Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Not a Good Day

It's never a good day, when open your e-mail and the first thing that pops up are 3 e-mails with 2 words on the headers, and those 2 words are someone's name that you know is having the battle of their life.

In today's case, the 3 e-mails were from a friend and former co-worker of mine, sent to 3 of the various e-mail addresses I use and they all said the same thing on the header "Erik Purdom".

NWLight condition Erik was a great designer, mentor, and adventurer  and will be sorely missed by all who knew him.   He had been undergoing a battle with a rare stomach cancer, signet ring cell carcinoma.   A very rare and aggressive form of stomach cancer

What to say about Erik,  I never had the pleasure of working with him, but I did have  the pleasure of spending a little  time with him, although it was more of a social nature rather than work.  My first meeting was in a job interview with the now defunct L.A. Gear athletic footwear company, which lives on under license.  Had been meeting and interviewing with several people through out the day, and finally I get sat down in a conference room to interview with the designers.  3 guys come in, one of which was Eric, who was the Director of Design at the time.  And I'm thinking "oh great, a panel interview, this will be fun - NOT" 

And I sat, and looked at them, and they sat, and looked at me, and after about 20 seconds, I asked "Well, what do you want to know?"  And Erik say "uh, no, what do YOU want to know?"  And so the chat and chin wag was on the go.   I didn't take the job at the time, but did wind up going there a couple of years later,  Eric had left to start his own business, but a lot of the designers at Gear still kept in contact, with him, and he would stop by from time to time to pick up a couple of the design/development group to fly out to Catalina for lunch.  The old hundred-dollar-hamburger.

And so the adventure for Erik continues, as his blog says, "probably putting together his next Big Thing"

"So long Erik, we hardly knew ye"

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Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Well That Was a Heck of a Birthday Party!

Got a great birthday party Friday,  they had a whopping big party in Beijing!  Actually, just coincidence my birthday is on the auspicious date of 08-08, and this year it happened to land on the opening day of the Olympics.

My wife, bless her heart, kept saying "but you're not excited about your birthday!"  Dear, at 53 you don't get all that excited about birthdays anymore.  Ok, maybe at 55 you get a little excited, you can do the senior's meal at Denny's, and you start qualifying for more senior discounts, (a buck is a buck), but after 50, you really don't make a big deal of birthdays.  50 is the big landmark, you get  your AARP card.  For you non-American's reading this, that's a sort of senior citizen's organization, American Association of Retired Persons.  And just to tick my wife off, I applied for joint membership, so at the tender age of (not all that old) she gets an AARP card too!. Fix her wagon.

But, I did sort of celebrate, treated myself to coffee and blueberry muffin at Starbucks, didn't do squat much around the house. And, best present of all, lunchtime job interview.  Looks positive, should have details finalized this week.  Job is in Fuzhou though, and I can't find much info about Fuzhou on the net, other then the usual touristy stuff.

Anyway, dinner at the local English Pub, "One for the Road" and watched the opening ceremony on their big screen TV,  Lots of locals there even though the pub is decidedly very British.  The local Chinese very attentive, sitting in the front, the expats, usual rowdy, noisy selves, toward the back. Bit of a contrast, but that's to be expected. 

And, did we all worry at all about the CGI Footsteps?  Did we even notice Lin Miaokethe was lip-syncing ?  Did we even see the "blue screen of death" during the torch lighting?

Not really!  The great part was the two groups in the same place enjoying the celebration. I think that's what the Olympic Organizing Committee had in mind of the spirit of "One World"

Saturday, August 2, 2008

Hey, I Won the Lottery! and UFO's Back Home.

Well, it finally happened! I can kiss this place goodbye, I won the lottery!  At least I'm getting numerous e-mails telling me so. Too bad, I have to share with 5 other lucky winners, or I'd have the whole $500,000 to myself.  Who knew the Beijing World Cyber Olympics Games 2008 Lotto Promotion would pick my numbers and pick me to be one of the 5 lucky winners.  Great!  Now I can invest in some beachfront Property in Arizona!

Ah yes, back home where I understand the big news is the UFO landing in nearby Needles, CA.  Seems like a good story, "Men in Black" strange looking trucks and misplaced helicopters.  Combined with a person I know who claimed to pick up a couple of "sorta funny lookin and hot and sweaty  and stinky,  and couldn't understand anything they were saying" hitchikers.  Got scared of them and dropped them off in town.  Pretty sure they weren't aliens of the south of the border illegal variety, those are common enough to identify fairly easily. 

Gee, makes life in Dongguan seem down right boring... the big news here is... is....is.... well, we'll get back to you on that one.

And since this is "silly assed Sunday" I guess I'll post this video link, scammed from Imagethief.

And this my friends, is what happens when a blogger posts on a Sunday morning after too many cups of coffee.