Floozy Speak!

BREAKING NEWS!

The authority's are reporting that "The Dan" has been kidnapped by aliens! Not only that, but he has been replaced with a replicant that does nothing but Work!

A recent interview with this apparent impostor garnered such responses as, "Hail, Satan!", "Yes, I love living in Sin." and "Ohh, here! Eat these pickles while I touch myself!"

We ask that if you see this man exercise extreme caution until you can verify that it is indeed not the replicant impostor. Failure to utilize extreme cuation could result in you may become the next alien abduction victim. We suspect that he is being used as an infiltration agent to root out other possible minds for abduction!

Please call "The Dan" hotline if you experience a sighting.

Posted by EGOne at 08:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Chicago, I slept the bulk of the 13 hr flight, the 2 glasses of champane
and wine surely helped, I'm ready to arrive and be one with my domain, I
hate being herded around like cattle.

Its been awhile since I've read The LionTheWitch & TheWardrobe, someone
next to me is reading that. I haven't blogged via the sidekick in
awhile.

Tmoblie didn't really work in china aside from text messages, so much
for that service.

China. It seems so far away right now. While I fell alseep to tunes on
my ipod my mind edited music memories of china, the temple of
everything, the surgeons, the streets, the people, and chen. I skipped
from song to song trying to find the best hook. Lyrics or no lyrics,
deep beats or acoustical bliss. What would serve this memory best, what
song would work.

My chipped tooth feels sharp.

I think I'm destined for something more than this crowded airport
terminal offers me. Already I can over hear the conversations about
work, the chaos of x y and z. I'm a bad listener by trade, I hear too
much. I long for the bliss of a perfectly cooked outback steak. I
welcome the warm hug of my sweet mary, I can see her eyes now, her
smile, her skin.

Seeing the news bothers me. In china I was semi cuttoff. Not bombarded
by the constant onslaught of american media.

Should I turn inward? What will keep me alive, well and fresh? Dare to
be fresh I say. Dare to be bold, to skip down that street, to sing that
song and to simply tell it like it is.

I need to dream more. Hard to dream lately.

Posted by EGOne at 09:16 AM | Permalink

its 6am, awake

in the paper yesterday P&G is being sued for not delivering its promise of making a womans hair 11 times more resilient as the ad said it would, funny, in the US i think we're numb to the idea that we could actually sue for that, but here its like western promise of goodness dashed on the rocks of reality baby, its marketing, apparently several cases are going up against P&G over their marketing promises,

the other day i saw the first and only glimpse of armed men, looked like they had tommy guns from the old era of gangster movies, it was a armed bank car with a full escort of about six men, police in general dont stick out like they do back home, and when you do see them, they are young kids, the hardened seasoned souls we have back home, the intimidation factor at least is back home, here i just see them as standing army men,

reading the article about the riot on sunday here in beijing, which i never saw, never heard of, and well this city is massive and all, anyways i could see people snapping here fairly easily, just witnessing the way traffic works is amazing to me, people dive into traffic, bikes, motorcyles, people walking, cabs, cars, vans, trucks, all ignoring anything and everything, the lines me nothing, there is no order just keep it moving, ya never go very fast either, always under 50mph really

Posted by EGOne at 08:19 AM | Permalink

It seems our man Dan is having time issues while on the inside of the wall. Perhaps it's some nefarious scheme by the Reds to introduce some instability to his western philosophies.

--The Shadow Keepers

ok i thought it was day 9, but picasa tells me its day 10

today we hit the summer palace and the temple of lamma

im obsessed with chinese temple architecture, i cant seem to have enough of the roof tops, the buildings, i snap tons of pictures of these ancient relics and old style bits, something about them is magical to me, the curved shape, the attention to detail in each shingle, the stone carvings, an old door, a drainage pipe, an archway, a stone step, its all amazing, sometimes i feeel like ive taken the same picture a dozen times, and always, always, ALWAYS, i love perspective, i'm a perspective junkie, anything that gives a sense of perspective, depth, far but near, close but not so close, historic yet in your hands, cant explain it but must capture it

today was a gorgeous day to visit the summer palace, by far the sunnyest, prettiest, and best blue sky day we've seen yet in beijing, a cool breeze blew over the palace area and it was welcome breeze indeed,

the main chunk of the palace was under construction, a slight bummer but the views of catching it, framing it amongst the trees was worthy enough for me, its massive, grand and spectacular to see from the lake surrounding it, off in the distance surrounding the waters edge are various buildings, bridges, and a lone tower.. , i ask chen "what is that?" she giggles and shrugs, i say "longevity, goodness, happiness?" and she giggles a nodding yes, "temple of everything" i say, and she agrees, "temple of everything", chen has an intoxicating laugh, it puts everyone at ease, shes so funny, yet simple, and pure, honest, respectful, something about her is so honorable, traditional in the old ways of life, yet aware of the new ways,

dozen of boats make their way across the lake, in the distance towards one end is a small island connected to the main area via a bridge with 17 archways chen tells us, "anything special about 17?" i ask, lotta numbers in chinese mean certain things, lotta buses around town have phone numbers on them always have lots of 8's and 6's and 9's, all very lucky we've been told, so figured maybe there was story behind the 17 arches..."nope" she says... heh in a single nod we move on...

