wine at the St. C's auction. An occasional 1/2 sandwich with Sourdough or Rye bread. Foot long Turkey Sandwich @ Subway last night on wheat bread (hold the cheese and mayo please). Couple belts of Scotch with the neighbor last night. But admittedly, these have become treats and not regular occurrences.

So I still have some work to do. I'm 50 pounds down with another 5-8 pounds to go... I haven't worked out during this time, so while skinnier, I am still a little jiggly around the edges (sorry for that mental picture)... I have been drinking a lot of diet soda instead of water... But the reality for me is that I can only focus on one thing at a time... so about the middle of July I ought to get to the goal weight... then I'll turn focus from weight loss to improving muscle tone and kicking the diet soda habit... one thing at a time.

If you made it this far into the note, thanks.
If you sent me a note of encouragement, thanks.

Joe, if you are reading this - you must have started making bad decisions again... get back on the wagon. You control your weight, whether it's going up or down, it's your decision.

Having the right to do something does not make it right to do...

2010-05-10T13:10:00.000-07:00

Preface: I am not an economist and no expert in public policy. I only know what I know by trying to read a balanced amount of content from the left and the right, knowing that the truth belongs to neither and it lies someplace between each of their respective spin machines.

I know I might be in the minority when I say that I think the auto bailout and the financial industry bailout were the right things to do... Especially in my family and my wife's family which is pretty heavily conservative in political nature.

My reasoning may be so simplistic as to be completely wrong, but it's what I believed at the time and haven't read a lot to change my mind. I also happen to believe that had the GOP won the White House they'd have been forced to do something very similar... It's just politically convenient to scream from the mountain tops about an unpopular yet required infusion of hard earned tax dollars.

My simplistic defense for bailing out auto and finance in the US is this: I am relying on savings and investment to send my kids to college as well as retire. There are A LOT of people out of work today. Imagine the state of the US economy if we had let the auto industry fail... all those living wage jobs gone and all those suppliers shutting down and sending their employees to the welfare offices for checks as well.

Hank Paulson (Republican Treasury Secretary) estimated that without the bank bailout unemployment could have reached 25%. And that's just the financial sector. Add the auto industry and the suppliers to that industry... it's scary to think about the size of the recession or depression the US could have entered.

Call it simplistic, call it selfish. It's both, but it's why I look at the bailouts as a necessary evil.

That being said, I can't believe the marketing decision that GM just made. Many have probably seen the GM commercials talking about paying their loans back in full, with interest and early. This is technically accurate. Based on the research I have done, nothing they said was untrue.

But the reality is that GM was given 2 pots of TARP funds. One was loan money, the other represented the cash investment in the company whereby the US Government owns 60% of the company. This second bucket is where the money came from to pay off the loan.

Now, based on what I have read, and as a shareholder in GM (aren't we all shareholders when our tax dollars are paying to buy 60% of the company) it was the right financial decision. It seems that use of TARP debt came along with a fee that GM would have had to pay soon. If they retired the debt, they avoided the fee - saved money. Absolutely the right thing to do.

Now, for what I am calling them 'having the right to do something that was not right to do'... They chose to advertise that they paid back the loans in full intimating that this was done out of earnings from selling cars... they never said it, but a pretty strong correlation was drawn between 'increased demand for GM cars' and being able to pay the debt portion of the TARP funds back. They absolutely had the right to run an ad that put things in this light. But from my seat in front of the TV it wasn't the right thing to do.

I thought GM was making good progress. They are emerging from bankruptcy, they have some good cars (as measured by 3rd party feature and quality reviews), their advertising campaign talking about 'may the best car win' put the focus on the strides they were making.

Then this... a purposely misleading ad... Again, paying off the loan, even with other TARP funds was their right, AND the right thing to do.... Running the ad was their right, but in my opinion, not the right thing to do.

Hoops Update

2010-03-03T10:23:00.000-08:00

So as you can tell, not much time in the schedule for updating family and friends on what's going on in our lives - which is too much!

Here's a quick breakdown on the Scappoose Basketball season. We finished 3rd in our league, which was good enough to host a home playoff game. It was a league playoff game against a team that we had beat twice already this season - Seaside.

One of the hardest things to do in basketball is beat a team 3 times. You have to overcome the cockiness that comes with thinking 'we already beat these guys twice, this'll be no problem'... this is mostly an issue with the kids, as Ryan and I knew these guys could play with us. You also have to overcome the reality that these guys know every thing you run both offensively and defensively. Then, since they know everything you think 'maybe we put in a new wrinkle or two'... but you risk distracting the kids from the stuff we have been doing all year.

So Seaside came to town and played a tough, tough basketball game. We went cold from the free throw line down the stretch, and they hit a couple of shots, and despite their best player getting a wide open look at a 3 point shot to tie the game, we beat them to advance to the next round of playoffs... which is tonight!

It's been 6 years since Scappoose has hosted a state playoff game, and that game is tonight against the Newport Cubs. Ryan and I went and scouted Newport in their league playoff game versus Central High School (in Independence outside Salem). They are more athletic than we are, but they seem to lack discipline both offensively and defensively. They run a couple of things defensively that we haven't seen much of this season (1-2-1-1 three quarter court press and 1-3-1 zone defense in the half court). So we have spent a lot of time in practice the last 2 days working against those defenses.

I think the kids are as prepared as they can be... game is tonight at 7pm at Scappoose High School... come on out if you are in the area and free tonight!

If we win, we advance to the next round of the playoffs and head to North Bend (Coos Bay area on the southern Oregon coast) to play on Saturday.

Wish us luck!

Go Tribe!

Blatant Product Plug

2010-01-05T15:00:00.000-08:00

So I hit a home run with Steph on Christmas gift this year. Our camcorder broke before we went to China, which was too bad, as we were not able to capture video of our crazy china experiences or the kids.

Now a new camcorder was out of the budget, but a friend of ours received a 'Flip Camcorder' as an early Christmas present. I was intrigued and started to to look into them... They are pretty slick.

About the size of a compact digital point and shoot camera, you definitely trade off features for size, but what you get in return is worth the trade off for what we will be taking video of these days.

We don't need a very powerful zoom right now, since the kids are not yet playing sports or in dance recitals that need zoom capabilities. We didn't use all of the bells and whistles our last camcorder had, so they are not missed on our tiny Flip Mino.

And the software it comes with is pretty slick too... It's all held on the camera itself, so no need to load anything to your computer! But I think the nicest thing is the ability to create what they call your own 'Flip Channel'. When you move your videos from the camera to the Mac/PC you can do some basic editing (trimming from the beginning and/or end) and then drag and drop them into your 'channel'. The channel allows you to save a set of e-mail addresses so that whenever you drag and drop a new video onto the channel it sends an e-mail out immediately to the distribution list letting them know that a new video has been posted.

It also allows quick and easy uploading to YouTube and Facebook.

If you don't need a lot of capability, but want a very basic camcorder that is VERY small and easily allows saving and sharing of captured memories check out the Flip!

Thank goodness for Congress!

2009-12-09T11:29:00.000-08:00

This story broke on ESPN today... Congress is trying to legislate that you can only call a college football game a 'National Championship Game' if it is the result of a playoff.

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=4727426

I have so many issues with this...

1) This is what Congress chooses to spend their time on... One member of Congress responded that they can 'walk and chew gum at the same time'... indicating that they have plenty of bandwidth to tackle many hard problems at the same time... GREAT - how about: health care, jobs, the national debt, Afghanistan, Bin Laden, etc, etc, etc... I don't see how this issue even makes the top 20 of the critical issues facing our nation?

2) Some people say the action is warranted as the BCS is in anti-trust violation... I am no legal or anti-trust expert, but the way I understand it, anti-trust issues are dealt with through an investigation by the justice department, not legislating what you can or can not call a football game.

3) All this would effectively do is have the BCS rename it's game to 'The BCS Championship Game', removing the 'National' designation. Then the AP votes whoever they want (as they do today) and the Coaches vote the winner of the BCS game. Nothing changes with the exception of the use of the word 'National'. Thank goodness we have 2 houses of Congress working on this.

4) Is this even constitutional? Can Congress limit the freedom of speech to dictate who can and cannot use the term 'National Championship'? Don't I have the first amendment right to call my basketball intramural championship the 'national championship'? People can disagree and people can laugh, but don't I have that right? What harm is being done to the citizens and consumers of the United States such that you can justify the restriction of the first amendment right to freedom of speech?

Now, I feel like for the sake of truth in advertising I should explain that I am not one of the people clamoring for a playoff... I am indifferent to a college playoff. I like the bowl system as it existed before the BCS, I like the bowl system as it exists today and if there was a playoff tomorrow, I'd probably be OK with it. I just can't get that excited about how we decide who is the best set of 18-22 year old football players.

In a different post I might explain how I think that people want a playoff simply because they like playoffs and that it's not really going to accomplish determining 'the best college football team'. :)

Scappoose High School Basketball

2009-12-02T14:16:00.000-08:00

Odd post title, huh? Especially considering my oldest is only in first grade, I don't live in Scappoose, and I work at Intel.

Well, as many of you know, my first love was basketball. I fell in love with the game as a kid and played through high school and into college. My playing career (if you would call it that) ended after 2 years of Junior Varsity Basketball at Linfield College. Then I was lucky enough to be offered a position coaching for Larry Doty. I spent a year as an assistant on both the varsity and JV coaching staff. Then my senior year I took over coaching the junior varsity team.

I loved it.

Then reality set in. I was graduating and had student loans I needed to start paying off in 6 months. So I left McMinnville and started a series of jobs that have delivered me to where I am now - a 10 year veteran of Intel Corporation.

Part of the 'when I win the lottery plan' involves going back to coaching.

So why 'Scappoose High School Basketball' post? A very good friend of mine is the first year head coach of the Scappoose boys varsity basketball team. I mentioned to him years ago that when/if he got the gig I would help him out. Well, he got the gig and he called my bluff.

After some intense negotiations between the two of us, and then negotiations between Steph and I, we collectively agreed that I would volunteer as his assistant coach with his varsity squad.

It's been hard on everyone as I try to balance my evenings between time with family and time spent coaching and scouting. It's not been easy, but to this point, I love it... Steph maybe not so much!

Intel is supportive of people volunteering in local schools, but of course my day job is #1, so the basketball team is taking a back seat to my work schedule... So really it's a part time gig as assistant coach.

We have a good group of kids that play hard. We aren't big though. Our tallest guy, while strong as a bull, is only about 6'2" tall!

Our strategy is simple... and only successful if the kids buy in: play hard for 32 minutes, tough full court man to man defense, be in the best shape of any team in our conference and push the ball up the floor every trip.

We played our first game last night at Rainier High School. Rainier was at a disadvantage with a number of their varsity basketball players still playing football as well as their Division I 6'11" center having broken his leg. They played hard given the boys they had available, but even with us only having our football players out for a couple of practices we were able to jump on them early and ran out to a 20-6 first quarter lead on our way to a 67-24 win.

First game of the season so there are plenty of things to work on, but the overall effort was very good. Kids played hard, ran hard and gave good effort... which means they understand how we want to play and are bought in for now. Opponents get better, competition gets tougher starting Saturday when we play at Cascade High School... It should be a good one!

Sabbatical Wrap Up

2009-12-02T13:58:00.000-08:00

Many friends have been asking me about my sabbatical and I have replied with the quick answers I assume they have been looking for... Great, Wonderful, Awesome.

I think in reality my response has not been more robust for a lack of the words to describe it. It was, in no uncertain terms, the best 9 week stretch of my life.

Now, if you shrink the time frame to be much shorter, the list of 'best times in my life' would include life changing events like meeting my wife, first date with my wife, wedding day, day each of the girls were born, day The Ohio State University won the National Championship over Miami...

But if you extend the time frame and make it 9 weeks long... this was simply the best.

The first few days included our first 4th of July in Oak Hills. Normally we are with Steph's family at Lake of the Woods in Southern Oregon, which is where our hearts were this year, but having returned to the US so recently, we decided we couldn't handle the trip so soon. The celebration in Oak Hills was great. Steph's mom and step-dad came up to help us unpack boxes and spend time with the kids. The neighborhood had a parade, a BBQ lunch and then the Portland Metro Area famous Oak Hills Fireworks display. We had friends over for dinner and then took in the fireworks... it was so much fun... won't replace LOTW on a regular basis, but it was great!

Then shortly after the 4th of July and after unpacking a few more boxes we headed to the lake for nearly 2 weeks of family time. Days on the beach with the kids and our good friends (the Wing family). Pink foofoos and beers at lunch, golf with Michael and Jerry... Crazy boat rides with the kids... Family in and out the whole time we were there... it was wonderful!

Then the crown jewel of the 9 weeks... my month in Scotland. I flew out of Portland and headed to Edinburgh (via SFO and London-Heathrow). I arrived and met my good friend Ryan and we headed off on the first leg of my golf adventure. He and I moved from Ayrshire in Southeast Scotland to St. Andrews on the East coast of Scotland, then North to Aberdeen.

I dropped Ryan off in Edinburgh the same day I picked up 3 other friends and returned to St. Andrews. We rented an apartment that was perfect for four golfers and I would recommend to anyone going for a trip to St. Andrews with a similar sized group. The company was amazing the golf outstanding and the whiskey (while expensive) was superb... that is enough adjectives to choke a horse and might lead you to believe I am exaggerating, but I assure you I am not.

At the end of the 8 days with the guys I dropped them in Edinburgh and continued my trek North to the highlands and Inverness. Inverness was attractive not only for the golf, but the scenery and the distilleries. It failed to disappoint. Golf courses, while most not as famous as those in Aryshire and St. Andrews were just as challenging and just as beautiful, the people even more friendly (I would not have expected it to be possible) and the distilleries plentiful!

Having been abandoned by friends removed the distractions that kept me from missing Steph and the kids... Being alone in Inverness, even with the golf, pubs, castles and distilleries, made me homesick like never before... So I called United that first night and changed my flight information, cutting off the last city on the itinerary and coming home 4-5 days early. I surprised Steph and the kids, not letting them know until I hit SFO.

I used some miles to send Steph on a trip to Toronto to see a friend from Shanghai that had repatriated before we did, then to North Carolina to see her best friend from high school... my little peace offering for having been gone for nearly a month playing golf. I packed up the kids and headed to Seattle to see some of our good friends.

Then we all reconvened at home and settled in for the return to work and the start of school for the girls!

That's the summary... here are some of the stats on the trip that'll give you a better feel for the experience I had. It should also answer some of the questions people have asked.

Best Golf Course: Tough, tough call, but based on history and nostalgia I'd have to go with the Old Course. I still struggle to put into words the experience of hitting from the first tee, hitting over the hotel on 17 and putting on the 18th green with people surrounding the green watching - hoping you sink that birdie putt...

Best Golf Course Runner Up: Kingsbarns was a BEAUTIFUL track that I played TERRIBLY on. I was horrible, the course tough, but fair and really spectacular.

Toughest Golf Course: Much of the difficulty of the links courses is dictated by the weather. It's the weather that probably made Prestwick Golf Club the hardest course I played. 30 mile an hour winds, gusts to 40+ and lots of blind shots... this was one of the few times I was truly happy to be done with a round of golf. Carnoustie was a close runner up for the toughest course... part to do with the wind, and part to do with just being a tough track!

Best golf value: Western Gailes in Ayrshire. 115 GBP included 18 holes on their beautiful links course and lunch in the clubhouse afterwards.

Worst golf value: Turnberry in Aryshire. It had just hosted the Open Championship the week before, so the stands and leaderboards were still up, which was cool, but at 240 GBP it was overpriced for what you got - which was the golf.

Best golf shot: The 17th at The Castle Course at St. Andrews. 175 yards over the North Sea, into a slight breeze. Hole playing 190ish, I hit a 4 iron to about 8 feet and made the putt for a birdie 2. Runner up includes a 40 foot eagle putt on one of the craziest greens you'll ever see!

Worst round: 100 at Prestwick

Best round: Shot a pair of 77s in the Highlands, the best probably being on Nairn which carries a 136 slope.

Best photo op: Has to be a tie between 3 pictures: 1) Ryan and I in our knickers on the Swilcan Bridge on the Old Course (at the top of this post) 2) The foursome on the first tee at the Old Course (below) 3) Me behind the bar with Mike and Lizzie at the Dunvegan (also below)

Best caddie: John Boyne at the Old Course in St. Andrews. A long time caddie and runs a golf tour business on the side. In between my 2 visits to St. Andrews he headed off to Wales where he caddied for a Scottish woman playing in the Welsh Open.

Worst Caddie: Some lady at Cruden Bay who's name I can't remember that gave bad advice, bad yardages, could not find balls and knew no history about the course.

