Notes From The 3DBB

Javier Colon - The Truth

2011-04-20T22:22:00.000-05:00

Knife skills......

2011-01-28T07:01:00.001-06:00

This is a great recipe to work on your knife skills. If you've got the time and patience, try to cut all those 1/4" vegetables into very uniform cubes. The best way to do that - cut 1/4" slices, cut those into 1/4" sticks, cut those into 1/4" cubes.

Chicken and Root Vegetable Soup

Serves 8

1.5 pounds chicken breast

3 cups potatoes

2 cups each parsnips, celery root, leeks

1.5 cups each carrot, onion

1 cup turnips

3 garlic cloves

3 tablespoons butter

6 sprigs fresh thyme (or 3/4 teaspoon dried)

1 fresh bay leaf (or 2 dried)

8 cups fresh chicken stock

3 tablespoons Sherry (optional)

Cut chicken into 1" cubes. Peel and cut all root vegetables to 1/4" cubes. Finely dice the leek.
Heat butter over medium heat. Add onion and garlic, cook until wilted.
Add the chicken and combine with onions.
Add all the remaining vegetables. Combine and cook 2 minutes to barely heat through.
Add the stock, thyme, bay, Kosher salt and fresh ground pepper. Bring to a boil and simmer for 20 minutes.
Taste for seasoning, and add more salt and pepper if needed. Add the Sherry and cook for 3 more minutes.

Note: This recipe is simple, but it takes a long time to cut up the vegetables. Plan on one hour total time.

Knife

2011-01-27T14:51:00.000-06:00

Probably the single most important kitchen tool is a sharp chef's knife. Most experts say that a good cook can survive with just a chef's knife and paring knife. I think that unless you have pretty small hands, just the chef's knife will do for 95% of prep cooking.

A sharp knife makes preparing vegetables, meats, herbs, fish - anything you cut - faster, easier and safer.

Notice carefully the adjective 'sharp' before knife. Even the most well constructed and expensive knives are worthless if they are not sharp. Professional chefs are almost maniacal about knife sharpness.

Before we go over the benefits of a sharp knife, let's make sure you know how and what to do to keep a knife sharp - there are two aspects to it.

Regular use of a steel or ceramic knife sharpener. This step is a 10 second task that should be undertaken either every time you cook, or at least once a week if you don't cook that often. Simply run each edge of your knife across the rod, holding it at about a 15 to 20 degree angle. This process is usually called 'honing' and serves to straighten out minor imperfections in the blade edge as the knife is used. These tools can be obtained for around $15-20.
Annual professional sharpening. This is known as "restoring or recreating the edge". Eventually, even regular honing will not keep a knife sharp. For usually $10 or less, a professional knife sharper will restore your edge to razor sharp perfection. Check with a local hardware store or at farmer's markets, which often have a knife person around.

You do not need an expensive electric sharpener. Many of these tools are ineffective, hard to use and sit idle even when you ought to be using them. The every day/every week task is easy, and that annual-ish resharpening breathes new life in your favorite knife.

You also don't need an expensive knife. The current wave of Santuko knives, designer ceramic bladed knives and so on.....all fine. But mostly this is the result of marketing, not some new breakthrough in cutting. A moderate quality knife, kept sharp, is far more important than a few hollow ridges or flashy ceramic colored knife.

How Sharp is Sharp?

Your knife should be SO sharp that a tiny slash with the tip of the blade can slice a fresh tomato, or rip through tough plastic packaging. Except for some of the toughest root vegetables - like turnips or rutabagas - a chef's knife will almost glide through. This makes cutting faster, easier, less tiring and even safer.

Yes safer.

A woman named Kathleen Finn wrote an account of her training at a Paris cooking school, titled The Sharper Your Knife the Less You Cry. Nice book. But the title holds an accurate phrase, in a way.

You're less likely to cut yourself with a sharp knife, because it's less likely to slip off the skin of a vegetable or other item you're working on.
Since the sharp knife cuts more easily, you'll require less force to cut things, which decreases the chance of an accidental cut.
If you do happen to cut yourself, a cut from a sharp knife will hurt less and heal faster than a cut from a dull knife. Why is that? Because the rough edge of a dull knife creates a more ragged cut. Consider a scalpel, compared to a sharp steak knife compared to a dull everyday kitchen knife.

When I started cooking seriously after college, a very good knife was one of my first investments. I bought a Portuguese knife from Alfred Zanger company, which unfortunately no longer import knives. However, I still use it regularly (and got it resharpened last month).

When the Zanger knife took an unplanned vacation in Wisconsin for a year (really, I travel with my knife and once forget it at my friend John's place), I purchased a very inexpensive and popular Swiss chef's knife from Victorinox. Frankly, it is equally as good as the Zanger, which is equivalent to a $100+ German knife.