i keep seeing various mosacis around beijing, typically in walkways and what not, at the china japan friendship hospital there were some in the garden/welcome fountain area and now here at the summer palace along various parts of the walkway surrounding the lake, most of them are symbols, a flower, a coin (the old money look), tree, a house, a vine, boat, a duck?, etc, speaking of symbols, i keep seeing the stone carving of a flower in most of these structures at these temple sites, almost like a air hole or decorative drainage grate, my flickr photostream has a few pics of it

birds, lots of them, first time ive seen them in a great number before, and they are fast whippin by back and forth, the higher we go the more we see, yes steps!, actually before the steps we get to check out the marble boat, that jen later had found out that its not really marble, just made to look marble, still its an impressive stone/marble looking boat, at this point jen and chen want me to make the next decision on where to go, huh? wah? me? why me.., ive had a nice time riding on the whatever of wherever we go, ok lets go backside of mountain,

up some steps and around a few bends i spot it, the rock, darla wants a rock, darla, marys roommate had requested i get a rock from beijing, sadly i didnt get one at the great wall, but hey this place was better really, and this is a summer palace rock, yes, behold the awe of a summer palace rock i say, ok i got a rock, why she wants a rock, who knows, its darla, she probably collects them, talks to them, brings them to picnics etc, just kidding darla

now we're splunking, cave diving, rock climbing and i think to myself this is where bob and lynn need to be, no hill too great, no cave too mysterious for that couple, and sure we have basic steps and the view is amazing, and i have some video going thru the mini cave walkways, still there was much more to explore, we just got a taste of it, another imperial lunch awaits me

"hello!" i hear behind me, two women and a man stand together as if knitted together or something under a tree branch, i wave back "hello" they giggle and blink at me, so far not too many looks really, i do get the occasional "i could take him" look from young teens, like the assement of damage look, everytime i get into a cab i get that "woah!" look...and since im always red people tend to think im hotter than i usually am, though if you ask me, i'm hot baby

its time for imperial lunch!, we walk down to the restruant, another yellow all around, all you can see yellow lunch, its good, we probably didnt go too far off the beaten path with food choices, i saw the occasional odd dish on the menu though, dog this, eyeball that, and course we did experience the chicken hand soup,

after lunch we head out for a boat ride across the lake and to the mini island, now were crossing the 17 archway bridge, lets snap a few pics of this lion here, yes, i say "sexy lion, sexy lion" i blurt out loud as jen and I take turns getting our picture taken with the stone lion, we get a few more looks there

next up is the temple of lamma, or lamma temple or, lammaville,

the first thing i notice about the temple of lamma, is that across the street it looks like they are selling fireworks, i swear i thought fireworks and my love for fireworks blinded me from the truth, incense, but still all those packages, that red thin blackcat like paper wrapping, i can spot from miles away makes me think fireworks, "no..no" chen says, "not fireworks, incense...",..dang!

the temple of lama is the first landmark ive seen where vendors did not invade every aspect of the historical place, in fact there was really only a few, mainly incense vendors, the place smelled great too, obviously people burning incense and all, big iron ash buckets were burning, people were paying their homage, and hey i should too, for 20 rmb i got some incense and did my bow, my homage, and we moved along, these were the scenes ive seen in so many movies, the incense burning, the big buddha statues, many many buddha statues in fact

like all these temples you go thru one to get to another, and another, and another, at the end you get the big kahuna, this time it was a 5 story buddha carved out of one single standing sandalwood tree, a big guiness book of world records plate outside the temple there, it was a huge buddha, i mean huge, big, 5 stories high, a massive polished bronze or copper looking buddha,

i'm going to miss beijing, just when ive gotten used to it, i have to leave, ahh well, i saw parts of beijing today that reminded me of dublin back home, many newer areas, shiny buildings, clean etc, though there is always a pile of stone, dirt and brick on every street in beijing, its the look of construction i guess, but wherever i go i see it, even in the resturant last night i saw it, another vision of a pile of dirt,

beijing, china, is here to stay, before when people talked about how china was going to be the next economic superpower i didnt know anything about them, not knowing i did what every other american would probably do, assess them via their number, yes alotta people there, odds are sure they will be, but being here and seeing this vast sprawling city is more of a stamp in my mind that yes they will be force, but they have much to do,

in talking with chen we stumble into the conversation of the "me" generation in beijing often, "its about money now" she says, "money money money, want more, worry over money, need more money" chen says about how her people are getting that western influence alright, the personalization of wanting more heh, individuals are on the rise, the wants and needs for better life, better stuff for "me" is on the horizon, this part from what ive seen is like china waking up to the possibility of seriously being more noticed, and thats good and bad, good in that they are a massive economic power, good that they are taking note of the past and restoring the temples and learning from their history, bad in the sense that i dont feel like they innovate within enough, the goverment battles against that element as well, the paper talks about chinas own ability to innovate is hindered by their drive to copy, heh

well time to pack, the long 13 hr flight awaits, chen will join us once more for lunch today, we've created quite a bond with her, if i could take her and her family to the states i would heh, shes a good friend, i wish her well, she will no doubt be a busy girl as china continues on its path