Best Pub: Without a doubt, the Dunvegan in St. Andrews. A 9 iron from the old course (they actually did this one night, after what I assume was much whiskey), it's a golfers haven in St. Andrews. Visitors to the pub include Open Championship winners and celebrities (as chronicled in photos around the bar) as well as just about every other pint or whiskey loving golfer to pass through St. Andrews. Jack and Sheena (Jack a yank from Texas, and Sheena a Scot) have hired a friendly staff and have a decent menu. Beer is cold and whiskey choices are plentiful.

Great side note about drinking whiskey there one night... We were working on their bottle of Auchentoshen 10 and pretty much drank it all night long... we were sitting in a corner watching golf and playing cards and drinking (a little)... I went to the bar and ordered another round and Lizzie explained that we drank them out of their bottle of Auchentoshen and that normally they would have asked us to drink something else, but given how good of customers we were, they sent someone from the bar staff to the local whiskey shop to buy another bottle for us!

Best new scotch: Auchentoshen Triple Wood; a lowland distillery outside of Glasgow... If you can find it, try it!

Best B&B: The best B&B we stayed in was in Prestwick in Ayrshire. It was Golfview Guest House and was right across from Prestwick Golf Club - home to the first 10 Open Championships. It was clean, friendly and had a large fresh cooked breakfast. All of the B&Bs were nice, but Golfview stood out.

Biggest disappointments:
1) Scotch (which in Scotland is simply called whiskey) is not cheap in Scotland. It's similar to when we were in New Zealand and expected lamb to be cheap. It's plentiful, but not necessarily cheap.
2) Aberdeen... The B&B was not very nice, the gal had lost our reservation and had to put us in a different room than was booked, the city was very commercial and gray compared to the quaint beauty of St. Andrews where we were immediately before.
3) Cruden Bay is a golf course laid out by Tom Morris north of Aberdeen. It is consistently ranked in the top golf courses in the world. I thought it was 16 decent to very good links golf holes, and 2 terrible golf holes that nearly ruined the experience. It also might have had something to do with the worst caddie in Scotland.
4) That we couldn't work it out to have Steph or the whole family join me for part of the trip.
5) I was really excited about visiting a lot of different distilleries... which I did... but after a couple, how many big copper tanks can you see and get excited about? I learned it's not about the number of distilleries you see, but finding the unique distilleries.

The top 3 highlights:
1) The Old Course
2) The Dunvegan
3) Improving my overall golf game and links golf game to reduce my handicap to 8.8

If you know anyone planning a trip to Scotland, have them get in touch with me... I have enough information to choke a horse!

Scotland - First Leg

2009-08-02T16:26:00.000-07:00

This very well may be more of a history of this once in a lifetime trip for me to read and remember my trip later than actually be interesting to anyone else... Even my Mother - the sure lone reader of the Joe Welsh blog may draw the line at the golf / Scotland blog...

So I left Oregon emotionally conflicted... Wife and THREE small kids left behind as I chase the dream of the Old Course (and beyond) in Scotland... It's testament to the love and understanding my wife has that she let this boondoggle proceed!

Anyhow - here I am... The mother country of golf. I have chosen to start my stay in Ayrshire - the home county/parish to the first 12 Open Championships, starting in 1860 and run through 1873 (there was no Open on 1871)... Before playing the original Open Course we played the current host of the Open (Turnberry) and a current Open Qualifier (Western Gailes). Then we played the course where it all began - Prestwick! Here are some summary thoughts on this first leg of the trip...

Turnberry - Expensive... Had just hosted The Open Chamionship...beautiful views, but nothing that exceed Pebble Beach (from what I have been told) or Bandon Dunes/Pacific Dunes (which I have played)... And in Scotland the most dramatic
views go to the Castle Course (which I'll write about later) at this point, but it's early...

Turnberry had just hosted the Open and the grandstands were still up... It was weird to play the course with all the stands still in place... I can't imagine the electric vibe that must have surrounded the 18th as Tom Watson's 8 iron settled behind 18 green on the 72 hole of the tournament! I had a great Scottish caddie named Steven... a hard workin' guy with loads of local information... Medium wind and I shoot an 88 from the Trophy Tees (think white tees at your home club) with blue and black still behind (and the Championship tees still behind those!) - still a 71 slope and 125 rating.
For the money I would not play it again - unless it was discounted or included with another round at a discount. At over $300 for the round, I'll take a round and a half at Bandon Dunes or 2 rounds at the next course we played - Western Gailes.

Western Gailes - best value for the money. Wecoming clubhouse and outstanding caddies with charachter. The course was difficult but fair and playing conditions excellent... Winds were mild 15 - 20 MPH... And whe you finished, your lunch was included in the cost of the round...
At this point it was my favorite, ahead of Turnberry! My caddie - Tommy - is 72 years old and still carrying the bag as well as playing 3-4 times a week... A joy of a guy, gave a little playing lesson on how to play links golf... Actually threw balls out in the middle of the round and had me practice a few shots!

The last course we played was Prestwick... The home of the Open, first played in 1860 and host to their last Open in 1925... This course should be easy... Lots of irons off the tee, not a tremendous amount of rough... Alas the winds off the neighboring ocean were fierce the day we played gusting to 50MPH! And the way the course is laid out, there is only one hole that the wind is behind - and it's a completely blind shot on a par 3 over a 50 foot sand dune/washout! Every other hole is either into the wind or a cross wind... The fairways are tight and the rough is penal... It is simply (in the conditions we played) the hardest course I have ever played. Thus the 99 score from the middle tees! I would hesitate to play it again, but would recommend it to every golfer on the pilgrimage to the mother land... Just take a caddy and check your ego at the pro shop!

Next update will be on my first stay in St. Andrews...

On The Ground In Scotland

2009-07-27T14:28:00.000-07:00

Flight was uneventful... Was able to get a few hours sleep... GPS with the maps of the UK loaded up got me to Ryan's B&B in Edinburgh and then got us to the Guest House in Prestwick... The 'residents lounge' overlooks the Prestwick Golf Club - home to the first Open Championship (known as The British Open in the US)... The Open was held here the first 10 times (between 1860 and 1870) before starting the rotation among other courses as we are familiar with today... Speaking of Open Championship courses - tomorrow we start this golfing oddessy at Turnberry - host of the Open that just finished up this past weekend... We drove down to the course this evening to be sure of location and drive time, and they still have all the grandstands in place... Wonder how many locals will be sitting in the stands to see Ryan and I hack our way around (and through) the gorse?

I thought driving would be a piece of cake - afterall I piloted a campervan on the 'wrong side of the road' in New Zealand for a couple weeks... Bring on the little cars of Europe, right? What I forgot is that these little cars come almost exclusively in manual transmissions... So not only am I trying to remember to 'keep left' at every intersection and roundabout, but I am trying to do so while shifting with my left hand! More difficult than I imagined... Oh, and never had to parallel park the campervan... That was 5 minutes of our lives that Ryan and I will never get back!

The guest house (Golfview Guest House) is lovely... Allison is a great hostess and we are looking forward to meeting her husband Neil tomorrow.

So far in Scotland - so good.

Cheers,
Joe

The Adventure Begins!

2009-07-26T06:17:00.000-07:00

6:17am and I find myself in the Portland airport waiting on my breakfast and eventually my flight to SFO. From SFO I head to London and then connect to Edinburgh... I'll be updating my blog and facebook notes as often as I can, hoping to post pics of the golf courses, castles and distilleries I visit in my month in Scotland.

I explained to Steph last night that leaving for this trip was a huge conflict of emotions for me... On one hand, I am beyond excited about the golf trip I have built, and look forward to catching up with some friends and making new ones... on the other hand - 1 month away from the family is a little depressing. Steph explained that once I hit the ground I'll manage to find ways to deal with the homesickness... I know she is right - which is where the guilt begins... especially as I left for the airport and she was walking the floors of the house trying to get the baby back to sleep - at 4:30am!!!

I know I'll miss the family terribly, but look forward to all the interesting and exciting things I hope this trip - 4 years in the planning - holds for me!

Stay tuned, and say a few extra prayers for my wife and kids! :)

Cheers,
Joe

Movie Theater in China

2009-04-20T23:17:00.000-07:00

So last weekend I decided to get the girls out of the house on a rainy Sunday afternoon and take them to the movies. I had myself all geared up for a complex and frustrating process, imagining that only in China could a simple trip to the movies be anything but simple.

I have to admit to being pleasantly surprised. I knew what movie I wanted to take them to... they had seen a preview on one of their 'corner video store' DVDs for 'Monsters vs. Aliens'.

My first challenge, which I expected to be complex was to figure out where it would be showing, since all the theater's websites are in Chinese. There's an expat focused website that had an article/review of the movie and included a list with links to the websites of the theaters showing the movie. It also included links to reviews of the theaters themselves.

The review of one of the theaters said that it was the only theater in town that the reviewer knew of that served salty popcorn as opposed to sweet popcorn. You may not know this about China, but popcorn here - almost all of it - is sweet... think kettle corn, but not quite the same. It was very disconcerting when I first popped some 'corn into my mouth at the FIFA Women's World Cup shortly after arriving in China to taste sweet corn instead of salty popcorn.

So, despite the fact that it was not the closest and most convenient place to see the movie, it was where we were going... because for me you can't watch a movie in the theater without popcorn, and that popcorn must be salty, not sweet.

Now, I needed to figure out show times, and the theater's website was all in Chinese. I got lucky though... They had little pictures of the movie poster next to each showing and the times were in standard numbers. 3:05pm showing in Xintiandi - perfect.

So we trek across town, about 40 minutes, to the theater. It's in a mall in a nice retail development in Shanghai. We buy tickets at the ground floor ticket booth to the tune of $14 USD each. It turns out this movie was a little more expensive to see as it was being shown in 3D. When I purchased our tickets (and provided another $14 USD each for deposit on our 3D glasses) I was shown a layout of the theater with some seats occupied and others free. It turns out in China the movie theaters have assigned seating. So on the spot I pick 3 seats in the middle of the theater both front to back and side to side (a personal preference/peeve of mine - I need to be as close to the center of the theater as possible). When you get to the theater there is an usher that shows you to your seats.

So I only have a single data point - since we buy most of our movies from the corner video store for $0.87 USD about 2 weeks after they come out - but data point seems to indicate that the movie going experience in Shanghai is a little more expensive and a little more orderly than in the US.

I did notice that the theater was 80% empty... I imagine it's hard to compete with the $0.87 USD movie stores on the corner when you are charging $14 USD... or perhaps there was not a lot of local interest in 'Monsters vs. Aliens'... but my kids loved it!

Amelia Jane Update

2009-04-13T20:58:00.000-07:00

All,
It's been a few weeks since we updated you on Amelia Jane's progress. She has struggled with gaining weight over her first month, not getting back to her birth weight over that time - normally they like to see infants back to birth weight by the 10 day mark or at least within 2 weeks.

So numerous doctor appointments, weight checks, visits from the hospital mid-wife and a visit with someone from Le Leche League (spelling and naming possibly incorrect) we have settled on the follow root cause / diagnosis for the weight issues... This child is too much like her father... The consensus is 'impatient and lazy'. :)

It seems that she has a 'weak suck'. This means that she doesn't get fed at the rate she would like from breast feeding so over the last week we have focused on giving her bottles of expressed/pumped breast milk and supplementing with formula only when she needs it.

After a weight check today at exactly the 4 week mark, the results are in, and... SUCCESS! She gained 500g over the last 7 days - roughly 1 pound. Big sighs of relief from Mom and Dad and Pediatrician.

So in terms of a more general update - things are going OK. She is a better sleeper than the first two kids were... but still seems to save the highest pitched screaming for whenever Dad happens to be on duty. She's up every 2-3 hours at night still, but does a reasonable job of going back to sleep fairly quickly.

I've been working an offset schedule of sorts, to align my day with as much of the US day as possible, so I am usually at work by 6am, but gives me the chance to get home at a reasonable time to help out in the late afternoons. It still means that many mornings Steph is trying to juggle feeding the baby, pumping, getting Olivia ready for school, breakfast and to the bus, all the while making sure Gigi is taken care of as well... I swear my job seems less complex some days.

I returned to the golf course over the last few weeks, playing a round on the holiday here last week and then again this last Saturday. I am as inconsistent as you would expect for playing as infrequently as I do. I'll be honest - any chance to play right now, regardless of what I shoot is a gift that I treasure.

I'll be back in the US for a rare business trip for a couple weeks spanning the last week of April and first week of May. I have a short term assignment working on a pilot program for the next 2-3 months before we return home and I take my sabbatical. I'll be using the trip to both meet face to face the broader program team and host a Map Day (all day long planning meeting) for the pilot. I'll also use the trip to meet the members of my permanent team which I'll be joining in September when I return from sabbatical.

Working for a 100% US based team from PRC is challenging - more so than I thought it would be... but the reality of having a newborn in the house makes it 100% clear to me that moving home any sooner than we have planned would be damned near impossible!

Easter was really laid back this year. Kids woke up really early to hunt what was left by the Easter Bunny the previous night. We didn't make it to church, as the timing of the English service conflicted with both older kids naps, as well as the napping, feeding and pumping schedule of the newest addition. Only partially related to the scheduling of the English service, it'll be so nice to get back home to our home church!

Hoping you all had a wonderful Easter holiday and are seeing the consistent signs of Spring where ever you are!

Cheers,
Joe

What’s different about having a baby in China, you ask?

2009-03-17T02:11:00.000-07:00

OK, so maybe you didn’t ask, but the beautiful thing about Blogs and Facebook notes is you don’t have to read them if you are not interested!

Steph and I were taking mental notes throughout our time in the hospital about everything that was different between our delivery in China and our delivery in the US. So this post will review some of our ‘birth story’ in a means to highlight some of the crazy (and mundane) differences between the two. For my male friends who saw ‘birth story’ and quickly closed out the window on their PC – rest assured, this was written by a man – there will be no details which you’ll find uncomfortable!

Chinese ‘Privacy’ Expectations
We had a regularly scheduled doctor appointment on Friday morning. The location of the birthing unit is directly connected to the doctor’s office. The operating room that they use for C sections is upstairs. We are sitting in the waiting room before our appointment, and a couple of orderlies come off the elevator, pushing a woman that is unconscious or asleep or embarrassed enough to act asleep, out of the elevator, through the waiting room and into the birthing center. This would not normally be that big a deal, except that they have a blanket over her that only covers up her topside from neck to feet, not her completely naked sides. Privacy has its own application here in PRC – even in western clinics! We’ve become desensitized to these things, because all we did was look at each other and shake our heads… TIC (This Is China).

The Oddest Paper I Have Ever Had to Sign
This might be the only part of the birth story that the guys I referenced earlier might want to skip over. But now that I have said that, I expect it’s like a car wreck – they really don’t want to look (read, in this case), but they can’t help themselves. As the mom’s (and women) reading this know, after mom gives birth to the baby, she delivers the placenta. Along with some admissions paperwork (that I had to fill out for both the mom and the yet to arrive baby) I had to sign a piece of paper that allowed the hospital to take some of our ‘personal property’. It seems that in China, the woman’s placenta is considered ‘personal property’ and many of the woman choose to have it bagged up/bottled up (honestly, I don’t know how the hell you would transport it) for them to take with them. Evidently it’s popular (if that’s the right word) for the family (especially grandparents) to eat a bite of the placenta after the birth. The placenta being so rich in nutrients for the baby it is thought to be good luck for the family to partake in at least a bite. Needless to say, we signed away our right to leave with the placenta… just the baby thanks!

The Room
We checked into the hospital about 10:30pm on Friday the 13th. Steph was hooked up to all the appropriate monitors, and while ‘the monitoring’ progressed we were struck by the size of the room we were in. There weren’t many people in the Labor and Delivery section that night, so I know we got one of the larger rooms as opposed to the smaller rooms, but this room as at least 30-40% larger than the delivery room in the US. And in the US we were moved from the delivery room to the ‘post partum’ room very quickly. Here we stayed in the same room for the entire delivery and it was at least 2x the size of the US post partum room. Of specific note to Stephanie was the size of the bathroom – which was larger than at least 2 of the bathrooms in our home in Portland!

The other nice thing about the room, due in large part to its size, was that the couch was actually a hide a bed. This meant that although sleep would be in short bursts, it would be more comfortable for dad than the ‘plastic couches’ that were in the rooms in Portland. That being said, I would have preferred the plastic cushions from a cleanliness perspective.

Speaking of cleanliness of the room – it was more clean than the rest of the office. However, it was still not as clean or kept as clean (like maintenance – i.e. removing meal trays, etc) as what we experience in the US.

