Tuesday, June 12, 2012
Tea Blog
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Jelly Roll Morton
Thursday, March 1, 2012
Bannock
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
FedEx Reply to YouTube Video
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
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
-----
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
Caedmon:
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.")
Monday, October 24, 2011
Squid
Thursday, October 6, 2011
Tonight's Meal
Thursday, July 21, 2011
Newest Post
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Poem
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
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
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
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
. . .
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Video
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
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.