If you want to read more about my recommendations for important cooking tools, read this article: Kitchen Tools You Can't Live Without.

Soup

2011-01-26T14:51:00.001-06:00

You can tell by the recent recipe choices that it's the dead of winter down here in Houston. Boy can it get chilly. You even need a light jacket some mornings. Brrrr.

Actually, it doesn't have to be below freezing to feel a chill. Damp, dank days in the 40's, especially with a drizzle, still make one long for a warm soup and fresh bread. So that's what I'm planning for tonight.

Chicken and Root Vegetable Soup

Serves 8

1.5 pounds chicken breast

3 cups potatoes

2 cups each parsnips, celery root, leeks

1.5 cups each carrot, onion

1 cup turnips

3 garlic cloves

3 tablespoons butter

6 sprigs fresh thyme (or 3/4 teaspoon dried)

1 fresh bay leaf (or 2 dried)

8 cups fresh chicken stock

3 tablespoons Sherry (optional)

Cut chicken into 1" cubes. Peel and cut all root vegetables to 1/4" cubes. Finely dice the leek.
Heat butter over medium heat. Add onion and garlic, cook until wilted.
Add the chicken and combine with onions.
Add all the remaining vegetables. Combine and cook 2 minutes to barely heat through.
Add the stock, thyme, bay, Kosher salt and fresh ground pepper. Bring to a boil and simmer for 20 minutes.
Taste for seasoning, and add more salt and pepper if needed. Add the Sherry and cook for 3 more minutes.

Note: This recipe is simple, but it takes a long time to cut up the vegetables. Plan on one hour total time.

Recipe for a new knife user

2011-01-26T08:11:00.000-06:00

Decent knife,
Resharpen frequently with a steel, ceramic or other simple sharpending device.
Once a year, new edge.

The Sharper Your Knife The Less You Cry. Author, title
enjoyable book,
True about cuts.....

Cut a lot of onion,
Cut a lot of vegetables

- Slice open a plastic bag - a light swash across the bag with the tip of a sharp knife will slice it open. A dull knife will hardly be able to cut open even a simple plastic bag.

Chili, Soup,

Side by side comparison

The Single Most Important Tool in Your Kitchen

2011-01-26T08:01:00.002-06:00

Chef's knife and it has to be sharp.

blah blah blah

3rd Post - Headlineof

2011-01-25T20:44:00.000-06:00

Content of 3rd 3dbb post.

test 2

2011-01-25T20:40:00.002-06:00

Jan 25 - 8:40.

want a MC RSS at 9:00.

test Jan 25 8;30

2011-01-25T20:34:00.001-06:00

test

GAC Special Honorees

2010-11-28T19:09:00.000-06:00

Golfers Against Cancer - 2010 Special Honorees - Gay and Rod Felts

GAC Video Clips

2010-11-28T14:05:00.000-06:00

Golfers Against Cancer - 2010 Gala

Video clip of Dan Tyminski and ensemble performance of "I Am A Man of Constant Sorrow".

Technical Notes: Uploaded from H.264 encoding, Good Quality - 30.9 MB file size.
11/28/2010 - 1:56 pm
Run time: 3 min 39 sec

My Audition for Master Chef

2010-01-25T18:13:00.003-06:00

Last weekend I auditioned for a cooking show called Master Chef. Tomorrow I return for an on-camera interview, because I passed the cooking portion of the audition. If all goes well.....I'M GOING TO HOLLYWOOD. Not actually. I don't know where they are filming.

I posted three articles about the auditions on my cooking blog.....check them out here.

New Blog, New Life

2010-01-25T10:49:00.001-06:00

To any of the readers who randomly stumble into this blog, and you're almost all certainly my family members or Michael5000 readers, it's time for a little update.

About a year ago I found myself on the outside of the Fortune 200 company I worked for for 14+ years. Since then I've provided some support for a small company in Houston and restored some of my old programming skills. I've also been close to landing a couple CIO positions for small companies. Close, but not close enough.

As soon as the job change occurred, I thought about opening a restaurant. But with no actual restaurant experience and a horrible economy, that got back burnered.

I did however, begin a project in the food world. I say project because it's not going to be an income producing venture for a while, but may provide a foundation for a food-related career change.

In November I launched the Weekly Recipe Review newsletter. My message is geared to the everyday cook, who wishes they more time to cook, or feel that cooking is too time consuming, or simply want to improve their cooking skills. It's not high end stuff, but rather support to make everyday tastier and more reliable.

I've got about 500 subscribers, and continue to add more each week (in fact each day).