The Lie and the Medical Chart
The doctor that was going to deliver us was not our primary OB. We had a regular scheduled appointment earlier in the day with our primary OB and she explained how she had pretty much been awake all night with a couple other deliveries. So when we checked in and it became clear this would be the second straight all-nighter for the doctor, we just let the OB on call (who Steph had seen previously) manage the delivery.

While ‘the monitoring’ continued, the nurse came in and explained that they wanted to take some blood from Steph to test for coagulation for the epidural. We explained that this was not necessary, that since an epidural was a part of the birth plan from the start (as it was with Olivia and Genevieve) and our doctor had already taken blood a week or two earlier, so this was done, and to check the chart. That’s when the nurse said ‘well, we can’t find your chart’. To say the least, we were a little uneasy about this. It seemed that they had all the nurses (4-5 of them) as well as the doctor searching for the chart. We explained that we had just been here earlier in the day for an appointment. It seemed to make no difference; the chart was nowhere to be found. I told the nurse that she needed to find the chart, and that she needed to call and wake up our doctor to find it.

Then the on call doctor came in to explain why the blood test was needed – not the real reason: they lost the chart – but the medical reason: the coagulation test. We explained that we knew what the test was for, that is was already done, and that she needed to find our chart – the test results only being a part of the issue we had! I said ‘I told the nurse to call Dr. Ferguson (our doctor) and find out where the chart is’. This is when the doctor looked me straight in the eye and said ‘We did. She doesn’t know where it is either.’

We acquiesced to the blood test – which of course we knew we were going to do from the start, as the epidural has always been a central part of the birth plan. When they left the room, Steph and I looked at each other and knew they had not called Doctor Ferguson. The next morning when Doctor Ferguson came to see us she said ‘I was surprised when I got here this morning and they told me you delivered last night! You did not call me.’ Our suspicions were confirmed. We didn’t tattle at this point, but we would do so later, since Dr. Ferguson is the head of OB, we thought it important for her to know.

While Steph and I have become accustom to a lot of differences between the US and China, this new one – the fact that they would progress with a major medical procedure, that was not emergency related without a medical chart – did actually surprise us greatly, and concern us a little.

Steph gave them a quick verbal medical history to get them up to speed on what she thought were the most important items from previous pregnancies, and that was that. Now it’s important to note that Amelia did not show herself until nearly 8 hours later, and still no chart was ever produced. Finally, after the delivery, I saw the doctor updating the chart, so it was found at some point.

The Epidural
The interesting thing about the epidural here in PRC was that it is considered ‘a walking epidural’. This seems to have two differences from our previous experiences. One, it is not as strong, and as can be assumed from the name, theoretically the woman could get up and walk to the bathroom if needed. With Olivia, Steph remembers not being able to feel ‘from her boobs to her toes’. With Genevieve it was not that strong, but still she could not walk. The second interesting thing is that it is ‘self administered’. This means there is a very small constant dose of medicine being delivered, but that the patient can press a button and get an ‘extra shot’ of medicine every 15 minutes. They have determined through studies that women actually use less medicine this way.

Now, the epidural worked as advertised for almost the entire pregnancy… almost. About 20 minutes prior to delivery – it wore off. Needless to say, no one in the Welsh family was happy about this, primarily mom. I think even Olivia and Genevieve were in a bad mood when they woke up, but didn’t know why! Steph did a little screaming/yelling during delivery, but luckily, this being the third baby, there were only 2 pushes required. One small funny story about the yelling was that the couple in the room next to us were in for their first child and were a little uneasy about the upcoming delivery based on what they heard from our room. They ended up in a C Section after nearly 24 hours of pushing, so I think they got passed the concern about our yelling very quickly.

The Food
Hospital food in the US has a certain reputation… and it’s not good. The interesting thing about the birthing center was that the meals were ordered in from local restaurants: one western and one Chinese. Every day Steph was offered a western and Chinese choice for each meal and the hospital ordered in. So the food was not great, but it wasn’t terrible either. One weird thing was that the first meal Steph had, we had missed the standard order time based on when we arrived, so they gave her the delivery menu from the local western restaurant (Element Fresh – a place we actually enjoy eating). Steph picked something basic, a club sandwich maybe. They then returned to explain that they only paid up to 40 RMB for the meal, and since Steph picked an item that was 58 RMB we would have to pay them the 18 RMB before we checked out!

In the US hospital we delivered in, there were a lot of snacks (popsicles I remember distinctly and maybe ice cream?) and drinks for mom and dad. Not so here in China. There was a small ‘dorm sized’ refrigerator in the room, but it was empty. Apple and/or orange juice could be requested and brought from a locked up room on the floor. There was nothing in the way of snacks. Luckily Steph had, in the way she does, thought way ahead and had snacks already packed in her hospital bag. One of the surprising things was that they offered ‘cold’ water – which was just slightly below room temperature. This is very ‘not Chinese’… evidently childbirth is the one activity that allows ‘cool water’ is childbirth!

Staffing and Staff Actions
First of all, it’s important to note that at no time did we feel like the education or the skills of the people in the birthing center were inadequate. I can’t say the same for the English skills (which I’ll get to later), but the medical skills were just fine. Here are some of our observations about staffing.

The parade of nurses… In the US it seemed that the nurses were always coming into the room – constantly. It was annoying, especially on the first night, the only night in the hospital everyone (mom and baby and dad) seem to be able to sleep. We remember lots of blood pressure checks for mom, and lots of general ‘in and out’ throughout the stay in the hospital. Our recollection of this was generally negative. China is the other end of the spectrum. Unless you call them – especially a family like us with 2 other kids at home – they generally leave you alone. We feel like we know what the happy medium is – at least for us. Being left alone on night 1 was great; no one in and out all the time to check on things. However, as the stay continued, it would have been nice to be checked on a little more frequently. Especially since Amelia was having trouble being woken up. We had to set the alarm to get up to do the feedings every few hours, as she was content to sleep. Even after we spent 30+ minutes waking her up, she would easily fall asleep while nursing. This was not the experience we had with either of the first two girls. It would have been nice to have someone checking a little more frequently then.

The shift change… When we did see nurses we tended to see a lot of them at one time. It seems that the standard operating procedure for ‘shift change’ is that every nurse on duty, including those leaving shift and those coming on shift – even if they seemed to be assigned to other patients, was required to come into the room together, one of the nurses announcing ‘shift change’, ogle over the baby momentarily (not actually check anything) and then leave. This shift change was very strange to us, being used, in the US, to our assigned nurse coming in and actually introducing the newly assigned nurse personally and then the two of them leaving the room.

The non-English speaking neonatologist… I am sure this woman was completely competent, but her English skills were extremely poor. It was the only person on the staff that we really had communication issues with. Everyone else’s English was good to very good. The issue we had was with Amelia sleeping so much, we were concerned about what that meant… surely there must be something wrong with a sleeping baby (it’s almost absurd to write it down now). I was specifically concerned about the weight loss… it’s normal for babies to lose weight after birth and before they go home, but they don’t want them losing more than 10%. We tried to talk to the neonatologist about both the sleeping and the weight, but weren’t getting anywhere, so we had to call in a nurse to translate. This was a frustrating point for us. As long as things seemed to be going according to plan, we were OK with her, but when it took a longer conversation, specifically about some concerns, and we couldn’t do it, we were easily upset. It all worked out in the end!

Chubby is a good thing… I am a little sensitive about this, but growing up, I had to wear ‘Husky’ jeans. You might not know this if you weren’t a chubby kid, but they had sizes when I was a kid that were meant to be easier on a kid’s ego. Instead of ‘fat pants’ or ‘large’ they called them ‘Husky’. Amelia was 8 pounds, 10 ounces at birth (3935 grams) – which is big by Chinese standards. When the midwife asked what her name was and we said ‘Amelia’ she just started calling her ‘chubby baby’ and ‘chubby’, which she did for the remainder of our stay. As it turns out, this is just a ‘pet name’ for the Chinese, and meant to be a kind thing to say… being ‘chubby baby’ is a good thing. Man, could I have used this story when I was a kid! The other funny story is that our OB (who is the head of OB for the hospital) was in talking with us, and we were telling a story about the midwife, and she said ‘oh, you mean the chubby one?’ Wow, were we surprised. The first thing we both tried to say as soon as the doctor left was, ‘you’d never get away with that in the US!’

Chinese inefficiency… There have been plenty of stories on my and Stephanie’s blogs about Chinese inefficiency. How could we have imagined having a baby in China and not find another example? This one revolves around the testing that is or is not done in China and the vaccinations that can and cannot be completed. Every person we talked to gave us different answers. One of the standard tests in the US at birth is the ‘PKU’ or commonly known as ‘the heel prick’, where they take a small amount of blood and put it on a card for testing – this is done almost immediately after birth in the US. We were told by the pediatrician that we met with a few weeks ago that this was not done in China. Steph went to a prenatal class to ‘brush up’ and to learn what to expect differently here. The class was given by a couple of midwives who said that the test was done here. Then during the hospital stay we asked about the visit that was supposed to be made by the pediatrician. It was explained that the pediatrician was on medical leave (and again with the privacy issues in PRC) for a heart disease. When we asked about seeing another pediatrician we were told there was not another one on duty. The in hospital visit by the pediatrician is a standard part of US births (based on what we are familiar with), but here, evidently optional.

We had a question about the vaccinations (since there are both Chinese made vaccinations as well as imported vaccinations from the UK). They asked a family doctor to come in and talk to us, since there was no pediatrician available. He did a good job of talking through the vaccination options with us (we ordered ours in from the UK). We asked again about the ‘heal prick’ test. He said ‘they don’t do that in China’. Shortly after he left our room, he returned and said, ‘well, actually, they do the ‘heal prick’ test here in PRC, I just don’t normally work OB, so I didn’t know’. What amazes us is that it’s not clear if we would have had this done had we not asked again… or would we have been ready to leave and have them rushing to complete this at the last minute? Either way, it got done – that’s good news.

Visitors
In the US there seems to be a steady stream of visitors when you are in the hospital. Being an expat in PRC is different. Maybe it’s that we have a smaller group of close friends, maybe it’s the complexity in some of friends lives right now, maybe it’s the difficulty of getting to the hospital for what is going to be a very short visit, but for sure it’s the lack of real family in China. It’s not good or bad, just an observation – and by no means were we concerned or did we feel slighted or offended – we don’t want our Shanghai friends to feel judged, nor is the intention for US friends to feel sorry for us – we didn’t expect many visitors.

Almost everyone plans on visiting once we get settled in at home. I think they believe (and correctly to some extent) that managing the international delivery experience is complicated enough without the additional stress of visitors.

The funny thing is the one set of friends that did come visit are a couple that we used to joke about if we had moved beyond acquaintances to friends, and now tease us that we are ‘dead to them’ since we are repatriating…

The Departure
Communication… In the US it seems to be very cut and dried about when you leave the hospital. Vaginal delivery = 2 days; C Section = 5 days. We were estimating our departure date as Monday, since we delivered on Saturday morning at 6:18am. When the on call OB came in on Monday morning (a different on call OB than the one that delivered us) she asked us ‘if we wanted to leave today’. It was weird. Not sure if it was the Chinese lack of being direct… not sure if it was just translation issues, as her primary language is Chinese. But the lack of clear direction and communication was weird.

Chinese Birth Certificate… OK, there’s no real story here, but it’s weird to look at our child’s first birth certificate and see that it’s an official Chinese government document. Note: there is no dual citizenship with China. They give us the birth certificate only so we can get US birth abroad documentation to get a passport. Amelia is a ‘natural born citizen’ as defined by the Supreme Court since she was born to American citizens, even if it was in China – so she can run for President one day… at least this is my understanding!

Goody Bag… They give us a goody bag of thing when we left the hospital, similar to the US. The primary difference is the make-up of the items in the good bag. In the US you leave with reams of paperwork. Paperwork on the baby blues, breast feeding, resource numbers, organizations you can contact, and the ‘this side up’ onesie and the hat. In China the relationship of ‘stuff’ to paperwork is the opposite. The goody bag had a very nice Gymboree onesie… I looked at it and was surprised they handed out Gymboree, since it’s so expensive… then Steph pointed out and I realized this was closer to Jim-Boree than Gymboree. There was also a Disney baby clothes hamper, closer to Diz-Nee than Disney. They also sent home the remainder of the Pampers (actual pampers) and Johnson’s Baby wipes, along with the first thermometer they used on her. Which will only ever be used for her, considering it is a rectal thermometer, and she deposited meconium all over it during its first use!

Car Seat Check… In the US they insure that no baby leaves the hospital without a proper car seat check. Not so here in PRC. So many people take taxi’s home, or walk that car seats are not common practice. Also, in PRC in general, they don’t get used, even if you do have a car. There was a question about it in Steph’s pre-natal class and the official communication from the hospital was ‘hold the baby in the car/taxi on the way home’. Steph and the other folks from Europe all cringed.

Held Up for Cash… The very last item was checking out at the business office, which should have been a piece of cake. Our insurance covers labor and delivery 100%. The business office, however, indicated they needed a 10% co-payment to settle the bill. We had been paying 10% of all our bills to this point, but I and checked in advance and confirmed the 100% coverage. I knew if I parted with my $800 USD and had to try to get it back from either a Chinese hospital or an US insurance company, it would happen sometime between a really long time and never!

So we’re home now. It’s day 2 and things are going well. Amelia is easier to wake up, Steph’s milk is in, and she’s fussy and does not want to be put down at night (Amelia, not Steph)… sounds like a normal baby to me!

Hope this finds you all well!
Cheers,
Joe

21st Century Birth Announcement - Amelia Jane Welsh

2009-03-14T05:01:00.000-07:00

All,
A dinner party was cut short Friday night when Stephanie asked me to stop drinking wine and start timing contractions. About 30 minutes later, after timing contractions separated by anywhere from 4 to 10 minutes, we were on the phone with the doctor. Upon learning that this was our third baby, not our first, the doctor advised that we come directly to the hospital.

This addressed my greatest fear about having a baby in China – the speed with which third babies are reputed to arrive and the prospect of delivering in part or in whole in a taxi or minivan. We checked into the hospital at 10:30pm and proceeded to wait for the baby to arrive. Stephanie was having productive contractions moving toward delivery, but at a much slower pace than one might expect with a third baby. Finally at ~4:00am they administered oxytocin to ‘move things along’.

And at 6:18am, Amelia joined the family! After getting settled in to some extent, I went and picked up Olivia and Genevieve to bring them to the hospital and see Mom and meet their new little sister. Everyone got along famously!

We expect to be in the hospital here in Shanghai until Monday morning.

Here are the pertinent details about Amelia upon her arrival:

Name: Amelia Jane Welsh
Date: March 14, 2009
Time: 6:18am
Weight: 8 lbs, 10.5 oz (3.935 Kg)
Length: 20 inches (51cm)

We have attached a couple of pictures and will post more when we get a chance.

Hope this finds you all well.

Joe, Stephanie, Olivia, Genevieve and Amelia

Lots of stuff getting real!

2009-03-09T19:02:00.000-07:00

I use iGoogle for one of my home pages in Chrome (Google's browser, which I have been using almost exclusively lately). One of the widgets I have been able to add is a countdown timer. As most of you know, there are 3 significant things the Welsh family is counting down to... These things are really how we define our life at this point, so I thought I would give an update on each.

1 - Baby Welsh #3: 11 Days, 1 Hour, 42 Minutes, 57 Seconds (Estimate)
Steph continues to grow, although she doesn't see how there is any room left for this child to grow for 11 more days! So far, so good. We are into the weekly doctor appointments. At our 36 week ultrasound a couple weeks ago, the doctor was muttering over the chart while the ultrasound tech was taking pictures... When we asked her about it, she was estimating the size... she was projecting a 9 lb, 12 ounce baby! Steph was a little concerned, for obvious reason. Then I reminded her that I was a 10 lb, 10 oz baby... Probably not the best thing to remind her! She has since heard from some folks that those estimates are very inaccurate - we're hoping that's true! The biggest concern at this point is the speed with which third babies arrive... We're anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour away from the hospital depending on traffic. It's one thing for this baby to be able to say they were born in China, but we'd like the excitement to stop there and not extend to being born in a car or taxi!

2 - Repatriation: 110 Days, 1 Hour, 46 Minutes, 40 Seconds
Steph said it finally seems real now since we have tickets booked. 4 tickets booked out of PVG to PDX on 28 June 2009. I used a bunch of my system wide upgrades to move the family into business class... That should be nicer with the 2 kids and the baby. We'll get a ticket for the baby once he/she is born, and see if we can't upgrade that one as well. I discounted the rent for the people in our house to get them out a little early so they'll be out on 25 June. Then we have a cleaning crew coming in on the 26th and carpets being cleaned on the 27th. We land on the 28th and will only have to spend a couple days in a hotel, as our things in storage will be delivered on the 30th. So if all goes according to plan, we'll be sleeping in our own beds (and crib) on the night of the 30th of June. Then hopefully we're mostly unloaded and settled in by the 4th of July. We won't be able to get to Lake of the Woods for the 4th of July this summer, as we'll just have arrived home. The upside of it is that we'll get to actually enjoy the Oak Hills 4th of July celebration, which we hear is very nice - including a neighborhood parade and our own fireworks display!

