Author: Doris

old skool.

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Jeremy is doing a presentation in which he makes and analogy about how far telecommunications has come in the past 50 years vs the innovation of the car engine. While we were at my parents’ house celebrating Chinese New Year, he borrowed an old rotary phone from my parents to use as a prop in his presentation – I think it’s the one I used to call all my girlfriends in high school. I think most people in the late 90s had moved on to those press-button princess phones, but my family, we are old skool.

We still have a land line going to the house, although I’m not sure I should call it a land line as it is an internet phone. I was totally sure that the rotary phone would not work on the house line, because I figured if you are with it enough to set up an internet phone line, I figured they would know you probably would have upgraded from the rotary phone.

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But lo and behold! Jeremy called our cell phone from the rotary phone no problem. He asked how the sound quality was, I told him he sounded like he was from 1985.

Our Experience in Egypt just 3 Weeks Ago

Rena & I were in Egypt for 10 days just 3 weeks ago. We are not surprise at all that the current government is in trouble and the ordinary Egyptians are demanding to have a better government installed asap.

Therefore, I don’t quite understand that,with all our seasoned State Department fellows, we (the USA) can pursue such policies of ignoring what have been going-on daily in Egyptian streets, especially for their commoners.
It didn’t take us long to figure out that the status quo there was unsustainable. Public services which government should provide, were very rare and awfully inadequate. Something has to give …
Look at this National Museum, where the protests are raging nearby, it houses many priceless treasures. It was indeed in bad shape. All the exhibits inside are pretty disorganized. The front desk and security screening are jokes. Even the rest rooms are not free. Windows can’t be closed properly, etc, etc. I would say, it is in the same bad shape as our Martin Luther King Memorial in Atlanta several years ago.
We could tell a lot of Egyptians didn’t like Americans at all. For instance, Rena and I had a very bad experience with a hotel clerk once he discovered that we had American Passport. Based on what was going-on daily in his country three weeks ago and before, I was quite understandable. Even with that, I was furious.

Good friends –

Vince has been both lucky and unlucky in friends. He’s been lucky as he’s had a bunch of really nice best friends in kindergarten, first and second grades. He’s been unlucky because his best friends have a habit of moving away. Luckily for us, his best pal from second grade moved only 45 minutes away from us, so we get to get together every few months or so.

I found out at Vince and D’s last sleepover that D’s mom is a huge snowboarding fan and that she’s been having trouble convincing D to go out on the slopes. So we coordinated schedules and all headed out to White Tail Ski Resort last Saturday.

Playing DS on the way up to the resort:

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Falling in our rental gear:

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Getting ready for our first ski lesson which turned into a mini-fiasco, a bit of crying and wanting to go home:

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But we lived through it! Vince got 3-4 runs down the bunny slope without too much trouble, but his stopping technique has a bit to be desired. I went down the bunny slope with him and was impressed with myself – I haven’t been skiing in over 15 years, but I managed to turn and stop. Of course, the next day I could barely move. Ugh.

Catching up.

One of my resolutions this year has been to be off the computer after dinner and on the weekends and although I’m know I’m breaking my resolution now, I’ve been pretty good at keeping it and I feel like my blogging is suffering a little – it no longer is real time, which I guess is OK.

Anyways, what is real time is that Jeremy staggered into the house at 6:30 this morning after his 8 pm train from NYC pulled into Union Station well past the last Metro. He walked to his office building and got his feet soaking wet, said hello to the security guard at 1:30 am, and slept on the floor behind his desk which was hard and cold. Then as soon as the Metro started running at 5 am, he got on and came home and walked to our house which is about a mile away. He had to backtrack a few blocks because a fallen tree was blocking the entire street.

My parent’s plane landed at 3 pm just as the first flakes were falling and Super Shuttled it home, making it to their powerless house at 11pm.

I shoveled the whole driveway by myself this morning which is something I thought I could never do in a single attempt, but it took me only an hour and it made me feel good 🙂

Here’s Edda down in the basement, keeping me company while I plaster another one of the drywall holes in our wall. While I was patching up the hole, I almost drilled through a PVC drain pipe which would have been very ego-bruising and a lot of extra work.

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Where in the world is Jeremy? and my parents for that matter…

I’m sitting at home, the kids are in bed, the dogs have been on their evening walk. There is at least 6 inches of snow on the ground and more accumulating every minute. Jeremy decided a 6:30 am this morning that he would indeed attempt to make his one day round-trip-meeting in NYC.

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I told him that he was a little crazy because even though the morning commute was going to be OK, that he needed to be prepared to stay in NYC overnight. So he packed a toothbrush and some undies.

Here he is putting his snow pants over his suit, his plan was to walk to the Metro and then Metro to the Amtrak and walk 8 blocks from Penn Station to his meeting and then do it all in reverse.

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He managed to get on the Amtrak train at 8 pm – I think he’s going to pull into DC and then walk to his office and sleep in his suit on the floor. Maybe there will be a couch to sleep on.

And my parents are suppose to be back from Hong Kong today. I wonder where they are.. Hmmm.

Hong Kong -> Home

Rena and I have been in Hong Kong for a long time – almost over a month. Here, we have had a wonderful time together. But, hopefully, we can also get back to our homes soon with no more delay, airplane mechanical problems or else.

Besides, its sky high housing price and cramped space, Hong Kong is indeed a nice place to visit. Public transportation is everywhere, convenient and in-expensive. Food, with world-wide choices, is delicious. But, it remains pretty oriental – live chickens, fish, etc., in local street market, selling meat (cooked or un-cooked) without refrigeration, tea, and more tea with little coke or diet coke, etc.
At the crossing station of Loh Who (?) to China, on the China side, there is a restaurant where excellent food is served. The problem is, its relatively pricey menu coming with a pretty long waiting time to be served – generally, one hour or more. But, to me, it is worth at least once.
Hopefully, every where in mainland China will, one day, develop to be another Singapore, Hong Kong or Taiwan. It probably will take them, at least, another 50 years or more to do so, I believe.