You can find my newsletters and the associated website at http://www.recipereview.biz/. On the home page you can sign up for the email version of the newsletter, which is free and published weekly.

I also put the weekly content onto a blog, so that it can be distributed via amazon to Kindle users. That blog is at http://www.beabettercook.blogspot.com/.

People have been really enjoying the newsletter, and I've got some nice changes and additions to the website that should be helpful to my readers. I hope you check it out and sign up for the newsletter.

Report from Houston - "It's snowing like a pig down here"

2008-12-11T16:44:00.008-06:00

Well, you just never know. It snowed in Houston last night. Not just a little, but plenty. We had an inch in our NE suburb. There were 2" or more in other eastern areas. Of course, most of the area just saw flakes in the air for a little while. But we had some big-flake, wet-packing, snowman-rolling snow last night.

Key quotes:

"Put on a sweater and your Crocs and come outside - it's snowing. "
"Can you find the remote and turn on the fireplace?"
"The hot chocolate is too rich."

A story from the past - "It's snowing like a pig out there".

My freshman year in college was spent at the Honors College at Louisiana State University. How I got there from Chicago and why I turned down several Ivy League offers cannot be easily explained. Regardless, at winter break, one of my new good fraternity friends came to visit me in Chicago.

His name was Jim Marvin, but we knew him as Chaulkie. At the time and to this day I don't know how he got that nickname. He was born and raised in New Orleans and had never been north or seen snow. I remember he had a great love for Elton John (? - OK, whatever).

So Chaulkie came up to Chicago, and on the first night, made a dozen trips outside to scan the sky for snow. I explained that it doesn't snow all the time. In fact, even if snow is forecast, it didn't necessarily mean we'd for certain get snow.

But Chaulkie was persistent. He continued to diligently check for snow. Forlorn, he saw no snow on his first night in town. Nor his second. He was getting impatient. So, when on the third night the slightest flurry was seen, he came running into the house to report it. I dutifully went out to observe an occasional, miniscule flake.

Undeterred by the lack of magnitude, Chaulkie stayed outside, ever vigilant. I returned in to watch an old movie. About an hour later, Chaulk blew the door open, and breathlessly exclaimed, "Guff, Guff. It's snowing.......". He was at a loss for description. I took it that the flurries intensified a bit.

"Guff, Guff. It's snowing like a PIG out there.".

The phrase has liven in infamy ever since.

Chaulkie never could explain the pig reference. It's ironic, as a pig reference was totally out of character for him. He wasn't a bumpkin from the bayous. He was a New Orleans city kid. Pretty darn sophisticated.

Sadly, for me, the story doesn't end there. Seeing the light dusting of white powder on our black tarmac driveway, Chaulkie expected a soft, downy landing place for me as he tackled me to the pavement. Such behavior was typical male bonding. Kind of a fraternity boy gesture of endearment. Little did he yet know that it would have taken about half a foot or more or the white stuff to ensure a painless fall.

Nonetheless, Chualkie's excitement lives on. The phrase "snowing like a pig out there" is now well known to a couple dozen of my friends who have heard this story over the years, and as of last night, to my kids.

13 Degrees of Dorkness - or – Triskaidorkaphilia

2008-10-15T21:13:00.005-05:00

My 13 Degrees of Dorkness
- or –
Triskaidorkaphilia
A Multidimensional Proof of Personal Dork Behavior
A dork resume, if you will

Dimension 1: This description, byitsownself.
Including use of the phrase "If you will".

Dimension 2: Dorkness in the Workplace
The technical people in my department consider me not technical enough. Too managerial. There are 500 of these people. Everyone else in my company consider me a techie. There are 49,500 of these people.

Dimension 3: Community Dorkness
I oversee the largest summer youth swim team in Houston. How did I get this volunteer job? I started by running the computer systems. Now I’m in charge. Bummer.

Dimension 4: More Community Dorkness
I’m on the board of a terrific charity started at my golf club, Golfers Against Cancer. We’ve raised $16 million dollars that has been donated directly to innovative cancer research. All volunteer. Virtually no expenses. It’s awesome. All the high rollers in my town and many across Houston and beyond participate. What is my role? Website, audio visual (at the 1000 person gala dinner), documentation, PowerPoint. Oh, a few insightful ideas that have been beneficial. Half my strategic plan has been implemented. Plenty of hard partying, networking, brainstorming, and arm-twisting for big donations. But deep down, I’m the computer guy.

Dimension 5: CrossDork
I live for the NYT crossword puzzle, shirking significant daily responsibilities in order to do the puzzle. Fortunately this takes well less then 10 minutes Monday to Thursday. Yet I only complete about 1 in 5 Saturday’s. Actually, closer to 1 in 10. I consider Rex Parker my personal savior and lord.

