Meanwhile...

These days without Pete are just dragging by, but we're hanging in there (thank you, everyone who's helping me out!). On Sunday, I took the kids and my parents to the annual Tigard Balloon Festival a couple blocks from our house at Cook Park. You can only see the hot air balloons very early in the morning and late at night, so we missed out on that, but Daphne had a grand ol' time at the "Safety Safari" and the carnival (her first). Above, Daphne's inside a trailer set up for a fire safety demo. She walked in an said "I found a new home!" Here are a few more shots from the day:


The ultimate "time out." (She closed both doors)

Daphne donning one of many freebees

James chewing said freebee


By far, Daphne's favorite ride (decidedly NOT a freebee)


Note the name of this teddy bear -- so James made a cameo on this one in spirit! I didn't even notice until looking back at the photo.

Getting in Shape

June 18, 2008 - Day 5

I got ambitious this morning waking up early to hit the hotel gym for a little treadmilling. As I cruised through my warmup mile, I was amazed at how easy it felt, and at how little energey I was expending. I ramped up the speed for my next couple of miles, and before I knew it, I was reeling off consecutive miles at a pace that I hadn't achieved in quite some time. I was at a loss to explain my newfound athleticism. Extra rest? I have been stretching out a little more regularly, could that have been it? Then suddenly, I realized how I had achieved such speed and endurance....

The treadmill was set for kilometers, not miles.

Also, we did our first bit of actual work today, attending a meeting that we were expecting to be short and painful, but turned out to be short and very productive. Allen likes to say that it only takes "one thing" to make the trip a success, and this meeting probably could be considered in the "one thing" category.

We then went out to lunch on "Arab Street," a shopping area near a mosque (about a quarter of the population are Malaysian Muslims). It took us about 15 or 20 minutes to get there by cab, but that didn't stop us from taking a mini death-march back to the hotel in the rain after we were done. Allen and I usually take one death march per city. :)

Pete

Singapore Tourist for a Day

Don’t feel sorry for me today… Here’s a rundown of my not-so-tough day.

1. Woke up at 9AM feeling great after 4 hours of sleep – really!
2. Went on a walk with Allen, proceeded to sweat through shirt almost instantly as it was about 85 with 95% humidity. Learned that a bike purchased on the main strip here runs you about 4000 singapore dollars (1.36 singapore dollars per US dollar, so that’s pretty insane!)
3. Took a swim back at the hotel and sat by the pool for a while… not hard labor.
4. Tour of Eastern Singapore (Allen was the second youngest person on the tour). Learned all kinds of interesting things about Singapore’s history pre and post WWII. Turns out the Japanese weren’t too kind to the POWs here. Also, red-bean paste waffles are pretty delicious.
5. Night time harbor tour/dinner cruise.

Two related take-home facts about Singapore, other than that it seems to be the hub of commerce between Asia and the western world:

1. It’s very clean and orderly, with no beggars or street people litter or graffiti.
2. There is a gigantic jail here, much larger than you would expect in a city this size.

We finally settled down to do some work this evening prepping for our meeting tomorrow. Not expecting tomorrow to be as pleasant as today was, but then again, I’m not technically on vacation either! I’ll try and post some pictures in this blog when I get a little more time. I also realized that I didn’t post the before and after travel pictures in the previous entry. Whoops.

Pete

update from Singapore and the US open

Day Three & Four

Well, we arrived in Singapore tonight at about 11:30PM local time (8:30 AM pacific) concluding a 24 hour journey from San Diego. It’s so weird flying this direction and losing a day. I didn’t get a Monday, and I’m not happy about it, though I suppose that trading a Monday for two Saturdays on the way back is a good deal overall. I’m pleased to say that after a day of traveling I still feel good, great even.

Singapore is very modern and appears very wealthy, if the modern airport, spectacular downtown skyline, and ritzy hotel are any indication. It is all very western/European feeling so far. Every one we have met speaks English, though I’ve been having way too much fun saying “xiea-xiea” (“thank you” in mandarin).

Thankfully, I’m starting to get sleepy, so it’s a shower and off to bed for me.

Pete (00:54, June 17 2008)

P.S. Family – I miss you!

03:45, (still June 17 2008) local time – Couldn’t sleep, so a few hours ago I flipped on the TV and unexpectedly found live feed of US Open Playoff, with a replay of the NBA finals on another channel! I thought I’d missed both of these! God bless satellite TV.

03:52 – Waiting for Tiger to hit his approach on 18 down one stroke to Rocco Mediate. Too bad it’s four in the morning or all of Singapore would probably be watching.

04:00 – If I was at home it would be 1PM on Monday, and I’d probably be getting sleepy. No such luck here so far. Tiger and Rocco are both on the green, Tiger with an eagle putt and Rocco with a makeable birdie.

04:02 – Rocco has a putt to become the oldest first time Major winner in history……. Nope. Now Tiger has a putt to put the playoff into extra holes (Double overtime? Sudden death?) This is the most continuous sports I’ve watched since Daphne was born.