Posted by EGOne at 08:16 AM | Permalink

oh my god, i can see the sky.. like clounds!! even some blue... i wonder if this would count for a "blue day" that chen spoke of, the goverment is hoping to get 200 blue days a year in beijing, this is the first sorta blue sky ive seen yet

today we're headed off to see the summer palace, headed north west of beijing, perhaps near the great wall area, or the wild animal park, it still cracks me up thinking about that wild animal park, something about the sign just seemed wrong, hopefully if i see it this time again ill have to snag a picture

watched mambo kings, and three episodes of carnavile last night on hbo, mambo is good stuff, carnavile is too maybe thats out there on dvd somewhere,

another bit of tooth came out last night, mother hen jen told me i should make an appointment to get that checked out asap, yes yes i know know mother hen! heh, she means well

the client is off to hong kong, doing a few design firm tours, a few long meetings no doubt, i didnt know this, but apparently hong kong has a different currency than the rmb or yuan they have in beijing, thats confusing, the hotel couldnt convert his left over rmb so we had to lend him some cash, the airport couldnt convert it either, theres a place in town to convert it, but he had to catch a plane, i'll use up the rest of my rmb today at the summer palace and save a few bills for keepsake

yesterday i debated getting a new cd player to listen to the blink audio book on cd for my flight back, but i figure my buy something like that and use it once really,

my room is a meat locker, let me go turn off the ac....

gatordave has request a starbucks mug from china, its the least i can do... though i thought he quit, he collects things i suppose

in a few days ill be back in cowtown usa, pondering july activites, maybe another mini meet, go see the amish on some twisty roads, dive into a bit of warcraft, though i have to say 2 weeks without is a good way to ween ya off it, actually im more interested in getting back into the gym and getting back into the groove of strength training, the cardio crap will have to happen as well, but i miss the weights, speaking of ween, ive successfully departed ways with coffee, aside from coffee icecream, thats like little person success story for me really, tea my friend, u be mine

oh crap, there goes the blue sky... in just a few minutes its almost gone, visibility leaving, buildings getting grey back there, ahh well

i saw a mini the other day here, covertible even, the 1 mini ive seen in this town, too funny... this town needs smaller cars, not many suvs here either, alot of beat to hell trucks though...cars park everywhere, they park on sidewalks, up on curbs, in front of mall enteranceways, theres really no place you cant park it seems,

it feels good to get thoughts down, i've always been tempted to revise my words, revise what i say, make it sound better, more in line with what should be, more correct, more accurate, less wordy, more focused, more percise, but i dislike the idea of correcting a brushstroke, if this is my canvas, why worry about all these little things, perception is always there staring back at me no matter what i do, if its not natural then why do it, the stream ends the minute you consider its direction, no, i wont do that, so i deal with the occasional quips, the skips in the vynil, the words that dont get corrected, its easier to ride the wave

tonic water bothers me, ive never liked it,

its going to be hot today, and more steps no doubt await me at the summer palace, i mentally prepare myself for another front seat cab ride, sometimes i get the cabs with the metal bar divider, like im in a prison cell, i miss my mini, all the room in my mini, i miss it heh

i've shot 160 videos on the dsc-m1 averaging 5secs to 5mins, today armed with 1.5gigs and two batteries, i plan to shoot alot more, theres a part of me that wants to capture all the crap that most people wouldnt want to capture, odds of me ever being back here are slim at best, unless theres a follow piece of work on this project, capture it all i say, why not

well time to wake up, get some eats and discover yet another day in beijing city

btw, its good to see mike writing, and yeah, not much to say yesterday in chat, still i encourage him to write more and take pictures, glasglow is an amazing place to people whove never seen it, document those days, those strange moments, update a blog, keep it going, someday u'll back on the early summer of 05 and recall them with fond memory, i know i will,

Posted by EGOne at 08:06 AM | Permalink

today we had one last trip to the silk market, its hard to resist that place, sooo many deals to be had, i was tempted again by the 1gig duo pro memory stick, chen chimed in and we got a vendor down to 700 yuan, which is still good deal considering how new these things were, what the heck i snagged it, i love the idea of a 7hr recording time capacity on it at its lowest mpeg4 level, 1hr at near dvd quality, 2hrs for the mid range, thats peachy!, next up i checked out some more watches,

the silk market excels in getting you to spend, at this point, knowing this is probably my last trip to the market i figure what the heck, lets buy some other stuff, i wanted to find the blingest bling bling watch i could find, a big ass pdiddy watch, there it was, heavy, bentley something, a breitling watch, its damn heavy.. super cheap!

next up i picked up some feng shui compasses, i remember seeing one in a film called Storm Riders awhile back, actually ive seen it in a few other tv shows as well, ive always been curious about these things, essentailly just a compass, but all the extra characters and supposed meanings behind them etc, cool stuff, i thought about getting a few statue trinkets etc, but what would i do with them, i dunno,

next up chen took us to a fabulous, amazing, awesome, killer, insert great here, korean bbq place, it was awesome, did i mention yummy, best meal ive had yet in beijing i think, i love the grill u get to cook your food on, and once again the four of us eat pretty damn well, all for 14 bucks, soo tasty!!

well the rest of today is in house work day, gonna pull some video, sort my stills, do the usual, i kinda wanna roam around tonight and seek out that last image in my mind of what china is supposed to look like, the image of red lanterns hanging from archways and what not, all along a narrow alleyway, ive seen bits of that image ive seen in so many kung fu movies here but only in quick glances behind the large banners advertising the latest apartment complex

in many parts of beijing u get the sense they are trying to hide the poorer elements, huge bulletin boards cover vast broken down neighborhoods, slabs of steel are erected over tiny streets to hide the what is behind, what will soon be yet another massive apartment complex.