Dimension 5: Let your Dork Flag Fly
Finalist in the M5K Oregon flag redesign contest.

I mentioned my entry to the Oregon flag contest to a golf buddy, who spends a few weeks in Oregon every summer because his wife is from there. He asks how it went.

“Well, I think I won. Kind of. Anyway, my flag was submitted to the governor. I don’t think anything’s going to happen with it though”.

Months later, golf buddy asks “Whatever happened to that Oregon flag thing?”

Me: “Well, I don’t think the governor took it seriously. He might not even really have known about it”.

Golf Buddy: “What do you mean? Wasn’t it an official contest?”.

Me: “Well, it was more an internet blog thing. This guy who has a blog ran it.”

GB: “Oh, an internet thing.”

Nonetheless, now that the contest has gone mainstream, I expect to win Oregon and begin my career as the worlds foremost flag designer, splitting my time each year between summers in the villa in Tuscany and wintering in Palm Beach. Yes, I think it’s still the 1950’s.

Oh yeah. Consider that I mentioned the flag contest to a golf buddy. Serious dorkness. Don’t do this. Possibly a dimension of its own.

Dimension 6: The Heart of Dorkness
I have purposely withheld reading other blog entries for Dorkfest 2008 in order to ensure that my entry is unadulterated and uninfluenced by any other entry. No derivatives. No embellishments. No one-upmanship. My sense of sportsmanship is unrivalled and unrealistic, as demonstrated by the following diatribe. Due to this naiveté, I will be taken advantage of repeatedly in my lifetime.

Dimension 7: Perfect Preparation Makes for Perfect Dorkness
Morgan? Ha!. Let’s roll back the clock to May. The M5K Decathlon Afterparty.

Phineas’ comment on May 17, 2008: “Initial entry for Dorkfest 2008: I actually studied for the M5K Decathlon.”

Reply from M5K: @Phineas: “Second entry for Dorkfest 2008: You are already planning for Dorkfest 2008.”

I continue to study. For the M5K Decathlon 2009.

Dimension 8: Published Dorkness
I write articles for an adoption magazine that no one reads. I’m hoping they still publish it, though I’m not sure. And I’m a subscriber.

Dimension 9: Dork Reading Material – My Current or Recently Completed Reading List
A combination of topics so diverse as to be schizophrenic. Where are those pills, anyway? I frequently ask myself – why would I want to read THAT? And the answer is always the same. THAT is so cool.

I used to read a lot related to my profession, whatever that is. I recently learned that when I transferred to Houston a number of years ago, my new boss and a coworker entered my office while I was out of town and asked each other, “Do you think he really read all those books?”. The coworker (my boss last year), now admits, “Yes, he certainly did.”

Pnin, Nabokov
Lolita, Nabokov. Actually, The Annotated Lolita. I read all the annotations. Twice.
God Is Not Great, How Religion Poisons Everytihng, Hitchens. Not original (see Betrand Russell), but interesting. Especially if you personally know (knew) more than 10 Catholic priests who are currently serving time.
Silk Road Journeys, Colin Thubron. Highbrow travel writing. Serious. Grab-your- dictionary level highbrow writing. Poetic too. I wouldn’t believe me if I were reading this description. You really ought to check him out.
Beyond the Great Wall, Colin Thubron
Chances Are: Adventures in Probability. Kaplan and Kaplan. ‘Adventures’ was not the best word choice for the subtitle.
The Match, The Day the Game of Golf Changed Forever, Frost. An entire book about a single golf match that took place in 1956. Got it in July. I’m reading it for a second time now.
5 books on poker. OK. I didn’t read them this year, but they’re still there next to the others on this list.
Ulysses. Yes that one. Read it for the 11th time since 1983. How do I know this? Because I keep a log inside the front cover.
Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell. Solid. Enjoyable. Cleverish.
Rightful Resistance In Rural China (Cambridge Studies in Contentious Politics), O’Brien and Li. A sociology /political science textbook. Bought for my birthday off my amazon wishlist. This is not my field of study.
Never Let me Go, Ishiguro
Clasics of Western Thought: The Twentieth Century, Gochberg. Textbook from college. Twentieth century only 4/5’s over at the time. Cool to know now what happened next.
The Mysterious Montague, A True Tale of Hollywood, Golf, and Armed Robbery, Montville. It is a true story.
A Free Life, Ha Jin. Notice the China theme. Notice that once you make a name for yourself you can make a living writing most anything. Publishers. A mildly loyal following. Tenure. Got it made for life. Maybe not free, but made.
The Return of the Player, Tolkin. OK – only read it because I kind of liked the movie The Player. OK. I liked Greta Scaachi a lot (who was in the NYT puzzle recently). REALLY liked the gag in the movie where Tim Robbins’ character ordered a different brand of bottled water by name, complex, long winded name, in every restaurant he entered. Never repeated a name. No waiter ever questioned his order. Classic.
Bradbury Stories: 100 of his most Celebrated Tales.
National Gallery of Art. With 315 Illustrations. It doesn’t help as much on the TMQ as you would think.
The Alaska Reader: Voices from the North, Kremers and Hanley, eds.
The Collected Stories, Amy Hempel
Extreme Weather, A Guide and Record Book, Burt
Pale Fire, Nabokov. Need Nabokov bookends on this list, seeing as how he’s the greatest writer of the latter 20th century and all.