Returning to the US is really bittersweet. While we are looking forward to seeing our friends and family, we have come to really enjoy China and the Chinese people. We have come to enjoy our friends and 'expat family' here in Shanghai. We would have preferred to stay, but understand the reality of the economic situation that is bringing us home.

3 - Sabbatical: 137 Days, 20 Hours, 47 Minutes, 1 Second
So my Sabbatical will actually start sooner than that. It starts shortly after we arrive back in the US, on July 6th (actually the 3rd, since the 3rd is a US holiday). But for the purposes of the countdown, I am using 26 July, 2009 @ 7:55am. That is the day and time I leave for Scotland. Before Scotland we'll have about 3 weeks as a family in Oregon in the summer. This will be great. We'll spend time settling into the house, we'll spend time at the pool in our neighborhood, we'll spend time at the Lake of the Woods, and Olivia and I will spend time doing some volunteer work before I leave. The trip itself has been well covered in another post (27 Rounds of Golf in 31 Days), so I'll skip over that. When I get back the 25th of August, the hope is maybe one more trip to the Lake of the Woods before getting back to Portland to start the preparations for my return to work and Olivia's first day of first grade at Oak Hills Elementary School. We should both start those new adventures on the same day, I believe - the day after Labor Day.

People keep asking about my job situation... And it's still fairly unclear. What I am confident of is that I will have a job! There are some layoffs happening within my division in the next few days, and I am assured that I will not be affected... I am assured of a role, and have had some very general conversations about what that role will be, but until the legal and organizational announcements are made, everything is very fluid. In the mean time, I have been staying busy in China helping to shut down the business we were developing here, teaching class to some of our Chinese leaders and managers and working with our training department on how to adapt the class I teach for a different delivery timeline. Lastly, I have continued to mentor some of the local Chinese employees.

So that's the update on the Chinese Contingent of the Welsh/Kratochvil/Merryman Family. Steph is spending her last days of pregnancy driving all over town trying to cross off her list the things that we want to buy before heading home - and that are easier to take care of before we have a 'wiggler' to take along. Some pottery for her, stone lions for me, some clothes being made for all of us... taking advantage of the deals China has to offer while we can.

Just a Test... Sabbatical Map

2009-02-22T20:24:00.001-08:00

Just testing to see if this works... Thx.

Joe

View Larger Map

5 Trips to 4 Police Stations

2009-02-09T23:37:00.000-08:00

Some people ask if I ever feel like I am in a communist country. The answer is hardly ever. Actually, Shanghai feels more like a capitalist country than the US. There are people doing anything and everything they can to make money. From impromptu ‘bike repair shops’ on the corner (guy sitting on a chair surrounded by tubes and chains and grease) to the ‘corner video store’ (no copywrite laws, so movies show up on our corner within 2 weeks of their debut in theatres in the US), everyone is doing whatever they can to ‘make a buck’.

Shanghai is first and foremost about money. It’s called ‘the Western facing part of China’… It’s known as the ‘financial capital of China’ while Beijing is the ‘government and cultural capital’.

The only time I feel like I am in a capitalist country is when it comes to getting anything done with the government.

Case in point is when we have visitors come into town. If you are not Chinese, the government wants to know where you are. We are supposed to take our friends and family to the local police station to get a visitors permit within 24-48 hours of their arrival. Repercussions of not registering and being asked for paperwork are unclear, but urban legends include hours at the police station sorting it out, and in extreme cases, people’s visas being taken away.

This story is a classic example of bureaucracy and paperwork for the sake of bureaucracy and paperwork.

When we arrived, we were issued ‘Residence Permits’ by the Chinese government. They are pasted into each of our passports. Olivia’s passport was set to expire last summer, so when we were home in June/July we got her a new passport. Now she has a new passport, but the residence permit is in the old passport. So I contacted the company Intel uses to handle our immigration issues in PRC and asked for them to take care of moving the permit from one passport to the other… pretty straightforward, right? Well, not if you are in China!

In my discussion with the immigration company, he explains that I need to get new temporary residence permit in order to get the residence permit moved from one passport to another. I ask the obvious question: why would I need a temporary residence permit, when we all have permanent residence permits in our passports that are valid until July 31 of 2009? After a 5 minute conversation, the answer boiled down to: “I know it makes no logical sense, but to move the residence permit, we basically need to start the whole process over, and your actual valid residence permit is worthless”.

So then I resign myself to go get new temporary residence permits. Normally the same immigration consultant takes care of this, but since this is ‘out of cycle’, I am on my own. I am told by an acquaintance that she had to do the same thing and it was easy. She simply went to the local police station with her driver with all their passports and the police gave them new temporary residence permits. She said the driver basically took care of the entire conversation. “No problem” I think to myself.

I get in the van one day and ask Daniel to take me to the local police station so I can get new paperwork. First police station sends us to a second police station saying they don’t do this type of paperwork. The second police station tries to send us back to the first one (which Daniel was prepared to do, until I got very angry and loud – it’s the Chinese way to get things done). So the second police station gets on the phone to a third police station and confirms they do this type of paperwork there. So off we go to police station #3. Once at this police station, the officer explains there are 2 problems. This station does not handle my neighborhood, and I must go to a station much farther away from my neighborhood than this one to get what I need… That’s right – this station is closer to my neighborhood, but doesn’t handle my neighborhood. I was initially flabbergasted, but then realized this really isn’t any different than the Beaverton High School district, and the fact that I could hit Driver – 4 Iron to Sunset High School, but will have to take the kids to Westview, which is practically in Hillsboro!

The other problem is that there are lots of things I need to produce to get the temporary permits: Rental contract, passports, copies of the landlord’s Chinese ID and a letter from the property management company. When I explain that a friend walked in and got what she needed without any of this, the person suddenly spoke no English and just pointed at the list of what I needed.

So even more frustrated, I called it a day and decided to go to police station #4 some other day.

A week or so later, once I had successfully collected the required documents, I headed to police station #4. I walked in, confident that I had what I needed, and I would finally get this crossed off my ‘honey do’ list.

I hand the officer all the paperwork and she starts to explain to my driver that I am missing something. Daniel translates and says ‘you need copies of specific pages of your passport’. I point to the list that I was given at police station #3, which just says ‘Passports’. He points to the much longer line above in Chinese and basically says ‘they don’t really know English and didn’t know how to translate everything, but in Chinese this says you need copies of specific pages of your passports’. I decide not to blow my top, and say ‘well, can they make copies here, do they have a copier?’ ‘No’, is the simple response.

So once again, I come away empty handed.

Yesterday I was working from home, and I decided I was going to get this taken care of for good. I made copies of the required pages of our passports, along with other pages I thought might be important, just in case. Off Daniel and I went to the police station. I think he was tired of having to translate for ‘angry white man’ as he didn’t accompany me in this time.

So in I go. I hand over everything, and the officer takes it all and hands me 4 forms, asking me to fill them in and sign them. While I am doing this, I notice that the officer is scanning in our passports to the computer. All I can think is ‘why do you need my copies if you can simply scan these things in?’

Anyhow, I was happy at making this much progress, so I just focused on filling out my forms. Once I am done filling out the four forms (same info for each family member), she hand me 4 forms to sign. They are the EXACT same forms I just filled out by hand. The computer had taken the information from our scanned passports, combined with her entering the information into the computer and printed out the exact forms, which she pushed through the glass and asked me to sign.

I had not been able to fill in all the information on my hand written version of the forms, as they needed some information from the passports she had. When I tried to explain this, she simply said ‘no problem’. She took all the forms and all my copies and shoved them all together, not in any order, some parts intermixed with other parts, handed me my temporary residence permits and said ‘all finished’.

On days like this, it is clear to me I am in a communist country… but most other days, not so much.

Deals to be had in China - The bedroom set!

2009-02-09T03:17:00.000-08:00

Steph has always wanted a bedroom set. I thought we had one... it included a metal frame for our queen sized bed, my old dresser from when I was a kid, a couple of mismatched nightstands and the dresser from when she was young. It also included very nice piece of furniture handed down through her family that originally belonged to her 'Nonnie'. Then when we moved into the new house in Beaverton (Oak Hills) we went to Consignment Northwest and found a nice dresser with 2 end tables.

This was the point at which I was sure we had a bedroom set. Gone was the old dresser from my childhood (up to the guest room to be more accurate). Gone were the mismatching nightstands. Gone was her dresser from when she was a kid (since it was part of a matching set of furniture that's from Ethan Allan and is the girls bedroom set now). In was the 'new to us' dresser and nightstands. While not matching the style of the vanity/dresser from Steph's Nonnie, they were still in dark stain, and therefore 'close'. Still no bed beyond the metal frame, but I was sure we now had a 'bedroom set'.

When it became clear that we would be headed home in June, as opposed to on time (end of July) or the extended date I had been talking with my management team about (end of 2009), we started to have the conversation about what we wanted to have done or have made to take home with us. Steph explained that she wanted to have a bedroom set made, that it would be so much cheaper than it was in the US. I asked and was quickly educated on what was wrong with our 'bedroom set' at home... seems an actual bed (headboard, foot board, etc), beyond a metal frame was the key component of a bedroom set. My argument that random styles of furniture thoughtfully put together met the requirements of a 'set of furniture' not only lacked the key piece (an actual bed) but I was clearly told that our ecclectic collection of furniture was not a good example of a successful attempt at such.

So we started the process of deciding what bedroom set 'we' would like, so that we could compare the pricing to what we could have made in PRC before we head home. Stephanie picked out a set from Pottery Barn - a line they call 'Montego'. The cost for all 5 pieces was ~$6000 including shipping. OUCH. The Pottery Barn construction is a combination of mahogany, mahogany veneer, plywood and MDF.

Off we went this afternoon to a furniture store that Steph found here in our part of Shanghai. We had a set of cubbies made for the girls from ash that turned out well, and we like very much. Stephanie has been leading a furniture tour of our part of Shanghai and has included this place in her tour, so she has some goodwill built up.

We started the conversation with the gal who runs the show there, and once she confirmed that they do many of these types of sets, the conversation moved quickly to money. First was the type of wood we wanted to use. There was no combination of wood, plywood, veneer and MDF, everything was made of wood. This is why had we had the entire bed made in mahogany, it would have tipped the financial scale at 40% more than we paid! We opted for elm with a dark stain (trying to match our best memory of the piece from Nonnie that's carefully tucked away in storage in the US).

All 5 pieces came in, after a little negotiating) at 17,000 RMB. This equates to $2,500 USD. LESS THAN HALF of the delivered cost of the Pottery Barn set! Again, it's not the mahogany that the Pottery Barn set is, but it also won't have any MDF. For less than half, we'll take the elm!

Now we are lucky that we'll be able to get the set home to Oregon as a part of our return shipment from PRC - otherwise, perhaps the cost would really not be that much better... But at less than $0.50 on the $1.00, this was a deal that could not be beat.

So today a deposit was made and in 5 weeks, we'll have our new bedroom set delivered here to our apartment. We won't set it up, instead leaving it wrapped and disassembled to ease the packing and shipping process.

The only problem that exists now is that we have to temper our enthusiasm for the great deal that furniture is here in PRC with the reality of spending money on things we 'want' as opposed to things we 'want'.

The dresser and night stands will make their way into the guest bedroom upstairs (much nicer for Barb and Jaques and my mom when they visit). The old stuff in the guest room will likely make it into a summer garage sale.

At the end of the day, Steph is happy for the matching bedroom set - that meets all the requirements and definitions of an actual bedroom set - and I am happy for the killer deal we got!

There are lots of things on the 'what to get before returning to the US' list. The criteria for making this list are either it's something to remind us of our time in China, or it's so much cheaper to get here. The list is budget dependent, but these are some of the things we'd like to get to take home with us!

Stone lions for either side of the door at home

Couple custom made suits for Joe

Some golf pants for Joe

Coats for Steph

Framing

Some jewelry

Some pottery

Can't wait to see everyone again - it's been a great couple years in China, and we would have preferred to stay through 2009, but I am getting excited to be home again!

Cheers,

Joe

27 Rounds of Golf in 31 Days

2009-02-04T22:55:00.000-08:00

As many of you might know, Intel offers a benefit unique in its industry, perhaps any industry. That benefit is a sabbatical. Every 7 years of service, Intel grants you an 8 week ‘recharge time’. An 8 week vacation (in addition to your standard 3 or 4 weeks). As explained to me, although there is some disagreement within the employee ranks on this, it is recognition of the stress and strain working in an aggressive technology company like Intel can put you under. It’s recognition that after 7 years, you need time away from work to recharge the batteries and come back ready to bring your best self to work.

For me, it’s been over 9 years. I postponed my sabbatical once as we had just bought a new home in Oak Hills, and in reality, had no money left to do anything! Then I postponed it so I could take this international assignment working in China. Now I am in the precarious position of approaching the expiration date of the benefit! At the 10 year mark (3 years after eligibility), it expires.

We are on track for returning from our assignment in China in June of this year, and given the nature of my chosen trip, I will be taking it shortly after I return. This allows me to both spend time with the kids (Olivia (6), Genevieve (4), and soon to arrive baby #3), before Olivia starts school in the fall, as well as exercise one of my passions (some might call an obsession) – play golf.

The plan as it stands is to spend ~3 weeks in Oregon with Steph and the kids before heading off to Scotland for a month long golf trip. I know what many of you are thinking – you are taking Steph and the kids to Scotland for a month? Now, let’s be clear, that is a trip we cannot afford. I’ll be going by myself. Now many more people are thinking – you are going to Scotland for a month and leaving your wife to deal with a 6 year old, a 4 year old and a 4 month old? Now, let’s be clear…. That’s exactly what I am doing. The more I think about it, the more ridiculous it sounds.

So, a little background is necessary. When Steph and I were both working at Intel, we reached an agreement – our first sabbaticals would be whatever we wanted them to be. Our choice alone, the spouse just went along with it. For Stephanie’s sabbatical she spent ~6 weeks in Italy. She rented a villa used as home base and hosted family and friends and traveled and saw the sights of rural Italy. Admittedly she did this with an 18 month old Olivia, while pregnant with Gigi… but nonetheless, her trip. When we reached this agreement, it was clear that my trip would be to Scotland, the home of golf.

Original plans involved all of us going, which we quickly realized was fiscally near impossible. Then we thought we could get grandmas and friends to watch the girls while Steph headed over for a week to 10 days of my time there, maybe hitting Scotland and Ireland. The monkey wrench thrown into this plan was Baby #3. Due in March, Baby #3 makes that plan near impossible. Instead of taking care of a 6 year old and a 4 year old, the volunteer for this suicide mission would be signing up to care for a 6 year old, a 4 year old and a 4 month old.

So, in what can only be described as a gesture of unequalled generosity and caring, Steph has continued to hold true to our original agreement and is letting me continue to plan and execute on the trip to Scotland.

Before Scotland, I hope to be able to accomplish a few things in the early part of my sabbatical. These will be dictated by how well we are adjusting to being a family of 5 and being ‘fresh off the boat’ returning to the US. I would like to spend some time at the cabin (Steph’s family’s cabin at Lake of the Woods). Also, I would like to do some volunteer work – ideally something I can take Olivia with me to do, but another option would be a Habitat for Humanity project. My time is normally so consumed with work and family in the normal course of life that I would like to spend some time dedicated to the service of others. If you have any specific ideas, shoot them my way!

Now, for the ‘trip of a lifetime’ as I am calling it. I cashed in a bunch of airline miles and got a ticket to London, where I’ll catch a regional airline up to Edinburgh. Once on the ground in Edinburgh, I’ll grab my bags, pick up the rental car and head off to Prestwick – the home of the first Open Championship (called the British Open on this side of the pond). This will be the start of what will equate to 27 rounds of golf in 31 days.

One of my old Fraternity brothers (Ryan Svenson) will be joining me in for the first 10 days or so, so that will be nice for a couple of reasons. The primary reason is, having been in China for the last 2 years, I miss my friends greatly. It will be great to have time to catch up with him on what’s been going on in his life. It will also be great to have a fellow golf addict along to share the trip with.

Then the second week of August the next group of guys comes in. The same day I drop Ryan off at the airport in Edinburgh, I’ll be picking up a minivan along with 3 other friends, forming a four ball (known as foursome here in the States) for a week in St. Andrews – known widely as ‘the home of golf’.

