Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Tea Blog

http://www.tea-and-mountain-journals.com/

If you read this blog, you will understand why people like me get addicted to and even obsessed with tea. Its beautiful descriptions and photos of the mountains, the tea pickers, the tea trees, and of course, the tea will make you a leaf tea drinker forever. 

Hmmmm

Oops, sorry. I'm just enjoying my cup of Puer tea.

Enjoy the site!

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Jelly Roll Morton

Free classic jazz for download here. Gotta love the sound of static in the recording.

Thursday, March 1, 2012

Bannock

I like to make a little cake for breakfast inspired by the bread that the Indians in Manitoba make. It's called bannock. 

cup or so of flour
a pinch of baking soda or powder
a little salt
raisins
a banana or two
some milk or water
some cinnamon (I use some cinnamon schnapps that I made since it's hard to buy cinnamon powder here.)
brown sugar

Mix up the flour, baking soda and salt along with some raisins. Squish up the banana and mix it in. Pour in a little cinnamon powder or schnapps. Mix in milk or water until the mixture is as thick as biscuit batter or as spackling paste. Then, I like to put the brown sugar in last, and I try not to mix it in very much because I like there to be little chunks of brown sugar. Then pour it onto a cookie sheet so it forms a small round cake less than an inch thick and maybe less than nine inches in diameter. Finally bake it in the oven for 30 minutes or so at about 375 Fahrenheit (or 190 Celsius). Or you can fry it in a frying pan on the stove (or over a fire in the mountains), but you will have to fry it with a really low heat so that the outside won't burn before the inside is done. 

Eat it with cream cheese and jam or honey. It's good.

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

FedEx Reply to YouTube Video

A video on YouTube shows an employee of FedEx breaking a package. Here is the official response from FedEx. Very nice crisis communication.

Along with many of you, we've seen the video showing one of our couriers carelessly and improperly delivering a package the other day. As the leader of our pickup and delivery operations across America, I want you to know that I was upset, embarrassed, and very sorry for our customer's poor experience. This goes directly against everything we have always taught our people and expect of them. It was just very disappointing. 

However, from the customer's perspective, I am pleased to let you know that the matter has been resolved in a very positive way.  We have met with the customer face to face and they already have a  replacement monitor at no cost to them.  They have accepted our apology and say they are fully satisfied with what we've done in response to this unacceptable delivery.  They've made it clear, though, that they prefer not to be identified in any way, and in this case as always with customers, we fully respect their privacy.

I know you recognize that this absolutely does NOT represent the professionalism and dedication of the 290,000 FedEx team members worldwide. It is one person and one package. While many people are publicly speculating about what will happen to the employee, FedEx takes care to protect team members' privacy as well as our customers' privacy.  We do take this matter extremely seriously, and have initiated action in accord with our disciplinary policy, while respecting privacy concerns. Without going into detail, I can assure you that this courier is not delivering customer packages while we are going through this process.

This matter is an unfortunate exception to the outstanding service FedEx team members deliver every single day.  Our customers know and value that service. We have been doing this almost 40 years, and if we weren't doing it right, we wouldn't have gained the widespread respect we have enjoyed.  As a matter of fact, we have a very simple motto we try to live by – the Purple Promise: "I will make every FedEx experience outstanding."  

While this delivery fell way short of those high standards, we are already using it as a learning opportunity. We've shared this video internally to remind everyone that every single package is important to you, our customers, and that actions like this are totally unacceptable. We are also going to build this into our training programs as a constant reminder of the importance of earning -- and keeping -- your trust with every single delivery.  We hope that you, like the customer involved in this incident, will see it as an unfortunate exception that proves the rule that our company cares for its customers.

Matthew Thornton III
Senior Vice President
US Operations
FedEx Express

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

A Poem by Li Bai

Here is another Chinese poem whose English translation had long been a favorite of mine. I finally found the original Chinese of the poem. Both versions are below. The English translation is not my translation.

The poem spoke to me more before I was married since it speaks of loneliness. I still like it now though. Strangely, or maybe not strangely, I've found poems about old age becoming more more interesting to me now such as the first few sonnets of Shakespeare.

Here's the poem. 

You ask me why I dwell in the green mountain; 
I smile and make no reply for my heart is free of care. 
As the peach-blossom flows down stream and is gone into the unknown, 
I have a world apart that is not among men. 


山中问答 

问余何意栖碧山, 
笑而不答心自闲。 
桃花流水杳然去, 
别有天地非人间。
 
 Notes:
12/8/10 Darren Jansen: There seemed to have been a mistake in the Chinese version that I copied from, so I changed the third from final word from 在 to 非. I've looked at three copies of this poem on the Internet, none of which are exactly the same. Two of them had a different character on the second line from the bottom, third one from the end. The character has the same pronunciation as the one I put above. However, computers don't let me type that character. Further, two of the three dictionaries I looked at don't have it. So instead of using that rare character, I used the more common one. I don't know which is the original.
12/8/10 Darren Jansen: � is the weird character. I had to cut and paste it to get it in here, since the computer wouldn't let me type it. Odd. Below is the dictionary entry for "Yaoran." 