All these books reside in, and have been read nearly in their entirety, in the water closet in my master bathroom.

Dimension 10: Dork Testimonials.
I have requested that several people write testimonials to my dorkness. None of them even remotely questioned the mission and purpose. They’ll be posted shortly. My wife and daughter squealed with glee upon being asked.

Dimension 11: Dork in the Kitchen
Despite the senseless diversity of the items described above, all I really care about is food and cooking. I write a blog that has received 2 comments lifetime. I obsess over the blog and it’s potential entries, dream of it’s popularity, envision it’s utility and purpose serving home cooks of all ilks, despite the dearth of posts and the neglect I shower upon it.

But really you ought to try the Fennel and Coriander crusted grilled tuna. And these cucumbers. And Albuquerque butter. And………….

Dimension 12: I Lied.
All I really care about is alcohol. I’m going to fix myself another Vodka Tonic. That would be an Absolut Kurrant and diet tonic, no lime.

Dimension 13: That’s Not All, Dorks The essence of my dorkness is diversity. I’ve specialized in diversity to the extant that I’m not a specialist in anything but. Pretty darn good in a few things. Maybe.

But shouldn’t one direct their talents in a manner that provides contributions to the chosen field? Shouldn’t one advance the cause? Isn’t it madness (dorkness) to obsessively commit oneself to so many disparate endeavors as to wreak identify confusion? Not among others, among me. All of the me’s.

But the dimensions described above are not all. Other things I do, with a modicum of proficiency, include the following. And in some cases, these are the things I’m spending time the majority of my time on.

Classical Guitar playing
Cabinet Making
Children (making them and caring for them).
Friendships.
Exercise
Music (thankfully you’ve been spared the musical diversity list).
The Arts (outside the home).
The anti-Arts – as in, watching crap TV. Though Iron Chef America is awesome.
Sports – especially college football (go Hawkeyes), the Cubs, Bears, Olympics, Tour de France, and on and on.
Golf. Oh yeah, I got this far without discussing THE MOST IMPORTANT ACTIVITY IN MY LIFE.

Enough is enough. As one twisted individual, I submit my dorkness to you.

Post Backlog

2008-09-24T13:58:00.004-05:00

1. Evacuation from Hurricane Ike (or, How to have a hurricane party every day for a month).
2. Weekend in Austin with the Day Family
3. Wisconsin Boys Golf Weekend 2008
4. Our Family Vacation To Washington DC. It was a BLAST. Really.
5. Lolita Followup - don't wait for this post. Just read Nabokov. Anything. Now. He's unbelievable.
6. The History of the World As Told to a 10 year old boy Project

Since there are no readers of this blog, I hope an apology for laxness is not needed. If anyone (M5K) happens to stumble across this rare post, I'll promise that the Hurricane Evacuation story should prove enjoyable and is already partly composed.

Phin /Tom

360 Feedback and 360 Participation – Part 1

2008-06-20T14:59:00.002-05:00

As I’ll reference briefly in my write up about Taos, I’ve been part of an exciting but demanding project at work known as a PLT - Performance Leadership Team. The project is being run in parallel with 3 other projects, all of which have similar dual objectives: substantial improvement in our department’s effectiveness, and personal leadership development.

The projects were chartered by the senior management team in our department, and are following a facilitated approach as laid out by a consulting partner. The partner firm has used this approach at our company over the past few years with tremendous results.

The specifics of the project are not relevant to my blog, but the personal development aspect and the techniques we’ve learned are what prompt me to jot down the following thoughts.

360 Participation

In the course of getting our project off the ground, our team of 10 people had specific planning tasks to perform in a 3 day workshop. Most of the “real work” was initiated with the following technique, which I’ve labeled “360 Participation”. This technique can be used to analyze or plan nearly anything.

5 to 15 minutes of individual analysis / idea generation, with each idea or comment written on to a post it note. Sometimes the notes were color coded for various purposes.

As a group, each person supplies one post-it comment at a time to a facilitator, who collates them into groups of related items (on a flip chart, white board, window, etc.). Exact duplicate comments are often just passed forward en-masse.