Then I put the group back on a plane to North America, trade in the minivan and get a small car and head out for the last ~10 days and 2 cities on my own.

I have opted for staying in Bed and Breakfast or Guest House accommodations, as they generally run less than half of the cost of a hotel – and they include full Scottish breakfast (I’ll pass on the Haggis, thank you very much). While no means a cheap trip, I have maximized my ‘approved budget’, with the frequent flier ticket and use of B&B/Guest Houses.

I have included an itinerary of my trip below… If you have reason to be in Scotland this coming summer, let me know… I’ll find a way to accommodate you in my plans and share a pint, if not a meal, if not a round of golf!

Cheers,

Joe

*Day*	*Date*	*Activity*
Sunday	26-Jul	PDX -> LHR
Monday	27-Jul	LHR -> EDI
Monday	27-Jul	EDI -> Prestwick
Tuesday	28-Jul	Play Turnberry / Prestwick St. Nicolas / Kilmarnock / Dundonald
Wednesday	29-Jul	Play Western Gailes
Thursday	30-Jul	Play Prestwick
Friday	31-Jul	Drive Prestwick -> St. Andrews
Saturday	1-Aug	Play St. Andrews Castle
Sunday	2-Aug	Play Carnoustie Championship
Monday	3-Aug	Play St. Andrews New
Tuesday	4-Aug	Play Golf in AM -> Drive to Aberdeen
Wednesday	5-Aug	Play Royal Abderdeen
Thursday	6-Aug	Play Cruden Bay
Friday	7-Aug	Play Murcar Links
Saturday	8-Aug	Drive to EDI, Drop Ryan, Pick Up Golfers, Drive to St. Andrews
Sunday	9-Aug	Play The Dukes
Monday	10-Aug	Play St. Andrews Jubilee
Tuesday	11-Aug	Play St. Andrews Old Course
Wednesday	12-Aug	Play Carnoustie Championship
Thursday	13-Aug	Play Kingsbarns
Friday	14-Aug	Play St. Andrews New Course
Saturday	15-Aug	Play St. Andrews Castle Course
Sunday	16-Aug	Travel to EDI - Drop Off Golfers - Travel to North Berwick
Monday	17-Aug	Play Dunbar
Tuesday	18-Aug	Play Muirfield/Glen Golf Club
Wednesday	19-Aug	Play Gullane No. 1 & No. 2
Thursday	20-Aug	Play North Berwick Golf Club
Friday	21-Aug	Drive to Inverness
Saturday	22-Aug	Play Brora
Sunday	23-Aug	Play Nairn
Monday	24-Aug	Play Royal Dornoch
Tuesday	25-Aug	Drive to EDI -> Fly Home

25 Random Things About Me

2009-01-30T06:35:00.000-08:00

I have been using 'facebook' pretty religiously to stay in touch with family and friends over the last year. It's really been great. For those of you not familiar with it, it's a social media website (much like myspace) that allows you to stay connected with family and friends. There is a 'chain letter' of sorts that is going around where someone sends you a note (or more accurately posts a note to their own site) with 25 random things about themselves... they then ask you to complete the same list and include 25 more people.

Anyhow, I was asked to participate, and I did. I figured I had not posted to my blog in a while, so I would put the list here for your viewing pleasure... and yes, I am pretty sure the only viewing is still being done by mom!

25 Random Things About Me

25) I am long winded.

24) I have too many hobbies. I am mediocre to good at enough things that I enjoy doing that I want to try to do them all. What I end up doing is continuing the mediocrity and running out of money! Golf, Basketball and Bird Hunting are the primary diversions. There are plenty of other things I would love to pick up, but can't: Tennis, Deer Hunting, Softball, Shooting Clay Pigeons/Trap/Skeet are just some examples of things I don't have the time/money/energy to do, but would like to do more of.

23) My perfect day: make waffles for the girls in the morning (someone else does the dishes) -> mid-morning tee time with golfing buddies -> lunch is a 'dog at the turn -> dinner with good friends -> poker with the usual suspects -> Steph is miraculously still awake when I get home so we can lay in bed and talk as we fall asleep (rated G version)...

22) I know the names of far too many Barbie movies for a grown man... Mermaidia, Fairytopia, Barbie and the Diamond Castle... you get the idea...

21) I do not know the difference between a mandarin orange and a cumquat. Steph sent me to the grocery store the other day, and mandarin oranges were on the list. No problem, I thought... the little oranges. I came home and a little while later, Steph explains to me that I did not get mandarin oranges, rather I brought home an entire bag of cumquats.

20) I may be addicted to the internet. Between espn.com, cnn.com, nyt.com, facebook and e-mail... I might spend an unhealthy amount of time in front of the computer and on line... What is 'an unhealthy amount of time'?

19) I am in the land of cheap massages and I don't like massages. Full body massage in China is about $20 USD for 1 hour... Which evidently is a super deal. I am OK with a foot masssage, and LOVE a head massage... but below the neck and above the calf is not enjoyable to me. Friends came in from the US and we went out for massages... They all got full body chinese massage, and I got 2 people assigned to me so I could get a head massage and foot massage... still only ~$20 USD! :)

18) One of the things I love about Intel is that they allow me to teach and mentor people, even if they don't work for me and it's not technically part of my job.

17) I can't sing... Well, I can physically make words come out of my mouth in a manner that makes it clear I think I am singing... the unfortunate part of this is that I love to sing... I love music (all kinds), and love to sing... but it's clearly very bad... Don't get near me with too much alcohol and a karaoke microphone... It's bad for all involved!

16) I learned being in China for the Olympics how nationalistic the Chinese are... How much they love their country and how much of their personal pride is wrapped up in being Chinese. I admire it greatly. I feel like you ask a Chinese person to tell you 10 things about their country, or what they think about their country and 9 of them would be positive... I felt like I took for granted how great the United States of America is, and I feel like others do too... That our list of 10 things would get to about #5 or #6 before we 'go negative'... Maybe I am wrong... I hope I am.

15) Did I mention I am long winded?

14) My two oldest friends are Rodney Nelson and Valerie Armbrust - Rodney lived across from my grandparents when I was growing up and Valerie is the daughter of one of my mom's high school classmates. He lives in Iowa and she lives in Boston. I regret that I am no longer close to either of them.

13) After voting Republican in every election since I was eligible to vote, I voted Democratic in this election. My wife claims I have been 'in the closet' for years, really a Democrat in Republican clothing... but I think I am really very fiscally conservative and socially liberal... I believe in my right to own and operate firearms, but also believe that right can be subject to resonable restrictions... I believe in smaller and less government, but also believe you can judge a country, to some extent, on how they treat their citizens who have the least... What box would you put me in?

12) I did not go to Ohio State... many people assume I did based on my somewhat fanatical devotion to Ohio State sports. I was born in Columbus, Ohio. I was raised mostly in Ohio. And I went to a small college in Oregon... so when it comes to big college sports affiliations, I bleed Scarlet and Grey. O-H-I-O!

11) I went to Linfield College where 3 of the most important things in my life happened to me. In reverse order of importance: I was given the opportunity to coach basketball as contracted employee of Linfield College and member of the Linfield College Wildcat basktball coaching staff; I joined the Pi Kappa Alpha Fraternity; I met my wife.

10) If I didn't have a mortgage, 3 kids to put through college, 2 (and maybe a 3rd) wedding to pay for, and an expensive golf habit, I would be a high school basketball coach someplace... teaching personal finance and/or business and trying to win state championships... Maybe small college...

9) When people ask 'where are you from?' I don't know how to answer. I live in China. I own a home in Oregon. I was born and raised in Ohio, which is where all my family is at!

8) I wanted to become a single digit handicap before we had kids. I knew that once we had kids, it was not going to happen, as I would not play golf enough. I didn't make it. I bottomed out at about an 11 or 12 handicap. Then for my birthday about 6 months after Olivia was born, Steph gave me the gift of time to play golf more - she said I was a different person when I got to play golf consistently, that is was a great stress reliever for me. So I finally broke through and made it - a 9 handicap - AFTER we had kids! She rocks!

7) I am planning the trip of a lifetime... I am headed to Scotland for 1 month to play golf. Intel gives employees a sabbatical every 7 years - it's 8 weeks paid vacation in addition to your standard allotment. Stephanie and I agreed early in our marriage and Intel careers that we each got to do whatever we wanted with our first sabbatical. She went to Italy for ~5-6 weeks, and we always planned that I would go to Scotland to play golf. Of course now we have a 6 year old, a 4 year old, and at the time of my trip a 4 month old... But Steph is still supportive of my once in a lifetime trip to Scotland! Yet again - she rocks!

6) There are two things that I do that are total stress relief, that seem to be the only things I can do that allow me to forget about everything else... Golf and Basketball. I don't know what it is, but on the court and on the course, there seems to be no room in my head for anything else.

5) After 3 months in China, I wanted to come home. Work was tough, China was tough, I missed my friends, I missed my family... Funny enough, it was a trip back to the states that got me over it... I went home for a set of business meetings in October and couldn't wait to get back... Now we are looking at coming home in June and are dissapointed we can't stay longer.

4) My mom raised me on her own... and as some of you might imagine, I was not an easy kid! I don't tell her enough how thankful I am for all she did.

3) I am the oldest of 10 grandkids, meaning I have 9 cousins that all live in Columbus, Ohio. I am not as close to them as I wish I was... I mean we are family, so we all love each other, but I wish we lived closer so we could be better friends. I admire the relationship Stephanie has with her cousins.

2) I am constantly wondering if I am screwing up my kids... Am I too strict? Am I patient enough? Do I raise my voice too much? Do I expect too much from a 6 year old? Do I expect too much from a 4 year old? Do I joke and rough house too much and love and encourage too little?

1) My dad died when I was very young, so my grandfather became my male role model. I spent every Christmas, summer, Easter, Spring Break... (you get the idea) with my grandparents, and what I loved more than anything was my granddad making waffles for me in the mornings... I don't know why it was so special to me, but this is why I make waffles for my girls every weekend... It's what I think dads are supposed to do.

Mass in Portugal

2009-01-04T04:03:00.000-08:00

It's Sunday, January 4th in Portugal, which is where I find myself sitting in my room overlooking Praca de Ribiera and the Douro river. I am preparing to teach a set of master teachers on how to use Intel's Classmate PC in the classroom. The government of Portugal has worked with companies in the country to buy a large number of these small, ruggedized notebook computers, specialized for use in classrooms and with kids. Their ultimate goal is to put a PC in the hands of all their kids!

A small group of Intel folks have volunteered to spend a week in Portugal teaching the 'master trainers' how to get the most out of the Classmate PC and how to best implement it in the classroom. I feel fortunate to have gotten this opportunity for a couple reasons. One, I continue to enjoy teaching at Intel. I have been teaching a management/leadership class while I am in PRC, and am looking forward to the next few days. Also, this has given me something to focus on while I am looking for the next job at Intel as we ramp down my last business group and products.

The flight here was better than it could have been. I got lucky and my coach seat had no one next to me and no one in front of me... this meant i could at least rest, although not really sleep on the 12 hour flight from Shanghai to Frankfurt, before connecting to Porto, Portugal.

I checked into the hotel at about midnight last night, and was able to get right to sleep, thanks to the Ambien prescribed by my doctor in Shanghai last week!

This morning, I got moving earlier than I expected, not being able to get back to sleep after about 7am. So after checking in on the situation in the middle east on CNN, I got some breakfast (included with the tariff for the room), and then headed out to explore Porto. I grabbed a map from the hotel just to get my bearings, and more or less just headed off to explore with no real direction or agenda.

There are a number of very beautiful churches here in Porto, but what I didn't think about was the fact that it's Sunday, so all of these churches are in use! This is what lead me to going to Mass for the first time in years... I stumbled into a beautiful little church just as Mass was beginning. Having no real plans for the morning, I decided to stay. Having grown up Catholic, it was very easy to follow the service... Although this church did finish the service with some odd ritual that involved everyone coming to the front of the church and kissing a baby Jesus figure that was held by the priest... I can't say if this was a normal part of weekly services or just for the holidays.

I continued to wander around the old part of Porto, and it is truly a beautiful old city. Although on a Sunday morning, it was still pretty sleepy! A colleague and I are about to head out to lunch, then a little more walking around this afternoon, maybe even checking out a 'winery' to see how Port is made - turns out as you might expect, Port was first made, and continues to be made in Porto, Portugal.

Hope all is well with you, and that you had a safe and happy New Year celebration!

Cheers,
Joe

Some 'This is China' Moments

2008-12-18T00:25:00.001-08:00

After my last, somewhat depressing post re: the dissolution of my business group and the cancellation of my product line, I thought I might offer up something a little more lighthearted.

Here are a couple stories that I hope make you giggle - none of them really had me giggling (well the last one did a little), but feel free to yuck it up on your end!

I'll go in reverse chronological order and start with this afternoon's incident.

"I No Water!"
I am working from home today finishing off my recovery from a 24 hour bug that had me down yesterday. Our ayi tells Steph and I 'no water'. At first I think she's talking about the drinking water that's delivered from the service center, then I realize she's talking about the actual water in the apartment.

So I call the service center and explain we have no water. They explain they'll send a technician out in an hour or so. I did not expect that anyone would show up in an hour, but it wasn't worth trying to get them to send someone sooner.

Then I happened to walk out into the foyer/hallway between our apartment and the other apartment on our floor. The door was open and there was a guy in there mopping up water with a small mop and soaking up water with pieces of cardboard... he had started to flood his apartment. I called Steph out and showed her the guy mopping up, indicating that he no doubt broke something that is impacting our water supply.

Then I noticed that the 'water meter box' doors were open - and that they had not been opened with a key - they had been broken into. Then it all became obvious to me. He had wanted his water in the new apartment turned on... and instead of waiting for the service center to do so, he broke into the 'water meter room' and turned it on himself... at which point he realized it was turned off for a reason - as it started to flood his apartment!

Then I get his attention and ask in my best broken english, knowing he doesn't speak english: "You break door?". Not realizing I am accusing him, he says 'yes, yes'. Then I explain 'I no water!'. So he goes to the scene of the crime (water meter box) and turns our water back on. I am assuming at this point he has either figured out which one is for our apartment and which one is for his, or if they are on the same line, he has figured out how to shut off whatever caused the flooding in his apartment.

So we call the service center back and explain there is no need to send technician out. That our new neighbor broke into the 'water meeting box' and turned off our water. The service center asked 'how he have key to our water box'. Steph explained 'he doesn't have a key, he broke in'. At this they were very concerned... much more concerned than when our water was not working!

Non-Smoking Room
In early December I was asked to represent my now defunct (but not yet public at the time) group at a customer meeting. This is our top 30 channel customers in China. I agree to go and present content on Mobile as best we could.

So I get to the resort where the meeting is being held, and it's in the middle of no where. It's a Sofitel, but in need of some updating. There is a fabulous kiddie pool with slides and equipment to climb on and what not, but not a drop of water in it! The location picked for the event is in Hainan - which is sometimes called (not translated to) 'Chinese Hawaii' or 'Hawaii of the East', but they didn't pick a resort on the beach... which makes you wonder why they picked such a location at all...

Anyway, after an hour and a half drive from the nearest airport to the hotel, I go to check in. They start to hand me the key to room 1443, when I think to ask (since this is China where 70% of the men smoke), "is this a non-smoking room?" Which elicits the 'you want non-smoking room?' response.

Yes, I need a non-smoking room, I explain. At this point there are 2 receptionists helping me - which I have found is a good thing, as they can collaborate and make sure they are getting the English correct. They punch some keys on the computer, and make a couple of phone calls and say 'it's all arranged', and hand me the same key to 1443.

I try to be gracious about the mistake, and explain, I'm sorry, you were going to move me to a non-smoking room, but this is the same room you offered me to begin with. The nice woman behind the desk explains, 'No, no, it OK... we remove ashtray.'

And there you have it... need a non-smoking room, no problem, we'll remove the ashtray... So I try to explain I need a room that has not been smoked in before (realizing as I say it that this actually may not exist in all of China). The women now talk some more to each other, and one of them says 'you want room on non-smoking floor?'. Very proud at our progress, I smile and say 'yes, thank you'.

They then talk some more, make another phone call or two... punch in some things on the computer, and then explain that Intel's room block (and I assume special rate) is only on smoking rooms. It's no problem I tell them... I'll pay more, just give me a room on the non-smoking floor. "oh, OK' they reply, almost in unison.

More typing and phone calls... I am finally convinced that we are making progress.... Then one of them looks at me and says 'non-smoking floor, all sold out'. UGH.