常用词组 
  1. �然 yǎorán 
  [far reaching and far away] 指幽深遥远的样子 
  如:山谷�然

Parting at a Wine-shop in Nan-king

This is a poem that I've been looking for for a long time and finally found. The English translation is not mine.
-----

Parting at a Wine-shop in Nan-king

A wind, bringing willow-cotton, sweetens the shop,
And a girl from Wu, pouring wine, urges me to share it.
With my comrades of the city who are here to see me off;
And as each of them drains his cup, I say to him in parting,
Oh, go and ask this river running to the east
If it can travel farther than a friend's love! 


金陵酒肆留别

李白

风吹柳花满店香, 吴姬压酒唤客尝。

金陵子弟来相送, 欲行不行各尽觞。

请君试问东流水, 别意与之谁短长。

Monday, December 19, 2011

Things Poppy and Caedmon said

Poppy: "Would you like some bastard on your sandwich?"
Me: "He's a country bumpkin." Poppy: "What's a country pumpkin?"
Seeing some solidified oil from bacon in the pan, Poppy asks: "Is that called 'tard?"
"It's too dry in the house. Will you turn on the humiliator?"
"If you just put on an external show for others to see, you're a hippo."
Me at Christmas time: "Wasn't there a German named Rudolf?" Poppy: "Yeah, of course. Rudolf Hitler!"

Caedmon:
2011Nov26: I gave Caedmon a little spider plant and a cup to put it in. I said, "What do you need to give it to make sure that it grows?" He looked inquisitive and started sniffing the spider plant. Finally he looked at me and said, "不gross." ("It's not gross.")
Skype video froze on a frame of Dad laughing, so after a few minutes of looking at his funny laughing face, Caedmon said, "Grandpa, 别笑了!" ("Grandpa, stop laughing.")
"爸爸我有点儿事 I want."
"摔down"
"脱off"


Monday, October 24, 2011

Squid


This was the supper Poppy made for us tonight. She boiled a squid, and we dipped it in pepper sauce.


Thursday, October 6, 2011

Tonight's Meal

I've got the greatest wife. This was the little meal she threw together for us tonight. 


(Counter clockwise)
-Cold side-dish: pickled garlic eggplant
-Cold side-dish: fried and picked HOT peppers
-Old cucumber soup (old cucumber is a really big and yellow cucumber that tastes a little sour)
-Cornbread cakes
-Green beans and potato stir fry 
-Blood sausage and sour cabbage soup with fat pork
-Banana bread!

Thursday, July 21, 2011

Newest Post

Since I live in China, where Blogger is blocked, I will be updating my blog via email from now on.

Thursday, July 30, 2009

Poem

This is a poem that I scrawled on a piece of paper after work back in college. Apparently, that night at RPS, a package delivery company, didn't go so well. There's no title I guess, but I bet I could think of some good ones. :-)

Last night when work was through
I sat in my bathroom for fifteen minutes
Under a humming ventilation fan
Musing on my employment. Every night
I pawn out my hours by a conveyor
sending boxes to NC, PA, NE and on and on.
Every night upon rusty grating, my boots
Shutter as belts start and shut off.
The smell of cardboard mingles with diesel,
And dust collects in my nostrils as time
Drips moment by moment, measured by boxes,
Measured by foot ache, measured by workers'
languid movements.
Intermittant talk stagnates like
superficial thought.
While a soup of cardboard flows through the system,
A constipated monster, a five-foot rug jams,
Cramps, stops the flow until something gives,
Splits and spills green packing peanuts,
Smashing contents between steel and wood,
Steel and cardboard, and cardboard and cardboard.
So many moments measured in movements and packages
Lost and sent and broken, but I am untouched.
The belt stops. And I leave.

Sunday, March 8, 2009

My Son's Been Sick

Today we got home from the hospital. We were planning on staying one more day but a baby with a respiratory problem came to stay in our room, so we thought we didn't want to pick up something new. The nurses also recommended we go on home a day earlier than their previous recommendation.

I've lost track of the days, so I forget what things happened when. However, I think it was Thursday that Caedmon had no fever for the first time. We were really thankful for that. Even though his fever got better, his stomach got worse. On Thursday he began to have severe diarrhea. That very quickly caused him to have a very painful diaper rash. In order to avoid worsening his diaper rash we had him go without a diaper, with just a cloth wrapped around him. This method helped his diaper rash, but as you can imagine, we got pooped on a few times. Every time he pooped, it was a real chore to get him cleaned up--especially since we couldn't use wet wipes on his tender skin--and he pooped a lot. He still has diarrhea pretty bad, but we are giving him some medicines for that. His diaper rash is not as painful now as it was on Thursday.