04:06 – Tiger nails it. What a wonderful Father’s day present it was for my Dad and me to go to the tournament. Rocco has a four footer for extra holes… it’s in! Here we go, now to sudden death. Computer is running out of batteries….. and I don’t have whatever kind of adapter I need.

04:20 – Rocco is just falling apart on the first sudden death hole. You basically only get one chance against Tiger before he, as my Dad said, “Steps on your neck.” “Critical Battery” says my computer. It’s 50 cents per minute to use the internet, but I think I better try and post this before I retire for the “night.”

04:28 – That’s it! Tiger wins his 14th Major, mostly thanks to my encouragement on Saturday. Good night everyone! Attempt to sleep #2 is now officially underway.

Pete

Tiger! (neeeeed to go potty!)

Trip Report: Day Two

I went to the US open of Golf today in San Diego with my cousin Steve, my Dad, and Randy B. I made only two goals for myself for the day:

1. Don't get dehydrated, even though water will be ridiculously expensive.
2. Watch Tiger Woods hit a golf ball.

Never did I anticipate that these two goals would come so directly into conflict.

My plan started well, as I purchased a water bottle early on and we watched the early starters (in golf, the leaders tee off last, the second place guys, second to last, etc.). As the day went on we eventually settled into the first row of the grandstands on hole 10. Tiger was still a few hours away, but it was a great location, so we decided to hunker down and wait for the greatest golfer ever to walk the planet to come to us, rather than chase him around.

In a related story, I was on my third bottle of water.

As Tiger neared, my discomfort slowly started to ratchet up, much to the delight of my cousin, who was only slightly sympathetic. Unfortunately, the longer I waited to leave my seat in the grandstands to find a "men's room", the more difficult it would be to get my prime seat back... After careful thought, I decided that one way or another, I WAS NOT LEAVING MY SEAT UNTIL TIGER HAD PASSED THROUGH.

Soon my growing discomfort had turned to genuine pain/panic. Visions of Daphne's accidents started to creep into my mind, and Steve started to make jokes featuring my soiled pants and national TV. After a few more groups played through at an agonizingly slow pace, finally it was Tiger's turn to tee off. The swell of people that accompanied him was astonishing, a wave of humanity focused on one demigod. Tiger finally, finally came through the 10th, making a routine par. I immediately excused myself in a mad dash to the port-o-johns, but I hadn't factored in Tiger's humanity-wave. I was stuck, and I had to go, worse than I have ever had to go. Probably worse than I have had to go since I was two or three years old, anyway.

Suffice it to say that I did eventually make it out of my dilema, and not only did I not get dehydrated, I also got to see Tiger.

Oh, by the way, after he left our stakeout on the 10th, Tiger went on to have what Sportscenter later called "the most memorable 18 holes of his career," and we saw a chip-in on hole 17 that will be on the "Tiger Wood's all-time highlights" reel someday, and which I will probably tell James about ad-nauseam when he gets a little older. (see link: http://sports.espn.go.com/golf/usopen08/news/story?id=3443641 ) But I'll also have the distinct and unforgetable memory of an even bigger struggle than Tiger vs. the field... Tiger vs. Pete's bladder.

PKT

PS - off to Singapore tomorrow

A different flavor of blog for a while

Hi everyone,

As some of you know I am going on a two week travel odyssey. I'm leaving today, and in the span of about two weeks I'll touch ground in San Diego, Singapore, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Nanjing and Beijing. I'm a bit nervous and sad to leave the family for that long, and with the exception of San Diego (where I'll be attending the US open of golf with my Dad) this is most assuredly a business trip. When I get back I'll be able to tell you what chemical factories are like in various parts of Asia... if you are interested in that sort of thing. My travel companion in Asia will be my boss who goes every year, and knows the lay of the land, so I estimate my chances of landing in a Chinese jail as less than 15%.

I plan on using this space to keep a running web-log (blog... I get it!) on my trip, both for Rosie and Daphne, as well as anyone else you happens to be interested. Wish me luck, and if you are in the area, Rosie can use all the help she can get for the next couple weeks!

Cheers,

Pete

Parallel Play

James' new favorite thing to do is play "catch." You can tell he knows what he's supposed to do, and sometimes it kind of works out for him, but of course never quite as well when he's on camera. He finally gets in a decent toss at the end of this clip. I'm sure it looks completely accidental to anyone but us, but we're having a great time with it. Needless to say, his dad is thrilled about this developing skill. Daphne never was (and still isn't really) very interested in playing catch.

(Please excuse the setting of this video...we were killing time while Daphne was on the potty. And in case you're wondering, I'm pretty sure she's saying "nakedy poop." Such is life with a toddler.)


Here's another one with some foot action, if you've got some more time to kill like I did!



In contrast, Daphne was very interested in moving around at this age, and James is still working on that one. Just for fun, I thought I'd post a video of Daphne at around the same age...just a week or so older than James is now. This is a couple weeks before she really got it down.


How different they were/are...even at such a young age!