Luckily, the weather in Hainan is far nicer than Shanghai, with evening temps in the 60s, so I could open the double slider doors to the small balcony attached to my room (overlooking the kiddie pool with no water) and air the room out... was nice enough weather that I could sleep with the sliders open at night and dissipate the musty smoke smell.

American Ingenuity
On this same business trip, it's important to explain that I was the only person there who did not speak Mandarin. There was one other native English speaker that was not fluent, but he knew enough to get through a superficial conversation. And the English of the customers was very limited.

The last night, they had a BBQ buffet dinner, and lots of toasts. The field sales guy made each Intel person offer a toast to the customers. Obviously mine needed to be translated. What I said was something to the effect of 'business is very hard right now, and when times are hard it's important to have good friends, together, as friends, we will come out on the other side of this tough time stronger, and richer'.

What the field sales guy 'translated' this to was: 'I have no friends, and I make friends by drinking'. When the customers all began to laugh, I knew I had been had. When I went back to the Intel table, I said to the people there 'he didn't translate what I said, did he?' They explained what he actually said.

A few minutes later the first customer came up to me. He brought two wine glasses half full of the traditional Chinese toasting drink Baijiu (pronounced bi-geo). This is not a sipping drink - this is a shooting drink. It is completely clear and absurdly strong (think grain alcohol).

I did my duty and drank the first glass along with the customer as a LARGE shot. Unfortunately, I knew what was coming. At this point, I engaged the support of the Intel employee sitting next to me. I explained to Melanie (thank god for Melanie) that I needed to get a waitress to bring me the same small carafe that the Baijiu was being served in, but I needed it filled with room temperature water. 'Room temperature?', she asked. I explained that hot water would steam the glass and cold water would sweat... If I was going to make it out of here alive, it needed to be room temperature.

Another Intel employee, who was sitting next to Melanie simply looked at me surprised and said, 'that's genius'. I explained that when you work for an International Fraternity (as I had in the past), you have to pick up some tricks that allow you to 'be one of the guys' but still be able to meet with the president of a college or university in the morning. I explained that this was just a variation on only ordering bottled beer at a bar with undergrads so you could go to the bathroom and pour them out while you peed... they thought you had the bladder of a little girl, but man could you drink a lot of beer.

So the handful of customers that came over to toast the sad American got what they wanted... They were able to drink with the guy that only knew how to make friends through drinking, and I was able to get a good nights sleep, having avoided far too much Baijiu.

The best part of the story is the last guy to make me drink was the guy who started it all, that first customer with the wine glasses.... As we were all headed out, he comes up to the Intel table with a full carafe of Baijiu and sees mine (recently refilled with room temperature water). He explains 'WE DRINK' loud enough that a small group gathers and sees each of us with a carafe full of Baijiu. I shoot a glance over to Melanie and Justin, who are complicit in my deception and give them a little smile... To the customer I simply shake my head and feign concern... But ultimately look him in the eye and say 'OK'.

He went first... He downed the entire small carafe of Baijiu in no time... Coming from an old fraternity guy, I was impressed... especially since he had been a big toaster and toastee all night.

Then I was up - all eyes were on me. I decided about half way through the carafe of water I needed to make this look realistic. So I stopped half way through and stumbled back a step or two shaking my head as if I could not go on... Everyone seemed to think 'ah, he's not going to be able to make it'... then after just a beat or two I slam the rest of my water, followed by my little shot glass of water (which was less about sending a message and more about not leaving evidence). Then there was much cheering... The now very drunk, and possibly alcohol poisoned, customer simply looks at me, clamps his hand on my shoulder and says (yells, really) 'YOU VERY STRONG'. That's the last time anyone saw him until lunch the next day. I was able to call into a 7am meeting. :)

This last anecdote could not have been possible without Melanie Yan who negotiated for the carafe of room temperature water, and Justin Van Buren who kept my cover. Thank you both!

Pre-Christmas Update - Changes Afoot

2008-12-14T01:48:00.000-08:00

Christmas is right around the corner. Mike and Karmen Trzupek (dear friends from Seattle) are due to arrive on Friday. Looks like it'll be warmer here in Shanghai than it will be in Seattle. We have had a wonderfully mild winter to this point (knock on wood). It has included a number of sunny and clear days, with temperatures in the 50s and 60s!

I thought I would get this posted as a means to get everyone up to date on what's going on with the Shanghai Welshes, as well as what's going on with my job at Intel. Since it's now on a number of technology related websites, I can safely inform friends and family.

First, for the important stuff. Steph is feeling very well... She says she's in that second trimester space where she actually has some energy... Which is true only until about 8:30pm, when she starts to yawn and drift off to sleep. That being said, we did take in a couple of Christmas parties to this point, and she was a real trooper! Last doctor appointment was good - everything continues to check out OK!

Olivia is doing well at her International School, and is lobbying hard to do first grade in China. She loves her teacher, her friends and school and would like to stay until June 2010! She loves art, dance and music, and recently completed her role as 1 of about 30 birds in the school performance of Jack and the Beanstalk!

Gigi is enjoying her experience at the local Chinese pre-school. The other day Steph overheard her and our ayi have an entire conversation in Mandarin! She loves most everything her sister does, and has really enjoyed the extra time with mommy in the last 18 months.

Now, onto my situation. As I mentioned, this has become public information in the last week or so, but Intel has decided to dissolve the business group I work in, moving the work and the people into various other groups. On the face of it, this sounds harmless, but one of the actions involved includes shutting down the program I have been in charge of for the last 18 months. We will complete our roadmap of products over the next few months, then we will sustain the products for our pilot customers - but we will not be developing follow on products. This means my role has effectively been eliminated. I will have some work to do getting the remaining products out the door and 'shutting the lights off'... but I am effectively looking for a new job.

I have an upcoming assignment that was a 'special project' I was asked to support before any of this came down, so that has me busy while I work to finish the roadmap and job hunt. It's a special opportunity I will describe in more detail in a separate post, but it's something to keep me busy for the next few weeks.

I have a couple of 'irons in the fire' as we speak. I have had some conversations with managers in other groups about opportunities they might have, but everyone is sitting pretty tight until Intel gets past the budget and plan process and managers understand their headcount targets and get budget dollars finalized.

Probably the most unnerving part of this process is the uncertainty with our assignement in China. We have over 7 months remaining on our contract (oringially planned to come home the end of July, 2009). We had talked previously (prior to this annoucement about cancelling the project) about staying on another 5 months for the next generation's roadmap - which is now non-existent.

Where we will be living and when we will be living there remains a mystery. Steph can't travel after February 1st - possibly sooner depending on what the doctor has to say. Our house is rented out until July of 2009 (in alignment with when my contract expires). My next manager (whoever that will be) will have to look at their budget and the work required in the role to determine their ability to support my assignment until the contract is up (July 2009) or possibly beyond.

So, needless to say, it's a little nervous Christmas around the Shanghai Welsh family tree this year. I feel like I have had good conversations with a couple of managers, but with the economy as bad as it is, and budgets getting squeezed, and companies announcing job reductions left and right, it makes me temper any positive feelings I have.

I do feel bouyed by the fact that Intel has not yet annouced any wide spread headcount reductions. In fact the messaging has been opposite of that in the press. What we are being told is that the company plans on having the same number of employees in 2009, as we leave 2008 with... so on the aggregate, no large swings... but I know, of course, this means we can expect pockets of 'headcount redistribution' based on business needs.

I'll update my blog when I know more... and have a couple posts planned over the holiday; one about my upcoming assignment in Portugal teaching teachers and parents about how to use some unique Intel technology, and the other will be a couple of classic stories from a recent busines trip.

Our family Christmas card will be coming out via e-mail in the next week... Until then, I hope your holiday preparations are coming along well.

Cheers,
Joe

Apartment Living... An Update...

2008-11-16T04:05:00.000-08:00

Many of you found my last post re: apartment living and the middle of the night 'construction' noises amusing... Not sure if I closed that story with you all.

It turns out the guy living in 402 is pissed at the people living in 302. When the people in 302 put their ceiling fans on, the noise it makes in 402 bothers him greatly... And in a very open and direct way of dealing with the problem, the guy decided the most appropriate response was to bounce a bowling ball on the ceiling. It seems that after my late night pounding session on his door, he switched over to a basketball... seems it's just as annoying for the people below, but less so for people in other apartments!

The nice Aussies in 302 are pulling their hair out... They have involved the management company here at the complex, but since the guy in 402 owns the apartment, and is not renting from the management company, there is nothing they can do... And there is no such thing as a home owners association here. They are now to the point of involving the local government, going to arbitration and scheduling a government official to come into the apartment and measure the sound created by the fans below... I am sure that now that the government is involved, it will get settled in a speedy manner! :)

So, now onto our newest apartment living story... The family upstairs has a number of kids - three I think. They are generally very quiet.... but, they practice the piano an amazing amount. On the weekends the piano is being played quite literally from 8:30am - 7:30pm non-stop with the exception of what I assume is meals...

Of all the things to hear from your neighbors (including, evidently, bowling balls being bounced on the floor) this is not that bad!

Unfortunately, tonight things changed... for about an hour tonight, one of the kids started to practice a new instrument... it was what I believe was a trumpet, trombone, or french horn... I know it's unlikely that those 3 instruments sound anything alike, but I'm not a brass instrument expert... All I know, is that as much as they have improved the piano skills in the last 15 months, they would need to out pace that progress to get anywhere near bearable on the brass instrument!

Steph is in Beijing this weekend with her cousin Gina, Gina's husband Ben and Ben's mom. They'll be back here on Tuesday to spend the week touring Shanghai before heading back to San Fransisco on Sunday. This will have our medium sized apartment stressed on sleeping spots, but we wouldn't have it any other way! We have been so excited about them coming and are glad they are finally here!

Then in December we have our friend's Mike and Karmen coming with their kids Sydney and Sam for Christmas. Everyone is looking forward to the visit!

I hope this finds you all well and looking forward to the holiday season!

Cheers,
Joe

Sometimes I am simply not very smart...

2008-11-02T17:28:00.000-08:00

I am going to blame it on jet lag. If it weren't for jet lag, I'd be as smart as everyone else... perhaps.

I just returned to PRC after 3 weeks in the US. Couple weeks for my hunting trip and then a couple days of meetings in Oregon. Jet lag was much stronger and harder to overcome after being gone that long.

Saturday morning after having played basketball at the local international school, I decided to cut my hair. Anyone who has seen me recently, knows that I have embraced by developing baldness, and refused to go the way of the comb-over.

I started my 'bald friendly haircut' by asking the barber/stylist to shave my head with the clippers using a #2 guard. Then I progressed to the #1. During the warm summer, even going down to a #1/2. Cutting my hair with the clippers, guard in place, became so easy that Steph does it many times, and sometimes I manage it myself.

Well I had been gone nearly a month (week in Thailand for work, followed by the US for vacation and meetings). So it was time for a trim.

Saturday morning following basketball, I head into the bathroom to trim up my 'mop'. I start shaving, and am surprised at the amount of hair on the floor thinking to myself 'wow, that's a lot of hair for 1 month growth'.

Then I glance into the mirror and see my head - 1/2 shaved. Then I look at the clippers, and see NO GUARD. I had just started shaving away. So no #2, #1, not even a #1/2 - you could say I shaved my head using #0.

So now, when my kids tease me and call me 'Baldy Daddy' they are a little closer to the truth... I'll be wearing a hat as often as possible the next couple weeks! :(

Sometimes you get the bear, and sometimes the bear gets you...

2008-10-24T18:04:00.000-07:00

So the answer to the question 'how was the hunting trip' depends on how you decide to measure sucess!

Spending time with granddad was great... it had been over a year since I had seen him. It was so great to get a chance to spend this dedicated time with him, not phone calls and letters. Hard to believe that at 84 years old he's still out in the field, 'pushing the corn' and shooting at birds. We should all hope to be in such good shape at 84!

Now, as for the hunting, that wasn't the best we had ever had. Turns out the area of SD we were hunting has had a very wet fall. That has led to 'lots of cover' for the birds, meaning 2 things:
1) there is A LOT of corn that still has to be harvested, meaning birds hang out in the corn, which is hard to hunt with a small group of guys and a couple dogs and 2) all of the other cover (sloughs, shelterbelts, etc) are all overgrown, again making for flushing birds a chore!

The other really great thing about the trip was the dinners we were able to do with the Bratland family. It is really funny to hear my granddad and his friends tell stories about hunting 30+ years ago when the 'Bratland Kids' were kids. Now here I am hunting when the grandkids are all just kids... the next generation of hunters is seeing the next generation of Bratland's grow up (albeit 1 week at a time in the middle of October every year).

So the summary is 3 birds in 3.5 days of hunting (rained out the last day and a half) for the group... not a great showing. Close to the least birds they have ever gotten!

On the upside, I did hit the 1 pheasant I shot at... the downside of course was that was the only pheasant I got to shoot at... :(

The drive on both the way there and back was uneventful. Very little traffic either way. I never paid over $3.00/gal for gas, which was nice.

Weather was great for the first 3 days (sunny and cool). Then the rain set in. We hunted the morning of day 4, but man was it cold and windy. After a couple of hours of not seeing many birds and getting colder and wetter with every step, we called it a day... Then the next morning we woke to the same darned weather.

So we had breakfast and decided that we weren't going to hunt that day, instead we went back to the house and all packed up, getting on the road early.

Now I am finishing up my vacation days staying at our friend's house before finishing up my time in the states with a couple days of meetings in Oregon... Have loved my time in the US, but really miss Steph and the girls.

More later.

Cheers,
Joe

Birds or no birds, I am looking forward to next year's trip... Which I am sure my wife is rolling her eyes at as she reads this! :)

Spreading Around My Tourist Dollars

2008-10-17T12:01:00.000-07:00

As many of you know, I am back in the US for about 2 weeks for my annual pheasant hunting trip in South Dakota with my granddad.

I am sitting in a local hole in the wall restaurant in Bowman, ND. The sign said 'World Famous Big J's Restaurant' and actually had both an American and Canadian flag, as to make it clear that the world is bigger than ND and the US! I had to give it a try - heck if those kooky Canadians love this place, it must be good.

Turns out this little hole in the wall has Internet access... Amazing.

So I am making good progress... Started out from Canby at about 4:30am on Thursday morning (jet lag lead to an early awakening). Made it to Bozeman (as planned) on Day 1 and will get to Willow Lake, SD by this evening if all remains on track.

I stopped here in Bowman, ND for 2 reasons - #1, I have never been to ND, so I decided stopping for lunch would give me a real excuse to say I had been there... and obviously I lucked out and came across the world famous 'Big J's'. #2 - I decided to spread out my tourist dollars. This route only crosses the SW corner of ND, I can't be in the state for more than a hundred miles - so I grabbed this chance.

The 1 state that is in last place in the Welsh Tourist Dollars standings is Washington. I could not make it from Canby to Couer D'Alene on 1 tank of gas and was forced to stop in Spokane and get gas - which I was trying to avoid, as it was something like $3.2x/gallon. I got only $15 worth - enough to get me to the $2.89/gallon gas in Couer D'Alene.

Montana got some gas and a night's stay.
North Dakota got lunch, although that's only $5.79 ($6.20 with tax).

Oh, last reason Big J's will remain famous with me: they rightly serve ranch dressing in a squeeze bottle like ketchup and mustard... not limited quantities in little cups like most places... that alone was worth the stop!

More from the 'Pheasant Trail' later...

Cheers,
Joe

Why I was worried about an apartment...

2008-09-22T07:48:00.000-07:00

It took over 1 year... but it finally happened. I had a little voice in the back of my head that was concerned about going back to apartment living. The proximity to other people, and the impact of their living habits on my family... it worried me a little.

But the fact that we looked for 4 days, and this was the only place in our budget we could afford, and it was such a good location, I silenced the little voice that was asking if I really wanted to go back to 'apartment living'.

Our place is great, it really is. Great location, under budget, good landlords. But one night last week, it turned into exactly what that little voice in my head thought it might.

So we went to bed, fairly early due to Steph's evenings being more enjoyable for her when she is asleep! I woke up at about 12:45am. I don't know if it was the rhythmic banging or something else that woke me, but there I was awake and listening to the banging. Where was it coming from? I opened some windows to rule out the construction site not far from the apartment, and sure enough, that wasn't it. I paced around a little longer, and felt convinced the noise was originating in the building.

I picked up the phone and called the front desk/service center and explained that someone was seemingly doing construction of some sort in their apartment in the middle of the night. I asked they investigate and take care of it. It stopped for a period of time, which I was hoping was the end of it, alas, it started up again.