On Friday night we were getting settled down to go to bed when there was a commotion out in the hallway. We heard an adult man shouting and weeping. There were lots of doctors and nurses working in the treatment room and lots of people gathered in the hallway. The noise died down. Then after an hour or more a man came into our room carrying a 14-or-so-year-old boy on his back, and he set the boy down on the bed by the window (there were three beds in the room). The boy was on drip injections the whole night while his mother watched him. It turns out that the boy had drank pesticide. He apparently wasn't happy about something. By morning he seemed to have some energy and was walking around and even smiling. As time went on he looked very bored, just looking around the room and examining restaurant delivery service menus. I really wanted to be a help to him, but it seemed impossible for me since my Chinese is not good. So to give him something to do, when I went home to get some things, I brought back one of the Narnia books in Chinese and a booklet. When I gave the book and booklet to them, I explained what they were a little bit. The family seemed really happy that somebody had given them a gift.

Last night there was another late night commotion. This time there were people shouting and crying in our room and in the hallway outside the room. The baby in our room this time had different troubles from my son, so we went out and walked up and down the hallway, wondering if we were going to go without sleep again. Then a nurse had sympathy on us and opened a room in a different area, where we could be alone and sleep in peace. I felt really guilty about this. I felt as if I had taken advantage of my status as a foreigner to get a special privilege. We felt safer though since there were no sick babies in the room.

Today for the first time my son started coughing pretty bad. I'm afraid he caught something. Also, I feel sick now.

So now we are back at home, hoping we can stay home.

My wife missed about four classes and didn't prepare any lesson plans for later because she was in the hospital with the baby. I missed one class. Now, I'm preparing my lesson plans for tomorrow so that I don't have to make up any more classes. That way I can watch the baby while my wife makes up her classes. We will not have to do it all on our own though; my mother-in-law is here now, and there are a whole host of very helpful friends living here in the same apartment building with us who will probably help us watch the boy while we make up our classes.

I'm thankful that we were given strength for all of the time in the hospital. We were happy and had energy for most of the time in the hospital, but when we got home, my wife was suddenly exhausted and I was suddenly really irritable.

Anyway, having my son get sick was not pleasant, but thank God for his truth. It was an encouragement somehow to meditate on the fact that disease is the result of the fall of man. That this trial was not the arbitrary action of a pantheistic deity or the careless work of the "first cause." Rather the trouble of sickness entered into the world through the mutiny of man. This mutiny plunged the whole world into trouble, the very trouble which God is carefully healing by working in the souls of men.

Saturday, February 28, 2009

My Son

Last night I brought Caedmon down to go to a meeting with about 10 friends. When we came in Caedmon was pretty frightened by all of the white people. (He hasn't seen white folks except for me for a while.) Also, they--all of them at once--acted extremely happy to see him, which kind of freaked him out. He cried heartily for a couple minutes, but finally after I took him outside the room for a moment, he stopped crying and steeled his nerves for a reentry to the room with all of the hyperactive white people.

We went back in and sat down on the couch. I held him on my lap for a few minutes but then got tired of holding him, so I set him down beside me on the couch and gave him my cellphone to play with. So he was just sitting there beside me playing with my phone. Father and son at a little social gathering. He played there happily not minding anything else. By my side playing there. I was really proud of my little son. He seemed to me then like my son rather than like my baby.

Caedmon had to go eat so we left early. I held up Caedmon's hand and said "byebye" to the friends. Caedmon waved and waved to them. They were charmed and amazed and hyperactive. Think Caedmon was feeling happy to be in his fathers arms and leaving with his father rather than being left behind with the over-happy strangers.

Waving

Caedmon can wave and clap now. Actually when he claps he just points to his left hand with his right hand pointer finger and moves his hands back and forth. Last night Poppy said to clap in Chinese but she didn't make any motions with her hands. Caedmon heard her instructions and started doing his little "clapping" motion. He has done it repeatedly so he obviously knows what he is doing.

Then when we waved at him and told him "byebye," he waved back. The only problem is that when he waves, he holds his little hands in front of his belly and waves them both--at his belly. Just a few minutes ago I was holding Caedmon on my chest with the baby carrier because I wanted to do housework and keep Caedmon out of trouble simultaneously. He was facing me and his hands were at my sides. Poppy looked up from her lesson preparation, waved at Caedmon and said "byebye." We didn't see his hands move, so we thought that he was being contrary and not wanting to wave or something. But then suddenly I felt something at my sides as if someone were trying to tickle me. It was Caedmon waving at my sides.

Friday, January 2, 2009

. . .

He is holding onto a clock. I tried to take it away from him and this is what happened.

More Videos

Sunday, November 30, 2008

Video

This was Caedmon today (Dec.1,2008) showing off his skills at almost 7 months.

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

still more





More





Some pictures






1st and 2nd pictures: He was running around the house getting into things. He likes to play with the house slippers and pull on the shoe rack. He managed to pull it over.
3rd and 4th: Wearing my stocking cap.
5th: I put him on the floor because he kept crawling around on the couch and getting close to the edge. When I put him on the floor, he just scooted back until he was under the couch. The only reason he stopped going back was that his head was too big to fit underneath.