As each item is presented, it is explained, but not judged or discussed, along the lines of the traditional “brainstorming rules”.

Work around the table / room collecting one comment per person until all comments are aired.

Once the groups of ideas /comment are assembled, the analysis phase begins. This might be selecting the top N ideas, prioritizing all ideas or mapping out interdependencies – at this point it’s based on the topic and intent of the exercise.

The value obtained by this technique is powerful for multiple reasons:

Using written comments allows for more ideas, criticism and wild-ass fliers to be put forward without judgment

Everyone’s voice is heard. A strong personality cannot dominate the discussion.

No analysis is done until all comments are presented (classic brainstorming)

Duplicate submissions of the same idea create a kind of built in voting / prioritization system (in most cases)

The process is so simple it requires almost no explanation or preparation

And also – it’s FAST.

And it’s really (REALLY) effective

Right away I used this approach with one of my teams to analyze our first use of a new process - what went right, wrong, and so on. I can guarantee that the quality of the content produced was above and beyond what we normally produce in free form group discussions. Besides causing me to shut up, it brought the ideas out in an orderly fashion. We spent exactly 10 minutes to get comments written and organized, then spent 15 minute planning next steps. Very, very efficient, with much higher quality in our ideas.

I’ve since used it in other team settings, including in an executive level session related to hurricane response planning.

Summary - this is an interesting and effective technique that can be applied in many situations. All you need are a few sticky notes.

Sara Lee - my sister in law

2008-05-30T14:25:00.007-05:00

We've spent the week in Chicago, owing to the sudden passing of my sister in law Sara. Sara was diagnosed with a non-specific neuro-endocrine cancer in March of this year. An initial attempt of chemo was ineffective, yet no one expected that she would succumb so quickly.

Last Saturday Margie flew up to Chicago to visit, but again, there was no expectation that Sara was close to the end. On Sunday night Margie reported that Sara looked quite good; yet she took a downward turn that night and only made it to Monday afternoon.

Sara was the lone in-law to the Lee family for many years, until Margie and I were married. Sara and I bonded quickly and reveled in our mutual roles as outside family observers. Given how passionately Sara took to her avocations, we were always close, especially in our shared love of cooking.

For someone close to die young and unexpectedly is a shock, and causes one to take stock of family, friends and self. The process and thoughts will continue to roll through our consciousness for some time, and there will surely be no adequate conclusions reached. The primary thing I have been considering is the dedication Sara showed for her children, and how well prepared they are to make their way in the world as adults (the youngest currently being in college). To follow her example and achieve a portion of her results would be an accomplishment for anyone.

And what was her example? While it was not likely an explicit plan, I think Sara's approach to securing her children in the world was to establish them in a safe and productive environment. Normally that would imply her household and that which was close at hand to her family. But the environment that Sara protected and improved was much larger. It was her community at large that she nurtured, clearly with the intent to providing a healthy and productive environment for her children. As she connected with the causes that struck her, she increased her involvement and leadership, to the point that she had integrated herself deeply into the community. She involved herself in the schools, strategic planning and village government.

In this manner, she taught her children about leadership and activism, by her own example and actions - a powerful method indeed.

Yesterday at her memorial service, the lines stretched outside the funeral home, into the parking lot and wound around rows of parked cars. The 100 seats planned for the formal service were inadequate and an impromptu move the church next door was enacted. By my estimation 250 people or more attended the fitting tribute to Sara.

Her obituary from the Chicago Tribune follows.

Sara Stassel Lee 1957 ~ 2008

Glen Ellyn trustee and civic leader

Volunteer was active in numerous village organizations

By Joan Giangrasse Kates | Special to the Tribune
May 29, 2008

Sara Stassel Lee, 50, whose passion and vision for Glen Ellyn led her on a civic path from school volunteer to village trustee, died Monday, May 26, in her home after a three-month battle with cancer.

"Sara's a great example of a mom who stayed at home to raise her children but still found ways to serve and become a very vital part of her community," said her husband, Peter "Chip" Lee.

Elected a Glen Ellyn trustee in 2005, Mrs. Lee previously was as a member of the Planning Commission and Comprehensive Plan Committee.

"Sara's passing is a tremendous loss to our community," said Curt Barrett, Glen Ellyn's acting village manager. "She was a wonderful, warm and vibrant woman who brought a wide mix of talents to her role as a civic leader. Her contributions were well-rounded and many and included schools, churches and recreational activities. She had a true love for our village and reveled in serving it in any way she could."

An Indiana native, Mrs. Lee was born and raised in La Porte and attended local schools.

She graduated in 1979 from Purdue University, where she majored in consumer and family services.