stories to tell, a few good stories to tell, the gang and i retell them over and over and over for a laugh to fill in the long pauses after eating, we're all sleepy i wonder or just done, no words left, lets retell another funny story, from the mao waving watches, the ice cream vendor at the great wall, the annoying peddlers at the silk market, the dvd thug gang, sugarball surgeon, the cackling head nurse, the big american, or the poor attempts we try and speak basic chinese, good memories

i will miss chen, she made this trip possible, the team and i owe her more than i can imagine, from basic interurptations to being our guide on the street, she rocks, simple as that, its changed how id even want to travel in the future, if i go back to say japan or hong kong or brazil or what not, id pay for a street guide with a sense of humor in a heart beat, maybe someday chen will come visit us in the states
china is booming for the work she does, she could easily set up shop and make a killing, but she just likes life simple, fun,

must say goodbye to client

Posted by EGOne at 07:55 AM | Permalink

the starbucks here is nasty, everything has more something in it, typically sugar, the coke has more sugar, the redbull, found one, its got way more sugar and the taste was rather flat, but the starbucks was yucky, ahh well

today was our last proceedure, an older patient in his late 50's getting an esophagtmy, cant even spell it, but basically cancer of the esophogaus area, the plan was to go in and remove the tumor, once inside however the docs kept looking inside the body cavity, and then at the xrays, something was a miss, in the 2d xray views they couldnt see just how intense this cancer was, it was big, twisted around and infected many other organs, they couldnt do anything, the stiched him up

our interpurter today was alice, shes much more timid than chen, i made the comment to alice that i felt bad for the patient, its that typical american type gesture, the unknowningly dont wish anyone bad blues kinda thing, alice replied to me "i dont feel like you do, i see this all the time", i always like that bitter truth that doesnt translate well, theres what u can say and how u can say it, the way she said it came across strangely harsh or unemotional, yet it was anything but that in reality, she's a doctor as well, and i figure she probably has seen it, and deals with it differently, she did say "i used to feel like that.. when i was younger in my profession"

after the proceedure we went to lunch with alice, dont know the name of the place, and if i did, odds are i couldnt spell it, most of the dishes were crab, with my chipped tooth i begged for some chicken, what arrived was expected for a second, all the little plates of food,

the chicken dish was supposedly spicey, it was the hottest thing ive had in a long while, and it should of been called chicken in a blender soup, the client afterwards made a hilarious statement "it was chicken but i didnt recognize a single part of it", that was so true, i, not used to seeing bones like that, rib cage, a foot.. "its a hand actually" alice corrects me.. ahh a hand.. yummy! the crab was like fend for what you can and discover the meat within!, the veggies were good

we're gonna try and get another esophgaghtmehtehtmy or what not before we leave on thursday.

what have i learned about china? what do i take back really? columbus is a paradise compared to beijing, i hope i never grow weary of a bluesky, my home town is a beatnick ville compared to this place, this vast endless apartment complex, building after building after building manifestation

oh and about apartments, typically, and this is per our chen, people buy apartments in beijing, and they come clean, concrete, no furnishings, no bathrooms, no anything, from there you build out the space, hire someone,

what else have i learned, the dollar goes far here, aside from company biz related expenses, goods wise, just pure fun spending, it goes damn far, tomorrow we may venture back to the silk market one last time, for one last deal, i may opt to get the 1 gig duo pro card, or maybe another watch, or anything really.., hmmmm actually checking froogle, those 1 gig duos are fallin like rock,

ok so back to what i take back, we have it so well in the states, course we pay thru the nose, i dunno theres a ton of people here and they will be heard one way or another, the city is gearing up for the games, meanwhile in the news i read about them attacking tiawan or something, ya know i just dont see that, course i dont really get a feel for the comunisim here as well, actually the presence of force or police is hardly noticable unless u look for it,

i dont know to think just yet, let me sit on that,

camera statistics, im averaging 300 pictures a day on the dsc-m1, its an interesting camera, getting used to its ergonomics has been of learning experience but overall im pleased with its result, ive been playing alot with the camera settings lately, if u look on flickr u may see some of my blackandwhite experiements, i like that effect, i need to get it on a tripod and try out some of its twlight modes, i've a ton of video on it, mostly at the 320x200 30fps mode, mainly cause well space, and cause those are small and web ready i hope, still mpeg4 though,

well dinner time, gotta run all, one more evening with chen

Posted by EGOne at 08:43 AM | Permalink

Agent Dan experiances Dental Trauma at the hands of the Chinese industrial machine.

--The Shadow Keepers

yesterday we visited temple of heaven, behai park, tinamian square, and the forbidden city

i was just a few feet away from the center of heaven, lotta people standing on the center stone, kinda reminded me alot of the elevator factor in china, u can never have too many people in an elevator, they just keep packin them in, same went with this center stone for heaven, a small 2' wide stone that resembled the center of heaven or something and it had like 9 people standing on it or trying to at all times

in the vast park like areas of the temple of heaven there are tai chi folks, one woman i caught on video was really good, her moves made me recall the many cool chinese kung fu movies ive seen, we saw people excersising balance and forms of yoga as well, others play chinese chess, in another courtyard one plays an instrument, another sings, further along the path awhole group of singers, then a beautiful structure, a temple, and then... ice cream vendors

the placement of vendors on these historic landmarks is always suprising to me, just when u think youve reached something truly amazing to behold, you are reminded at that same instance that ice cream is present as well

the divine kitchen, just seeing the words divine and kitchen together makes me chuckle, we get to an open area where a man makes a "growling" like sound with a yoyo like instrument, the client tries it out, then he decides he wants to buy one, now the tour is stopped and the haggling as begun, afterawhile i think its funny that its still going on, the pointing, the haggling, all for what a 5 dollar toy?