At this point, I decided to take the bull by the horns and started walking up the stairs from our second floor landing to determine the location of the midnight construction site. I got to the 4th floor and there was an employee of the apartment complex standing outside apartment 402. I asked him in English with accompanying hand gestures if this was the place. He indicated it was (lots of Chinese, then a nod). We waited. Then the banging started again. At this point the employee starts talking into his walkie talkie, talking to the front desk. I take a little more direct approach and knock on the door and ring the doorbell.

We hear footsteps on the other side of the door, and they approach right to the door and stop. Then nothing - obviously sizing us up through the peep hole. Then footsteps away from the door again... never bothered to open the door up.

So I head back to my apartment, assuming that the person on the other side saw a neighbor (white dude in boxer shorts and a t-shirt) and an employee of the complex at his door at 1:00am, obviously in response to his home improvement project in the middle of the night. That'll be the end of it, right?

No, not really... about 10 minutes later, it starts again... of course, just as I was falling asleep. So I call the front desk again. Here's the conversation:

Guy On Late Shift: You have call him your personally.
Angry White Guy: OK, give me the number.
Guy On Late Shift: Well, he no speak English.
Angry White Guy: Well then why did you tell me to call him?
Guy On Late Shift:
Angry White Guy: Can you call him? Did you call him?
Guy On Late Shift: I call, he no answer.
Angry White Guy: Did you send someone to the apartment?
Guy on Late Shift: He no answer.
Angry White Guy: Nevermind, I am going up there myself.
Guy On Late Shift: Thank you, anything else I help with tonight?
Angry White Guy: No thanks, you have been so much help to this point.

So I go up there. I wait for the banging, which has stopped for a moment to start up again... I don't have to wait long... about 45 seconds later, there it is... bang... bang.... bang, bang, bang.

So at this point I step up to the door and ring the bell. Banging stops, but no walking to the door. Just silence. I am really upset at this point and react a little less than maturely. I commence ringing his doorbell for about 3 minutes non-stop. Just keep ringing and ringing and ringing.

Finally feeling a little better, I head back down stairs, thinking to myself 'this guy doesn't know who he is messing with... I am regularly up and out of the house between 5:45am and 6:30am during the week... I have no issues stopping by the 4th floor on my way out to the car every morning and waking him up.'

Lucky for everyone, 3 minutes of ringing the guy's doorbell sent the right message, or he was just tuckered out at 2:00am and decided to knock off for the night. The banging stopped.

Unfortunately, I was still 'Immature Angry White Guy Who Was Really Tired' when I left for the office at 6:30am the next morning. So on my way out, I stopped upstairs to wish him a happy morning... I started to ring the doorbell, and lo and behold, he had unplugged it! Turned it off!

So rather than realizing I got the better of the situation, I pounded on the door for about a minute - long enough and loud enough to wake the guy up, and then headed down to the car and off to the office... he never answered the door.

Part of me looks back a little ashamed for being so immature... but part of me says 'there's been no midnight banging since then'.

1 night in over a year... that's pretty good, so I can't complain 1 bit about the apartment. It's all good!

Hope you all are sleeping well. :)

Joe

Update on Baby Welsh

2008-09-22T07:16:00.000-07:00

First, thanks to all for the great response to our news! All the congratulations and well wishes are greatly appreciated.

Steph is starting her tours of the various hospitals and birthing centers in Shanghai. I have not been able to attend, as work remains stressful and busy beyond belief, not to mention logistics issues discussed below...

We had some good news today - Steph went to have an appointment and a 14 week ultrasound... they reviewed some of the early 'soft signs' for downs syndrome and all looks healthy! Steph said the baby was doing some pretty serious gymnastics during the ultrasound.

One of the big differences between having a baby in Oregon and in Shanghai has to do with my involvement with the pregnancy (outside of initiation, an activity in which my role was consistent from child to child). In Oregon the access to the doctors office was amazingly convenient. Our OBs office was basically right across the street from my office. For Olivia, I attended every pre-natal appointment. For Gigi, I was able to attend many of the appointments, but was sure to attend all ultrasounds.

Logistics of trying to get to these appointments is prohibitive... it takes 30-45 minutes to get anywhere in Shanghai and our office is in the middle of nowhere! And with 1 car and 1 driver, it means I had to put my pregnant wife on the subway to her appointment today! That will have to change... I will be working from home or carpooling as she gets farther along.

The other logistics issue is around the birth itself. Likely the hospital we will choose will be 30-45 minutes (during light traffic) from our apartment. If we need to get to the hospital during rush hour, there is no telling how long it might take! And then the complexity of being in a city in which we can't drive: our driver lives 1 hour away from us on the other side of the river. One of my fears revolves around Steph's water breaking in the middle of the night (like it did with Olivia)... Having to wait an hour on our driver, or taking the Shanghai Death Trap known as a Taxi? When this discussion starts to work its way into my head, I choose to ignore it and think about it later... always later...

Anyhow, I thought I would post the most recent pics from today's ultrasound... Steph remains tired and fighting off evening nausea, but otherwise doing OK.
Hope this finds you well.

Cheers,
Joe

Big News: Another Monkey Being Added to the Zoo!

2008-09-05T01:44:00.000-07:00

So I was finally able to convince Steph that we needed to have another baby… Indeed, it was a mammoth effort to get her on board with the idea… OK, so those of you who know us well realize just how big a load of crap that really is. I was long reluctant to add another girl to the family (and we all know that Stephanie and Joe only make girls – something about those ‘Merryman women genes’). The idea of starting over with diapers and midnight feedings, not to mention another college education and wedding expense (hopefully in that order) had me spooked. Alas, after a number of conversations and the realization that our 2 girls are the sweetest things in the universe, we decided to try for a third!

Note: here is the potential TMI (Too Much Information) part of the post… move to the next paragraph to avoid!

So Steph and I historically are very good at making babies… what I mean by “very good” is that there is not much “practicing” or “trying” involved. On the contrary, I tease Steph that she is the most fertile woman on the planet, and she counters that I am too virile… I still think if I looked at her just right, that would be enough to conceive! When we got pregnant with Olivia a good friend gave Stephanie a congratulations card, and gave me a sympathy card for us being so efficient at getting pregnant!

So just as with Olivia and Genevieve, conception was instantaneous! Three kids and I never got the extended period of ‘trying to get pregnant’… I tease, as I know friends who have struggles with conceiving, so I know we are really blessed to be expecting our third! But… really, God? You couldn’t work with me on just this one thing? :)

Family has been duly notified, and I updated my Facebook page with ultrasound pictures. We are working on a message to friends – some of which will hear via Facebook first as opposed to from us directly – you can blame me for that… I was just too excited to wait! I guess for some of you who discussed #3 with me when I was in the ‘no way’ phase that is hard to imagine.

So Steph has had a rough go of the first trimester to this point… She does OK in the morning, but about mid-afternoon starts to get really tired and nauseous. No fun for anyone, but mostly her. I am sure she’ll be posting to her blog to keep everyone posted on the action!

I have prepared a little ‘Reactive QnA’ about Baby Welsh based on the most anticipated questions:

Q: Are you going to have the baby in China?
A: Yes… everything else on the planet is ‘Made in China’, why not Baby Welsh? Also, there are 1.3B people in China, they seem to have the baby making and delivery process down pretty well!

Q: Do you want a boy?
A: As cliché as it sounds: 10 fingers and 10 toes, healthy baby, and we will be perfectly happy. Part of me would love a boy, what man doesn’t want a son? But that being said, my two girls are awesome, just complete joys (most of the time). And we know how to do girls, we’ve gotten pretty good at it.

Q: Will you find out the sex?
A: Not unless we get another ultrasound technician that graduated at the bottom of their class. With Olivia we didn’t know, and with Gigi we didn’t want to, and 7 minutes after telling the tech that, she said ‘wow, you usually can’t tell the sex this early, but if you look right there, this is obviously a girl’. UGH. We would prefer to be surprised.

Q: Really? Having the baby in China?
A: Yes, we happen to live there.

Q: Any names picked out?
A: Gomer for a boy and Esmeralda for girl… OK, not really, but friends of ours were doing some financial planning before they had kids, but knew they wanted to have 2, so they created placeholders and called them Gomer and Esmeralda and the names stuck until Nicolas and Carter arrived… We thought it was hilarious. We have some ideas, but won’t be sharing until Baby Welsh arrives.

Q: What if you have twins?
A: I kicked the imaginary person who asked this imaginary question in the shin. What would make a person think it was a good idea to put that out in the universe?

Q: But what if?
A: I immediately go to confession and seek forgiveness for whatever it is that caused God so much pain and anguish that brought this on me… Then I go to B&Q (Chinese Home Depot) and apply for a second job at night stocking shelves. My aunt Patrice had 2 kids and then had twins on the last ‘go round’… She tells me 4 is the perfect number of kids and we should welcome twins, or just have a fourth… I can only think that the experience of four kids has made her a little nuts.

Q: With as much as you travel, are you sure it’s yours?
A: Stephanie kicked the imaginary person who asked this question (his name is Dan Roth) in the shin… He keeps it up and she starts kicking higher. Joe asked ‘if it’s not mine will someone else pay for the college education and wedding (hopefully in that order)?' Steph then kicked Joe in the shin.

Q: Really? China?
A: I thought we covered this... Did you graduate just below the ultra sound technician?

More later…

Cheers,
Joe

Couple interesting things about Olypmics Closing Ceremonies

2008-08-24T06:53:00.000-07:00

1) In the first part of the program all of the actors/participants had bike helmets on - which is ironic, given that no one in China (save expats) wears bike helmets!

2) http://www.cnn.com/ had an article on the web describing the closing ceremonies - BEFORE the ceremonies were over. We were in China, in our apartment watching them live on TV and I am reading about them on the web as if they were already over... classic - cnn just could not get 'scooped' so they published before they were over... but seriously, the story did not at all indicate the ceremonies were still happening!

3) Steph and I can't remember which comedian (Sam Kinnison? Bill Cosby? Jeff Foxworthy?)does the bit about TV when they were growing up, but the punch line is that it sucked when the president was on TV because he was on every channel - welcome to watching openning and closing ceremonies for the Olympics in China - 3 CCTV stations and the EXACT same thing on every channel!

My First (Semi) Real Bike Ride In China

2008-08-24T04:52:00.000-07:00

I consider my blog family infotainment - family friendly if you will... But I have to say - my ass hurts (no comments from fraternity brothers allowed)!

My friend Dwayne explained to me that there was a ride from our suburb of Shanghai (JinQiao) east to the ocean. He was explaining that it was on concrete along the canal, then it turned into a dirt path that cut through fields and small villages. Eventually it delivers you to the ocean.

I am experiencing a period of complete disinterest in going to the gym. I am excited for basketball to start up, but I am not a runner - in fact I can't stand it, it is just completely unenjoyable to me. I can manage something similar in the gym with the elliptical and treadmill, but lately, I can't even bring myself to do that.

Having gained a significant amount of weight over the summer, and seeing basketball approaching with me in no semblance of shape had me looking for something athletic to do... that's when I remembered Dwayne's ride to the ocean.

So I tried to talk Dwayne into a Sunday morning ride. He begged off for Beijing to catch some final Olympic action, but I was pretty sold on the ride. Steph had a pretty good idea where this ride was, and Dwayne explained it to me... of course he explained it in a text message as 'cross Jinxiu Lu, turn left on the small road on this side of the canal... gets confusing at each bridge/intersection... braille from then on...".

Still I was undeterred.

So this weekend I bought a bike helmet and a 'camelback' and decided on Sunday morning I would set out on the adventure alone.

On the way back from dinner with friends on Saturday night I was telling Daniel when we would need him on Sunday. I explained that we would need him starting at 12:00pm. Then I tried to explain I was planning on riding from JinQiao to the ocean. I was explaining that if I got lost, I might call him to talk to a local person on my cell phone and either come get me or explain how to get home!

He didn't quite understand, but I think thought I was just crazy (or dumb enough to do it)... So he asked 'you go with who?' I explained I was headed out on my own. He responded 'why?'. Like it was strange enough a couple of expats were going to ride out to the ocean, but unfathomable that one was going to try it by himself.

Resolved that I was doing this, I set out Sunday morning. iPod set to a special playlist created just for the ride, 'camelback' filled with water that was kept in the fridge overnight, couple frozen water bottles for extra hydration and to keep the water in the bladder cold, a couple hundred kwai (aka RMB or Yuan) in case I got into a tight spot and a cell phone.

So I put 'semi' in parentheses in the title because Shanghai is amazingly flat, so I knew that the hardest part of this ride was going to simply be the heat and how long it took me to complete it. the weather helped out and it was not too hot... probably high 70s today, maybe low 80s.

The time to complete the ride is why my backside hurts. The last real ride I did was in high school when we rode around Applegate Lake in southern Oregon. I used to really enjoy mountain biking. It turns out I still enjoy it, but my 'bottom' isn't in riding shape. It was an hour and a half out and a little under that on the way back in. Almost 3 hours in the saddle was more than my hindquarters were prepared to handle!

The way out was longer in part due to some back tracking I had to do... Dwayne was right that bridges and intersections got confusing, and I had to braille my way to the ocean at different points. One memorable point was riding along the canal when I reached another canal feeding into the larger one perpendicular... meaning I was at the corner of 2 canals with no way to cross. So I turned North and rode parallel to the smaller canal across some grass field of sorts... which was fine, until there were gullies that fed into that small canal, resulting in having to get off the bike and carrying it across the gully! This led me eventually to a bridge I could cross, then had to work my way back to the main canal and head east again. There were a couple more times I had to cut north, and then back south to the canal, but was able to make it just fine.

I realized when I got there that this was not Dwayne's route, as there were no dirt paths cutting through fields - rather this was primarily concrete out to the ocean. I found out later that Dwayne was concerned enough about me finding my way (probably due to my poor Mandarin
skills) that he didn't try to explain the more complex route - and for this, I can't blame him!

The ride was really interesting. As it headed out to the ocean it was really a 1.5 hour crash course in Shanghai - specifically Pudong. I saw neighborhoods that were some of the worst living conditions I could imagine. I saw men walking out of their shack/houses in their underwear with no self consciousness at all. I saw men swimming/bathing in the canal - which is disgusting water. I saw the neighborhood open air butcher with a fan blade over the meat to shoo away the flies - no refrigeration in site, and the meat was still out and under the fan blade when I passed some hour + later!

I also saw some seemingly very nice homes on either side of the canal at certain points. I saw many factories that no doubt employed the folks in these neighborhoods. I saw new factories and commercial buildings being built.

When I got to the ocean, I saw all the barges in the ocean lining up and waiting to be called into the port.

I called Steph at this point - I think she too was concerned I would make it! I rested for a few minutes, then rode back in.

Only 1 close call with a truck on the ride. His bumper and my wheel about 2 feet from each other... As if the ride wasn't getting my heart rate up enough!

It was a great way to spend a few hours and get some exercise. I look forward to Dwayne's ride through fields and woods. And I look forward to proper rides in the Northwest when I get home!

Cheers,
Joe

Teaching in China

2008-08-21T16:28:00.001-07:00

Intel sent me to China to do a specific job. That job is the matrixed management of several product development teams focused on developing ingredients for notebook computers. These ingredients are the boards that go inside the notebooks and the plastic cases on the outside. This is a pretty simplistic explanation of what I am doing - but enough for this post.

In addition to the job I am sent here to do, there are certain expectations about mentoring and training. I am a mentor (official and un-official) to a couple of my Chinese co-workers, and for the last 4 months or so, our internal training group (called “Intel University” or “Intel U”) has really been pressuring me to deliver one of the classes that I am certified to teach.

I have been hesitant to teach while I am here in PRC. My biggest concern hasn’t been the time involved (although the class is a big commitment – 2 days delivery and at least ½ day prep when I have not taught in a while). My biggest concern has been my insecurity over delivering the class to a group that uses English as a second language and a culture that is less direct than my own.

The class is called Situational Leadership. It is targeted to our managers. I have been teaching the class for a number of years, and generally have received very good feedback in our evaluation process. I credit the class itself for the majority of the feedback. The material is extremely well developed, put together in a format that allows the material to be engaging throughout the 2 days, and highly applicable to the participants taking the class. I have no doubt my new co-workers will benefit from the class.

So why hesitant? First, I really think the class and the material is outstanding, and in the light of Intel choosing not to continue with the best management class we have (Managing Through People – which I also facilitated), I think this class is important for managers to take and apply. I was fearful that my delivery – all in English, and sometimes too fast – would result in students not being able to fully grasp the concepts. I was also concerned that they would be hesitant to stop me and tell me I wasn’t making any sense. Surely a Mandarin speaking instructor would be better.

My second concern was that I have exclusively delivered the class to participants in the US (and occasionally one from Costa Rica or Europe). I was really concerned that the material would have parts/pieces that would be culturally challenging to apply to these people’s teams. I have learned a lot about working with my Chinese colleagues, and learned enough about Chinese culture not to make an ass out of myself in public – but fall far short of being a ‘cultural guide’.