In 1980, Mrs. Lee married her husband, with whom she had three children.

The couple lived in Wheaton before moving to Glen Ellyn in 1995.

While raising her children, Mrs. Lee was a member of the St. Petronille School Parent Organization and the Glenbard High School District 87 Strategic Plan Committee, for which she was named Volunteer of the Year. She was a member of the Citizens Advisory Council for Glenbard South High School and the DuPage County Regional Office of Education's Advisory Board.

"She found time and energy to invest in our children's schools," her husband said. "Whether you agreed with her or not, she always did her homework and came prepared to any meeting she ever attended."

Mrs. Lee was a member of other civic groups, including Keeping Educational Excellence a Priority, the Community in the Park Committee and the Glen Ellyn Vision 2000 Youth Committee. She was a longtime member of the League of Women Voters and a volunteer voter registrar for DuPage County.

"So often, people figure out their interests, find their niche and then volunteer their time and energies accordingly," Barrett said. "With Sara, there were no limits to her contributions. She stepped up for just about everything."

Other survivors include two sons, Peter and Jonathan; a daughter, Jennifer; her mother, Lucille Stassel; and a brother, David.

A memorial visitation will be at noon Thursday in Williams-Kampp Funeral Home, 430 E. Roosevelt Rd., Wheaton, immediately followed by a 2 p.m. service at the funeral home.

Sportsmanship

2008-05-18T22:02:00.002-05:00

Still woefully lax about blogging lately. But I just sent this note out to the 220 families on our local swim team, and would like to snag it for posterity by throwing it in to this post.

Greetings,

Sorry for a second message tonight. But I'd like to touch on the important subject of sportsmanship, which is especially relevant this week. Our meets each year with the Greentree and Sand Creek teams are always strongly contested. This strong spirit of competition is one of the great dimensions of participation in the summer swim program.

Please encourage your kids to live up to the challenge of great competition by also showing great sportsmanship at our meet this week - and for the entire season.

We all know that some of the fiercest competitors are also among the greatest sportsmen on and off the field of play. My background is golf, not swimming - so I point to Bobby Jones, Ben Hogan and Jack Nicklaus. These great athletes were known for significant achievements; accomplished through a relentless personal drive to achieve greatness and to dominate their opponents. Yet at the end of every competition - and it's worth repeating - every competition - they were gentlemen who respected the challenges presented by their opponents.

Will you indulge me in two stories from yesterday's meet that bear repeating? Thanks.

A young Wahoo swimmer was mouthing off a bit on the ready bench, taunting the Waves swimmers nearby. One of our Waves was trying to respond, but couldn't get much past "Oh yeah, well...., well....". A board member quietly spoke to the Waves swimmer and said "How about if we are more polite today than they are?". His eyes lit up and he nodded his head. In part, he seemed relieved that he didn't need to find a way to trash talk back to his opponent. When he started his race, he took off on a tear and from 4th seed in his heat, he won handily. The trash talker followed in the next heat, and not surprisingly, finished last.

Another exchange was between two girls from the Wahoos. One teammate looked to the other at the start of the race and quietly whispered "good luck". Her teammate was a little surprised, and asked her to repeat what she said, then understood. The first girl swam hard, but didn't finish ahead of her teammate. As she got out of the pool, she looked at me and said "I really wanted to beat her today, but at least I improved my time.".

Good sportsmanship already abounds at our meets. But in the heat of our strongest battles it is easy for kids, or even parents, to lose sight of this. So - talk to your kids about how awesome it is to face a challenge, try their hardest and then see what the results bring. But most importantly, share with them that how they behave during and after the battle is what will make them a great person.

Where are the blog updates?

2008-04-04T10:26:00.002-05:00

Simple. In mid-February for the second year in a row, we had a significant re-organization in my department. As a result I picked up responsibility for managing our two data centers in Houston and Austin. This is in addition to the other teams I oversee, and no, there was not a substantial raise associated with the additional work. The beatings will continue until morale improves.

I've enjoyed the new work immensely, in part because it's an area of IT that I've not had much exposure to in the past, and also because there are some great opportunities for improvement in several areas. In fact, we're undertaking an ambitious program surrounding "green" activities related to power consumption and emissions, so there's an exciting new thread to weave into routine data center work (if only we could eliminate the sense of simply being on the latest bandwagon).

Another key factor keeping me from the enjoyment of blogging - and it is a pleasure to me - is the start up of the swim season. This is my first year as president of the FMKP Waves Swim Team, so there's quite a bit new on my plate. The team is doing well, with 246 kids enrolled during the first Saturday of registration.