a family walks up to me, the father nods at me and gives me his 5 yr boy, gee thanks,... heh, oh yes.. i know this part, he wants me to stand with his kid, the big american and the small boy thing, sure ok, again im part of the attraction for a minute, i get a ton of stares here, i typically answer them with a nod or notion of yes, i see you, and thanks for the awe like stare, but part of me is tied of standing out, i long for being back in the states where i fit in (to some extent)

we arrive at the echo wall, chen quickly informs us that the wall is not working at this time, out of order eh? heh, lots of renovation happening at these landmarks, ive read online that they are constantly fixing them, probably even more so due to the summer 2008 olympics

now were at behai park, one of the first things to greet us is the "dont even think about it" sign, 12 no no's for the park, no shooting, no dog walking, no skating, no taxis, no motorcyles, no picking of flowers, no dropping of small squares, no sitting on railings, no horn playing, no firecrackers, no fire, no soccer... the basics

chen leads us to the top, the white pogoda? or temple, its aged heavily, beaten by the elements, many steps, many many many many steps, small steps, 4 steps to 1 dan step, some awesome staircases carved in stone, cool tunnels, we get to the top and make our way down to the little lake, various paddle boats out there, chen wants us to eat some imperial food, we follow her to the water dock area complex, now i feel like im on the set of a kung fu movie, actually in the hallways of these temple like structures, around a corner, thru a archway, and now into the resturant, all golden, yellow, oooo ac in here... lunch

we get a feast for about 600 yuan, a little of everything, i kinda like this way of eating, many small plates with things to try,

now were headed out, leaving the center of any attraction headed for the exit means brace for the onslaught of peddlers, watch? tshirt, cards? boooks? u want dvd? we all crack up about our dvd experience

tiananmen square, big place, didnt realize it was also near one of the enterances to the forbidden city, we cross the square headed towards the forbidden city, chen recalls the 1989 fateful day to us... "we were there" she says.. "my husband and I were here earlier before the event occured" she says and then stops for a brief second....distracted we all keep walking, kite flyers, well kite peddlers really, fly big kites in the air, camera guys with portable printers strapped to their backs offer photos, and people, lots of people, soon the client and i start talking about what the event was all about, and as always i cant recall, i ask chen, she giggles, she doesnt remember either, we talk about the generations of youth that probably dont know either, "student protest about change" she recalls, yes, change

now the enterance to the forbidden city, wow, youve all seen this picture, the big picture of mao, er that guy, the big temple picture, the huge archway tunnel into the city, well its there, and its far more magical never actually seeing it in person, heh, by far the coolest part of what i saw yesterday but still add 400 people craming thru it, and you lose a bit

what kills me most about this historical piece of serious frickin history is that at a distance its awesome, when you think of the time it was built, the real history of this place, u dont really get all that down easily, course again it all just gets me when you climb the next set of steps and enter the temple of....vendor heaven! ice cream, water, hackysack! giant archways and huge doors retrofitted with the onslaught of vendors, there is nothing sacred here, well a few things off limits, and tons of reconstruction happening, we take a rest, the heat is picking up, i snap off a few pictures of some tibeten monks sightseeing i suppose, i ask chen about monks, she says more and more of them are appearing in beijing these days,

we're in the heart of the frobidden city sitting on a bench, sweating, just a bit before us is a stone railing and then gorge of space, workers down below reconstruction work going on... a bit of breeze blows thru, i catch a glimpse of the "big american" stare, a tour goes by, i say outloud "and to your left, big american..", another breeze and then music hits us, loud, big booming drums and clanking instruments, at first i think its coming from the structure behind us, and it sounded ancient musical clanging, some of it was waay too loud.. wait a sec, we peer down below into the construction, oh its just a big truck with metal pipes unloading.. nice tune there for a sec

just as we passed thru the exit gate of the forbidden city i'm hit with this huge hill or mountain, im dumbfounded for a sec, how, what, where was this thing hiding the whole time? "highest point in beijing" chen says, in all the vastness of endless buildings ive seen in this city, this, hidden mountain was just wild to see, all green, like a mini forest in the center of concrete

leaving the forbidden city, the client wants to visit an offical beijing 2008 olympics store, and get some nice chopsticks, we snag a cab and head into another part of town

soooo much can be bought for sooo little in china, i bought a full sized olympic towel for 7-10bucks, i didnt bother asking them about shirts, i know the answer already, we all joke about just exactally how were gonna get all this stuff back to the states, ive picked up only a few things and im concerned with how im gonna get them all back, the others have a ton of stuff, we debate going back to the silk market and picking up some cheap luggage, i think if we do go back im gonna risk it and snag that 1 gig duo pro memory stick for 100 usa bucks,

we arrive back at the hotel about 7pm, hot, i slam 2 cold cokes.. i think they have more sugar here or something, ten minutes later i chip a tooth on a pringle.. sigh, and sleep