I tried desperately to find an instructor in PRC (native Chinese, or Mandarin speaker) that would co-teach with me. I struck out.

Then the Intel U contact that owns the class started to sound as desperate as I did – turns out the Shanghai site took a ‘quarterly objective’ to get a certain % of managers trained in this material… and they couldn’t get anyone to teach.

So the desperation of the Intel U guy, along with the feedback that the organization wanted me to step up and provide more leadership for the site, outside my specific responsibilities led me to bite the bullet and agree to teach.

This week was my first class. Overall it seemed to go well. The feedback from the couple of students that did talk with me afterwards was good – they indicated that they enjoyed the class, and one asked if I was going to teach any other classes. Another indicated that he wanted his staff to attend my next class.

I lead off the class with giving them express permission to ask me to slow down if I spoke to fast, to ask me to rephrase if they didn’t understand what I was saying or trying to communicate, and to stop me if they thought any of the concepts would not be applicable to their teams/work groups based on cultural differences between the US and PRC. None of the above happened, but I don’t necessarily think it was because everything was perfectly clear and applicable. I think it was a combination of some people being there to ‘complete the requirement’ and potentially their concern over ‘questioning the instructor’.

A couple of interesting observations I thought I would share.

I struggled to get the class to engage in discussion – In the US I usually have to cut off the discussion – everyone wants to give their opinion and be heard! I really struggled to pull comments and discussion out of the group and continue to rack my brain on why that might be…

So many possible reasons were running through my head ‘they don’t understand what I am asking them – this will be the worst class ever’ and ‘they are so bored they aren’t paying attention – this will be the worst class ever’ and even ‘they are so uncomfortable with their English skills they won’t engage – this will be the worst class ever’. I do have to admit it got a little better the longer class went on, but nothing like class in the US.

The second really interesting observation was about a game we play in the class. It’s a game focused on applying the learnings from the class about management and leadership. The group is split into teams and they read scenarios and decide on the appropriate response from a list of 4 options. They get to move their playing piece either forward or backwards based on the response they choose. First team to the end of the game board wins.

In the US what happens is one team wins and all the other teams stop and put the game away. “Someone won, it wasn’t us, the game is over” – the pieces get put away.

But in PRC it was totally different. Every team wanted to get to the finish line. They continued to work on the scenarios – continued to ask me to score their answers. They worked right through their break, as it was important to them to finish. Not that winning wasn’t important – they all wanted to win… but if they could not win, it was still important that they finish.

Now, I don’t have any idea what this says about the US culture vs. the Chinese culture, just something different that I didn’t expect… And it was cool!

As I mentioned, some folks came up to me afterwards and mentioned they enjoyed the class, and they thought it was a good use of 2 days. The evaluations went out today, so I should be getting some feedback in the next few days to see what they really thought! :)

For anyone curious, I’ll post about the results when I get them!

The Games Of The XXIX Olympiad, Part 3 - Joe and Steph go to the Olympics

2008-08-17T18:53:00.001-07:00

Our 'Facebook Friends', Eric and Caroline (long story) had tickets to Olympic Football (soccer) here in Shanghai that they could not use due to their trip to the States being extended. They offered them up to friends and Steph and I pounced on the Quarterfinals tickets they had.

It was men's football, and until the week of the game, I didn't even know who we would be watching... All I knew is that we were going to the Olympics, and I was excited. And even more excited that I would not have to trek to Beijing to do it!

Now truth be told, if given the choice of any Olympic sport to see, football would not have been my first choice... Football has grown on me since being in China (Women's World Cup last year, Olympic this year). I am even falling in with all the Euros here in Shanghai and calling it 'football' as opposed to 'soccer'.

My top choices, unrestricted by cost and logistics, would have been gymnastics and swimming, both second place to Team USA basketball, of course!

That being said, we jumped immediately at the offer of tickets to both experience the Olympic games, as well as for me to grow my budding affinity for soccer. Steph had been to the summer Olympics in the US in 1984, so this wasn't a first for her, but she grew up playing soccer, so she naturally enjoys the sport - compared to me, who's still trying to convince himself 'offside' is a good rule.

Our driver was concerned about being able to get us close to the stadium. He had heard from other people in town that there were many roads closed around Shanghai Stadium, and as was no surprise to us, there was no real way to know what roads would be closed at what times. So on the way to the stadium we hatched a plan for Daniel to drop us off at a Metro (subway) station a few stops away, and then we would meet him back there after the game using the Metro again.

This plan worked well, as it was obvious that there were several roads closed. We exited the Metro station and while we had to walk quite a ways, it was easy to find the stadium and where we needed to enter.

The Chinese do a number of things very well, and among them is moving large amounts of people efficiently. As upwards of 85,000 people descended on the stadium, things were very orderly and very efficient. There was a tremendous security presence. They were helpful when people asked directions and they were EVERYWHERE! There is no doubt that despite the tragedy in Beijing (stabbing of the US tourist), the Chinese are taking security very seriously and using their vast 'people resources' to provide what many would call an overwhelming amount of security.

When we got to the stadium we qued up and went through what seemed just like airport security. Bags through an x-ray machine and people through a metal detector, and after the metal detector, everyone was 'wand scanned' as well. Once inside it was easy to find our seats, there were plenty of ushers and people to assist.

Before the match was the traditional pageantry - Olympic theme song, national anthems, etc. Before the pageantry was an interesting activity - on the big screen they went through the basic rules of football. It seemed that they expected that there would be a number of people that were 'coming to the Olympics' just to 'come to the Olympics'... so in response they provided a basic understanding of the rules. I would have loved this for Judo, since it's on all the time and I don't understand the scoring one bit!

The Chinese are evidently big fans of the Argentinian football team. There were jerseys all over the place, Chinese with their faces painted with the Argentinian flag and chants supporting Argentina throughout.

I preferred to root for the Netherlands. There are 2 basic reasons I defied Darin's advice on who to root for (referenced in a previous blog):
1) I love to root for the underdog - also the reason I don't do pools for the NCAA tourney, I really want to see the #16 knock off the #1
2) Having been to the Netherlands on a business trip, a friend and I realized that everything in Holland is 'better than it has to be'. This takes a little explaining, so bear with me.

When we drove from Germany to Amsterdam on a business trip (also referenced in a previous blog) we noticed that in the Netherlands/Holland they took the time, money and energy to do things beautifully. A prime example was the cement walls next to interstates. As we drove through Germany, these cement walls were just that - gray walls. In the US sometimes we make an effort to scrawl designs in the walls to make them look like rocks - but really it's just cement walls. These barriers in Holland were beautiful mosaics or paintings - just 'better than it had to be'.

That became our description of Netherlands/Holland from that point forward: "Holland, better than it has to be' versus our description of other places, 'just enough to get by'.

Thus I was pulling for Holland.

We got really lucky in the fact that the storm that had caused a 1 hour and 40 minute rain/lightning delay in the Women's quarterfinal the night before had passed/subsided such that the game started right on time, and there was no delay during the match.

The match was tied 1-1 at half time, with many exciting shots on goal to go along with the 2 scores. The second half proceeded scoreless. In Olympic football, in the quarters/semis/finals, when tied at the end of regulation you play 2 extra 15 minute periods. I had incorrectly assumed it was 'sudden death' - meaning the first team to score in OT won. If both 'extra time' periods expire and the match is still tied, you move to penalty kicks to decide the match.

Argentina (like the US women the night before versus Canada) scored a goal during the first 15 minute 'extra time' period. Holland had one 15 minute period remaining to tie the match and force penalty kicks... Alas, one thing that is not 'better than it has to be' is the Netherlands Men's Football team. They could not score a tying goal and ended up losing 2-1 in 2 extra time periods.

It was a great match, and a great experience for my first Olympic experience.

We headed out of the stadium - which was, as usual another example of efficiency - and made it to the last Metro train so we could meet Daniel a few stops away. They held the train an extra long time to give people the opportunity to catch it... This was not enjoyable, as the heat of the evening, and the heat of the bodies was amplified by the crush of people on the train - it was hot and sweaty!

Luckily we were off the train in a few short stops and back into the car with Daniel and air conditioning heading back home.

Daniel filled us in on the 100M men's final that was run earlier that evening. He explained the ease with which the Jamaican athlete won the 100M and set the new world record... unfortunately, he ended the story with 'we think he take medicine'. The ease and cushion with which the man won immediately opened suspicion of steroid use. This is the legacy of athletes like Ben Johnson and Marion Jones (and countless others) - when someone does something amazing - something that has never been done before, the first thing that pops into people's mind is 'they must be juiced'.

Luckily the IOC has done a tremendous amount of testing of the Jamaican team due in part to the very underdeveloped testing program in Jamaica, as well as the knowledge that the team was in contention for numerous medals. The testing has been consistent enough that the Jamaican officials are complaining... Hopefully they see this for what it is - a good thing... hopefully in a matter of days we will be seeing stories about how all the athletes passed all their tests and we can assume that the results are legit!

My first Olympic games was limited to one event. The remainder of my experience this year as been Chinese commentary on CCTV and a little SlingBox, but it's been awesome!

Cheers,
Joe

The Games Of The XXIX Olympiad, Part 2 - Sleeping Kids and SlingBox

2008-08-17T18:23:00.000-07:00

Please note, have your ballot for 'father of the year' ready to fill out, so when you read this post, you can quickly make your submission on my behalf!

Sleeping Kids
So last Friday the US Women were playing Canada in the Quarterfinals of US Women's Olympic football. The game was being played in Shanghai, so I figured that surely the match would be on one of the 3 CCTV stations covering the Olympics.

I talked one of my co-workers into meeting me at a local 'American' bar which has a pretty good sports bar set up with a large screen and various other flat panel TVs. Steph was still feeling badly from a bug she picked up and the jet lag, so she opted to stay at home, and the girls and I braved the rainstorm to head to Malone's and meet Tom.

Unfortunately I learned upon arrival, that there was no football match being televised... The ever popular sports of Judo and Badminton were consuming all the televisions. I found out from the manager that the storm had impacted satellite coverage, so there was no way to get the match, and only the standard CCTV stations (not featuring football) were available - DRAT!

Anyhow, the girls and I waited for Tom and ordered dinner... Tom showed up shortly and as we were all eating, the girls were 'hitting the wall' - getting very sleepy. Normally I am a stickler for good table manners, but given the jet lag the girls were operating under, I didn't give them a hard time about slouching, our laying their heads down in between bites... We were in a bench seat with pillows, so it was so inviting for them.

And the father of the year moment - get those ballots ready:

Gigi laid her head down on my lap at one point, while eating a bite of her 'kid's spaghetti'. While I was talking to Tom I realized I felt something on my leg - it was her drool mixed with some spaghetti... it seems she had laid her head down and fallen asleep mid-bite; fork still in her hand, some food still in her mouth, some escaping from her mouth. Classic.

I removed the fork, wiped my leg and let her sleep. Tom and I were still finishing up dinner, and I saw no reason to wake her. She then prompted to wiggle around - I assume to get more comfortable... she stretched her arms a little, and one of them, when she returned to a resting position, she placed directly on my dinner plate... so image this: she's laying on the bench seat, head in my lap (at least no drool or food coming out of her mouth), with one arm up on the table, resting smack in the middle of my french fries...

Livi also fell asleep shortly behind Gigi... And her I could not wake up when Tom and I had finished eating... Could not physically do it! So Tom is carrying Gigi (recently extricated from my lap and dinner plate) while I am dragging Olivia across the 'pleather' bench seat in an effort to get her close enough to me to pick up.

So there it is - please get the 'Father of the Year' ballots in the mail as soon as possible as not to miss the cut-off! :)

SlingBox
Once I got the kids home and into bed, I decided to switch on the SlingBox and see what kind of events were being televised in the US. It turns out the US Women's match vs. Canada had been delayed 1 hour and 40 minutes to accommodate the rain/thunder/lighting. The upside of this for me was that I was able to see the 2nd half of the match from the comfort of my couch, no drooling child on my lap, no judgemental eyes looking at me saying 'how can that man bring his kids to a sports bar and let them fall asleep here, just so he can watch sports'. (Here's hoping your 'Father of the Year' applications arrive before their 'dissenting opinions'.)

The US won 2-1 in 'extra time' - basically 'overtime' as described in mainstream sports in the US. It was a good match to watch, and thanks to the amazing technology called Slingbox, I was able to do so!

The interesting thing about this was that I was sitting in China, watching a football match that was being played in the same city I was in, watching over the computer, hooked up to a TV in Seattle, watching on channel 099, which is the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation! Just crazy!

Next Post will be Part 3 - our heading to the Olympics: Argentina vs. Netherlands Football!

Cheers,
Joe

The Games Of The XXIX Olympiad

2008-08-14T23:08:00.000-07:00

Thought I would share my impressions of watching the Olympics in the host country...

TV Coverage: It's simply outstanding. Having a state run television network has proven to be a great way to broadcast coverage of the games. The TV network (CCTV) has 3 stations dedicated to Olympic coverage morning to night. As you can imagine, they are primarily focused on the Chinese (I've seen quite a bit of badminton), but they also make an effort to show popular things like Team USA basketball.

When the TV is state run, there are the obvious downsides (see: free speech, Tibet, 13 year old gymnasts) - but one of the upsides is there is no need to generate ad revenue... there are next to no commercials on CCTV when you are watching the games. It's such a nice respite from the US where I imagine it's 2 minutes of commercial for every 10 of coverage... and you have political ads to deal with as well!

There are also none of the sappy human interest stories that NBC seems to show as many hours of as they do actual sports... I know those must be popular, and I know some of these athletes have amazing stories - but let's see the games, people! Well in China, you get the games... even if I don't understand the commentary... and sometimes the rules (see: Judo).

Of course there is no way for a non-Chinese speaker or reader to have any idea what they are showing when, there's no Comcast 'guide' feature... in fact some friends and I showed up at a bar to watch some women's football (US vs. New Zealand) to find out it wasn't being televised... but the 78Kg Men's weightlifting was very popular!

I watched the most amazing 5 set comeback in women's volleyball the other night. Cuba was down 2 sets to love against the host team China. The 3rd game they won 34-32 (games are to 25, win by 2). Then they won the 4th and 5th sets fairly closely!

At work today, they set up a TV hooked to a Classmate PC (Intel product) and using a TV tuner card were able to show the Women's (not sure why we call it 'women's' since all these athletes are really 'girls') Gymnastics All Around Final. It was being broadcast by the Chinese government over some special system they built just for the Olympics so people without digital TV (read: cable/satellite) could watch.

I looked around at one point and it was me and 27 Chinese people, all speaking Chinese, watching a broadcast in Chinese, and them all rooting for the Chinese... you can imagine who I was rooting for! It was a good afternoon to be an American as we took Gold and Silver to the Chinese Bronze! I jumped up on the ping pong table, started dancing around and yelling 'take that, how ya' like me now?'!!! OK, I didn't... and I didn't even think about it, but I wonder how many of you think I am just competitive enough to have done it? :)

Many people have asked us if we are going to the Olympics 'in Beijing' when we are here... We are in fact going to the Olympics, but not in Beijing. As it turns out many of the football (soccer) matches are being played in Shanghai. We had friends (our 'facebook friends') - Eric and Caroline - offer tickets to their friends, as they could not use them. We picked up their quarterfinals tickets - Argentina vs. Netherlands.

I asked my friend Darin (who explained a system to his wife so she knows who to root for in college athletics when she seemingly has no allegiance) who I should root for. I asked if I should root for Netherlands - a northern hemisphere thing, or Argentina - an 'our continents are closest' thing. He responded simply 'You root for Argentina, because they are going to win.' DONE - Argentina it is!

I'll post about how going to my first Olympics was sometime this weekend, or early next week.

Go Argentina!

Againt the golf gods confuse me...

2008-07-31T15:38:00.000-07:00

Some of you might remember one of my posts from just before we moved to China.
I played a round of golf with a good friend and shot the best score of my life to that point - a 4 over par 75. At the time, I was confused at what the golf gods were trying to tell me... was it good messages and vibrations as a send off to a really good decision to move to China? Was it a cruel attempt to rub in the fact that I would be moving to China where golf takes 7 hours (including transit time) and costs $150/round - effectively limiting my ability to play regularly?

I never did figure it out... Then it happened again... As I am abount to head back to PRC I played one last round of golf with a friend here in the great Northwest.

Even par through 8 holes, I bogeyed #9 to shoot 37 on the front. Then I shot 38 on the back for a 3 over par 75, my newest 'best round ever'.

The golf gods are no friends of mine!

Cheers,
Joe