Oh my! Max modeling some underwears:
Me hanging out with some womens at the department store while Yachi shopped. I was amazed they were so forward:
Eileen warming up on one of the cold days:
Screaming babies rocking out:
Space Ghost holding forth to his audience about the dangers of the dollar losing it's position as the reserve currency:
http://www.adultswim.com/williams/music/ghostlyswim/index.html
This is a label started by a couple of friends and they have made the big time. That's right a collaboration with the adult swim characters and their own release on adult swim.
This is similar to the Chocolate Swim album put out with Chocolate Industries and Adult Swim which was awesome. Hopefully this one will be as good.
Continuing my habit of posting about events that happened quite some time ago (In this case 3 weeks). I have decided to post photos of a trip I took to Tahoe for my friend Adam's bachelor party.
I got into the airport around the same time as Adam and his brothers so I got to be part of the trip to Costco to stock up for the weekend.
As you can see I was prepared for the shopping trip:
We stayed in a three floor cabin in the mountains with a spectacular view of the lake. We spent quite a bit of time hanging out on the deck looking out over the water and chatting which proved to be a great way to spend the time.
The place was probably the height of bachelor fashion in the '70s. It has automatic curtains and a pool by the master bedroom. Lots of late seventies kitsch. Oh and video games, Adam brought a Wii and an old n64 so I got to break out the ass whipping on both mario kart and goldeneye. That alone would have made the weekend worth it. It has been a while since I flexed those particular muscles and it is nice to see that something you dedicated 5 years of your life to doesn't just disappear.
We also managed to get out skiing which turned out to be a lot of fun. I was not quite prepared as I forgot some relatively basic things like a mask or sunglasses even and was not too happy about that:
Everyone else also managed to convince me that I was up to an expert level run after going down one random blue. I was not quite as sure and look it in this picture:
Both of us kind of turned out to be right. I slide down the steepest part of the run on my face but once I got that behind me I was able to keep up pretty well. Overall it reminded me of why I like skiing so much and how much fun it is.
For the following day we just hung out at the sports book in the casino where I saw my two $10 bets on Xavier go south. It really only bothered me cause everyone there was UCLA fans and I have decided that California sports fans of all stripes are some of the most obnoxious around.
After the games we had a great dinner and lost even more money at the casinos:
A great weekend that I will remember for a while.
Some more random photos of the weekend and the view.
http://picasaweb.google.com/justin.baird/TahoeSkies
http://picasaweb.google.com/justin.baird/AdamSBachelorPartyAtLakeTahoe
So here is the last day I was in China. It is a surprisingly full day. In the morning we hit the Summer Palace which was as beautiful as ever and took many pictures of which I will subject you to some.
Here was the doll selection at one of the stores which reminded me of the doll experiments used in Brown V Board:
The polite sign in the bathrooms reminded me of what we all forget at times:
The many arched bridge which is one of my favorite sights in Beijing:
The 400+ guardians of said bridge:
Another shot of the bridge in case you did not have enough:
Yet another bridge as I was obviously feeling the structure:
Back at the office where you can see both Eastern and Western superstition:
After that we went to an art district in the North of the city that I had always been meaning to go to even whilst I lived there but just never made it to. I am regretting that now. It was one of the coolest things I have seen in Beijing. Uniquely Chinese in a lot of ways yet much more modern than going to the UNESCO sites.
A lot of the galleries were closed by the time we got there so here is a snap inside the window:
Graffiti:
The environment was pushing me to try to be more artsy:
Another closed gallery:
Another long exposure night shot:
Cheesing for the camera afterwards at dinner:
Overall this was an interesting trip. Easily the high point was art area and the food. Man do I miss the food.
So switching gears a little bit as I had some free time tonight to go through some older pictures. Here are some photos from the week I spent in Beijing.
Transformers are big there now. Surprisingly enough though there are no destructicons:
We also got to see someone checking their email on the side of a building which is not something you see every day:
One of the funniest things I saw was this completely inappropriate bottle opener in the most appropriate place, the work kitchen:
An aerial view of kung fu chicken with a Bruce Lee imposter shilling for it:
The one and only little fat sheep:
A California BBQ joint that only exists in China:
The Olympic aquatic center which was lit blue at night. I had expected red:
Wash me in Chinese:
Spicy Sichuan food at the best place in Beijing:
The wall in the middle of nowhere. With a door in it. To nowhere as well:
Bright lights, big city:
I was reading an article on Frank Luntz for some unremembered reason and came across an amazing essay by George Orwell. I have been reading it on average about every two weeks and it has really made my writing more direct and concise. If you have a chance you should peruse it.
It came at a good time. I felt like my writing was rapidly coming to the point where it was unnecessarily long and made basically no point. I was falling into the manager speak trap which is not as dangerous as that of doublespeak it still leads to sloppy thinking. Orwell is keeping me on the straight and narrow.
Essays like this revive the desire to become a university professor in linguistics.