Posted by EGOne at 05:24 PM | Permalink

tonight we ventured into the the silk market, the rip off capital of the world, i dont know anything about purses, but i figure mary could always use another, lets go with a louis vuitton, that seems like a popular brand, the silk market is a huge single building, laid out inside its like convention center, all these little booths

i sick jen and our interpurter chen on getting me something nice for mary, of course i pick the one i think shed like, chen is great, she scowls at the peddlers, we say no and walk away, 2 seconds later we hear off in the distance behind us "ok ok u buy 80 rmb" , 8.20 rmb to 1 usa buck

some of the peddlers try and stop you when u walk by, the grab yer arm, i about damn near dragged a lady some 8 feet before she let go, i'm constantly hit up by the "u want dvd?" guy, they are everywhere, i get sick of them so as always i jest a bit back with them "u got vhs? limited run betamax? love me long time?" our client decides he wants to see dvd, so he ventures out of the mall area across the street to go see "dvd",

i go back to shopping for mary, family etc, rolex row was pretty interesting, i found the electronics section but chen strongly suggests no go, im tempted by the 1gig duo pro memory stick, just got released, they have them for 860 rmb, roughly a 100 bucks, tempting considering they go for 400 plus online, but still thats alot, i pass

i now have 3 purses, 1 ring, 1 watch, 1 battery for my dscm1, ive spent like nothing, we go out side to find the client who has ventured forth into the street to find "dvd"

"you want sauce?" a woman stares up looking at me,,,"you want sauce?"... i look and in her hands are socks,..."no want sauce" i say,

we find the client in a bar looking at dvds, hes debating getting madagasgar and something else, the dvd guys take offense to chen being there and start yelling at her, she tells us to leave, we leave, now they are following at us shouting, interesting i think, i need this on tape, i snap off some shots and one of the guys grabs my hand with the camera, no pictures, i give the angry american face, we leave

chen is a bit flustered over these thugs, the dvd thug gang, we wait 20 some minutes try to get a cab, the silk street area with every passing minute as beijing gets darker and darker into the night loses more and more of whatever whimsical luster it may have

Posted by EGOne at 08:20 AM | Permalink

It has come to our attention that we may need to install a new version of our disease firewall in the Dan. There seems to be some new variants in the forign lands that we hadn't accounted for.

-The Shadow Keepers

my beijing cough turned into a beijing cold, wah, i hate getting sick, let alone in a place like beijing

last night we walked over to the hard rock cafe and i love enterance to the hard rock here in beijing, in big gold letters it says "no drugs or nuclear weapons allowed", lol its pretty hilarious, on the walk over to the cafe i got approached by several people saying "u want girl? u want massage, you want good time?", street peddlers are littered outside as well, buy this that and whatever else, inside the cafe it was typical americanish, when we left we somehow picked up a straggler, a little 4yr boy all dirty just looking up at us pointing his finger in his mouth, how sweet.. someone near by fishing

todays proceedure was at the china japan friendship hospital, after i changed into my scrubs i wear one of their area to area gowns, basically a size medium garmet, talk about discomfort, finally we get to the or, the doc explains the plan, this patient 46 has pancreus cancer, they hope the infected region of the pancreus is small in which case could be easy or hard since its right next to a main vessel, and major artry, the open her up and find the whole pancreus is infected by the tumor, bad, they wanted give this gal a shot at 1-2 yrs more life, at best they can do now is zap the region with radation and do some snipping here and there and she may live 6 more months

todays proceedure had like 20 people crammed into a really small frickin room, i'm sweating like all hell and my cold isnt helping and im tired of standing and then i kinda realize, this lady isnt going to make it past 12 months and im bitchin about standing?,

during the proceedure theres all kinds of odd antics happening, three guys are playin with the ultrasound in the corner, another two docs are checkin out the features of one docs camera, a group of nurses chat up a storm in the corner, and oh ya, this lady..her chest is held wide open with scary stainless steel medevil braces and wires, rib spreaders, no this time it was like the jaws clamp that holds the whole chest open

i dropped my sony camera twice today, its still working

the docs come to the end, he leaps off his wood block and motions us to follow, we join him for lunch, we've been in the or for 6 hrs, im really tired, he gives us two beers and gives us hospital food which wasnt bad,

the local beijing beer is actually quite good

we plan to go to the silk market tonight, its the end all be all place for rip off goods

Posted by EGOne at 07:28 AM | Permalink

We were quite worried about our operative dan when the dan didn't make his scheduled check in. However our listening outpost in Europe picked up this transmission last evening.

-The Shadow Keepers

well day 3 and the "beijing cough" i read about online has kicked in, took it a few days to manifest, while the city is no doubt attempting clean it self up, i wonder if its for the right reasons, theres major concerns over the world view that 2008 olympics will have so theres all kinds of initivaties happening, one is a whole new "breed" of taxi drivers and new cars hitting the streets, our interpurter pointed out the old taxis that are set to be phased out by 2008 and so on, more western styled bathroom facilities are being created all over town as well, squatting in a drain hole to take crap is damn scary if you ask me, ive been lucky so far, the hospitals ive visited just make me want to cling to the incredible god like facilities we have in the us,

ok so im rambling, what else, the peking duck we had last night was great, very tasty, there was a spicy beef dish too that about blew my top off, the local beer is excellent, and so far everything has been super cheap aside from the hotel,

i dont see many americans really, in fact its suprisingly really considering how many US firms seem to be visibile in the skyline, maybe they are out there but i feel seriously out numbered lol, and body language its just universal, i get a ton of stares yet everyone has been nice and generally friendly, cab drivers are a hoot, just about had a mini tai chi session in the car ride yesterday

the work has been good, learning alot about how doctors here view western medical science, facilities are scary, but improving, they just have a different level of care happening, they are smart docs no doubt but its really much different here,

its hot, this is probably the worst time of year to visit, 101 yesterday, today was just as hot and the facilities we are visiting typically dont have ac anywhere expect in the docs office and the operating room,

this is the first work project where ive been exposed into seeing lots of blood, that first day was difficult, getting used to it now, but boy that first day they were pullin out 5 pound tumors out of a patient, scary stuff, the poor chap yesterday was 33 and had rectal cancer, that proceedure was intense, todays was a 56 yr old man it went very well

the doc today had his own tv crew show up to film us filming him in the opertating room, he then took a bunch of pics of us to send to the net lol, some of these operating rooms are pretty small, todays was small, and for some reason the lunch room is on the same floor just three doors down lol,

all the gear is working well, pda included, our interpurter worked fast to keep us up with what was happening

there are times in the heat and what i see and it freaks me out a bit inside, the level of filmy, or dirt on everything, is like GAH!, theres just a ton of stuff here, people, cars, bikes, buildings, its all massive in a huge spread out style, not like tokyos towers of steel, everything here is half as large just tons of them,

the sight of the apartment buildings gets to me the most at times, i see buildings that would be condemed in the US, all with the ac units hanging on the outside, and its not like 1 or 2, its like endless,

well my beijing cough is callin, im gonna take a nap,

Posted by EGOne at 07:09 AM | Permalink

Previous burst transmission was terminated prematurly when our Polymorphic encryption stream was determined to be carrying a forign sub-carrier. When the connection was re-established and confirmed secure, the message was continued.

-The Shadow Keepers

so ya like a mini MASH 4077 but in a building, honestly it looked like an old campus building, get into a special elevator and go to floor 13, get out, slightly better, still yer thinking... this is a hospital? then u meet the docs and its getting better, its time to observe proceedure, into one more elevator and now yer in a nasa like clean room,

we were a bit misinformed on just how detailed this operation is, i nearly fainted in observation, i can the sight of blood ok but the laser used to get into someone, that smell sets me off, add that to uncomfy shoes, and less than 3 hr sleep jet lag and the overall breathing issues due to slight asthma ive been expericing and its pretty clear i wasnt going to have it easy

tonight ill recover on the sleep, tomorrow ill plan better and bring more bottled water, i think the laser burning flesh thing will still get to me, larger rooms work better

sometimes the obvious answer is in front of ya the whole time but for some reason you factor it in as a no brainer without realizing the true implications it has, yer at the mercy of these people really, doc doesnt want to speak he wont, and we dont know enough about certain aspects of the proceedure to really keep up, we had the jist that it would be basic anal probe stuff, we had seen colonopsicies before, what i saw today was deep dive full blood, six people working on a guy, the surgeons speciality hour tv show, we stragetized that the intensity on some proceedures may be high, may be... MAYBE? heck yes its high, and our interpurter is good, but its hard to grab it all, cause u simply dont have that language, we didnt fully realize that in the preplan plan stages, we chalk it up to a ya, this is good, the field will always school u, and it did, but before we can get into what went wrong where, we start working on plan b, what is the essential truth we are after and refocus for that

things that worked suprisingly well, the mono pod aside from not being easily able to arc over the docs and get to the heart of surgury, worked well, the rock steady zoom on them was blissful to operate, and they were far more mobile than a tripod, sadly we need to get closer, a pinhole cam on a face mask would be great, all wireless even, not gonna happen, a standard tripod just gives us height and we lose mobilitiy but gain steady view provided it doesnt ever get blocked, a crane tripod would be perfect but were talkin about bringing hollywood into the OR, the space factor could kill ya instantly

in some ways i think we need to wheel back what were doing and get back to the core questions, its a 5-6hr proceedure and we are concerned with 40 mins of it, so the level of granularity needs to be adjusted to maximize what we are doing i think, thats a hard sell at the moment but we are at a serious disadvantage here on language alone, factor in the proceedure is new to us, we can only track what is clearly obvious, and even that is subjective to question cause we dont know the language, we will see, its going to be challenging for sure, today was the day of two back to back proccedures, tomorrow its just one, hopefully i will do better

Posted by EGOne at 10:51 AM | Permalink

the blue sky is out, beijing doesnt look so bad today, the morning heat wasnt too bad, got up early, couldnt sleep very well, laggged to all heck i figure, i was up at 3am watching enimem's movie, subtitled in chinese of course, i think i slept about 3 hrs max

the morning drive to our first hospital was interesting, watching, heck riding in a taxi doing 50mph and then merging with bicycles is funny to say the least,

the hospital was like a mini MASH

Posted by EGOne at 07:27 AM | Permalink

oh ya and the town itslf, in a sea of haze pollution, i dont know what to call it, its humid and whatever is here its trapped, visible from my hotel room on the 16th floor is less than a mile or two, then its just haze, doesnt feel like tokyo, feels much more industrial, town of thousand cranes it think to myself, one road takes us past about 5 cranes, i remember when landing i saw about 16 off into the distance at one point

in hope soon blue skies will appear, or at least for abit, try to appear

Posted by EGOne at 09:24 PM | Permalink

We received this Flash Transmission from our Operative Dan after he succsfully infultrated Bejing, China.

-The Shadow Keepers

what i do know

beijing, its here, im there, jet lagged awake but asleep, but i cant sleep
the time is 12am-ish, im charging all the toys for tomorrow., 2 back to back proceedures to watch, should be interesting

our interperter chin, is a sweet gal about 4'6 or something, good sense of humor in her

the flight was good, biz class is nice, even for big guy it was good, didnt seem all that bad really, flying over the north pole is pretty wild, just seeing that image on the map display was like a little wow

flying into most cities i enjoy looking out the window and catching a glimpse of the landscape, developments, all the patterns of development, the cars, the people, the buildings.... it took us forever to get out of the fog,mist,haze,pollution to actually see the city and when i did, i saw old 50's style buildings, many look like the classic generic looking japanese looking highschool buildings ive seen anime artists draw over and over in anime, they looked just like that, big generic buildings, some looked like prisons or something, old brick smoke stacks along side of them,

the further we came in more details, but where are the cars, expressways all over the place but hardly any cars, maybe were on the far edge of it i thought to myself,

now were damn close, gonna land any minute, i see debris, which i want to spell how it sounds, debree, lots of it, tons of construction crap all over, like flying over back to back junk yards, not cars in there though, parts, pieces, something, everything looks dirty, then again i read somewhere beijing is built in or on the edge of a desert, all i knew for sure was that if i had to parachute out there and land in that, itd be like landing in the bad part of one of john woos older action flicks, yer gonna die, the music will tell you when

we land

the plane slowly rolls along and crosses several overpasses, i look outside and see police on bikes, thin guys, they are all soo thin, we cross one overpass and i see 3 teens walking down the street, they wave at the plane, i cant help but put my hand in small window frame, howdi i think to myself

rounding a corner and coming to our gate i see a beautiful bird, a black bird with white patch on its back, and a bit by its neck, big bird if i can see it from the plane i figure, workers are outside with shirts off, i figure it must be hot.. and it was..is

foots asleep, maybe i can sleep

just after seeing the bird i see a big brown looking palace or something, its just a really formalized looking building, big potted plants in the front, the 747 strolls on by, it looks like a radio place, center or something, desert brown looking building, but interesting

the bell rings and everyone leaps up, the guy next to me i figure was german, he looked german, didnt like conversation, and had 50 or so computer world magazines on him, he'd flip thru one about every 5mins, and tear something out, then tossed them away, maybe thats a side gig for him, check over mags and then toss them, who knows

the in flight movies were robots, coach carter and sideways, sideways is good, coach carter wasnt bad, robots wasnt all that great

i attempted to listen to a book on cd most of the time until my crappy cd player broke, i'll have to finish Blink another day

we deplane into humid high 88s heat, feels like houston, i should be used to it i think to myself

i chuckle as i past the quarntee poster, it looks like a city wok menu, no hearts, no blood, no insects allowed, a big menu of items, i'll take the sweet n sour bloody heart please!

we zip zang zoom thru customs, no questions asked as i towered over the customs gal, she was sweet, nice little smile, no bag searches, no body wondering about the 5 different gadgets on me or the anal probe/stapler i had in my luggage

chinese folks like to ditch though, as if we were all standing there to stand there, poor jen, my coworker got cut off nasty, so i just pressed on thru making a space for us, beef, back off folks, ohio beef comin thru

theres something about my looks or my face cause i seem to attach people, and conversations, on the way to the carsol, im being chased down my a kid with a cart, he runs up to bags in front of me and says "you bags???" despertately pointing at someone elses luggage, i shake my head no, and he runs ahead of me again to the next bag.

i lose the bag carrying kid finally, find my moose of a bag and go, now the hotel people scene, you get yer bag and head for the big sliding glass doors, they open and for a sec you feel like a star, a swarm of people behind a barrier fill the large room with noise, chatter chatter, holding up signs, this person, that person, this tour, that tour, that some character i cant read, theres another set of characters, they guy had a cool blue sign, shes got a red sign, for a sec, i could of signed autographs

another approach, "you need taxi," no i say, i need hotel, "what hotel?" i look around the room, lots of people no sign of my hotel people, "great wall sheraton" i say, "down there" he gestures toward the end of the pile of people, "come", i follow him a bit "taxi later? he says...u need taxi" he says, i reply "ya taxi later, " he nods, and gives me the friendly gang nod look, its the more personal nod, he even goes deep into the crowd and then the hotel people surface, Dan Rockwell, written on a card. he takes one last look at me and of course says "taxi later" i reply "you got it man", he nods and walks away,

the sign carrier for the hotel cell phones the yellow jacket kid, who finds leads us to the exit, cell phones the red jacket guy, he takes us to the black audi in the garage, that guy takes us to the hotel

this driver is doing decent on speed, merging in some traffic areas where id be far too timid, damn near misses the whole time, a kid stands in the middle of a turn lane and somehow we didnt hit him, six lanes on a curve merge with 5 lanes on another curve which then merge into 6 more lanes going straight, the whole time im thinkin we are but inches from these other cars

most of the nice cars are all audis, black audis on sale, mafai audis, then its 80's volkswagons driven thru the baja or something, then buicks, shanghai GM they say on the back

we get to the hotel and were here, i should sleep now, the hotel is big, fancy, kinda lame in the sense theres a strawberry theme'd italiano world resturant in the atrium area, right next to the french bistro, i was hoping for something more fitting,

more to come

Posted by EGOne at 09:20 PM | Permalink