Plans for this blog

Earlier this year I resolved to focus this blog on family-related updates - and not so much of a personal journal. However, not having a structured approach could allow it to fall into disrepair. So I plan a monthly update, centered mostly around family news, targeted at the Chicago, DC and Houston relatives and friends.

Plans for my other blog

My other blog, What Tom Cooked, has also suffered from the hectic activities in the past month and a half. However, I am firmly committed to that effort. The pattern I fell into was one or two updates per week, describing the more involved meals that I cooked either for Ms. Finn, the family or parties. This will continue.

There are two purposes behind that blog: to provide critical review of the recipes I choose to cook, and to serve as a searchable index of past recipes. I'm forever paging through old copies of Gourmet or some cookbook trying to find some dish that we remembered as a hit in prior years.

To the (few) readers of this blog and WTC:

If you've linked to this blog, considered linking to the cooking blog - it's more applicable to a wide audience, and I'm far more passionate about it than this blog. .
If you have enjoyed either blog - please leave more comments. I think folks new to blogs who have heard about my sites are not familiar with the comments feature.

Great Films: Ecstacy

2008-03-07T13:55:00.004-06:00

In the Phineas household we maintain a carefully negotiated balance of power in which Ms. Finn controls all meaningful decisions. This is particularly true of movie selection. And while she’s drawn me into her net with The American President and Notting Hill (both of which I openly enjoy and even admire in a way), my attempts at reciprocation continue to fail. The most recent salvo, “You’ll like THIS Woody Allen movie for sure” barely made it past the first 15 minutes.

So while she was out camping with our oldest daughter last weekend, I broke out an unopened copy of Ecstacy, the famous 1933 film starring Hedy Keisler, later known as Hedy Lamar. This movie is known most for its open nudity and sensual eroticism. But beyond that I didn’t know anything about it – not actors, director nor plot.

This is a wonderful movie that you should definitely seek out. There are a few flaws, but they are minor compared to the compelling story that is told almost wordlessly. The “famous” scenes are beautifully filmed, and central to both the plot and tone of the movie. The director Gustav Machaty alludes to the impending passion of the protagonists with an extended scene showing the animal magnetism of two horses – and while one run-away horse is central to the plot, the heavy handed imagery is clumsy. He uses this device – extended scenes using animals or insects – several times, only once to great effect.

Not remembering Hedy Lamarr from any notable films, yet knowing her from constant reference in Bob Hope's 1960's TV specials, I wasn't sure what to expect. What you'll find is a slightly plump, somewhat flatchested teenager, not a voluptuous pin up. She woudn't be cast today as a fat friend, but she sure wouldn't be the leading lady either. I also can't stop thinking of Hedly Lamarr from Blazing Saddles, the producers of which were theatened with lawsuit by Hedy's people.

The Plot: Young Eva marries an older, successful businessman who spurns her on their wedding night. After a divorce and return to her father’s mansion (she certainly wasn’t attempting to marry up) she encounters the swarthy young supervisor of a road crew. After discovering his sensitive nature, shown in brilliant counterpoint to her husband in parallel scenes involving insects, she falls for him. This leads to a love scene that would be considered racy up through the 1960’s, let alone 1933. Since the plot is not complex, but highly engaging, to reveal more would spoil the remainder of the film.

Dialogue: While this film was made just a few years after “talking pictures” were introduced, it seems closer to a silent film and uses the sparse dialogue to powerful effect. The first words weren’t spoken until almost 20 minutes into the film, and weren’t needed until then either. There is effectively no dialogue between characters. Rather, one speaks and the reaction of the other is expressed without words. Wonderfully performed and filmed.

Visuals: I’m anything but a film student, but suspect that the camera work and editing were greatly advanced for their time.

Prognosis: This is a movie you should definitely seek out. Chuckle over the symbolic scenes from a distance while you refill your glass of wine.

The Rat

2008-02-06T21:35:00.000-06:00

Background

No - not a post about the Year of the Rat - of which I am proud to claim as my birth year. Rather something quite different.

Last week, infamous blogger Michael 5000 posted a moral puzzle, in which he somewhat satirically posed an ethical dilemma. Four people escaping a sinking ship with a lifeboat that only holds three, who do you save? He didn't just describe who the people involved were, rather he painted a detailed and at times hilarious picture of what impact their lives would have had if they were to survive. It generated a lot of discussion.

The situation I describe below is far from hypothetical and I propose that there were some significant real life choices, including the potential for long-term emotional damage to my children. Well, if not emotional damage, at least long term phobias or really unpleasant memories.

Given the readership of my blog being nearly no one, I don't expect much discussion. But who knows - as this ain't no "black box" problem at all.

What Would You Do If You Observed a Rat Being Bludgeoned Next to Your Dinner Table?

You'd get up and leave immediately, right? Well, maybe it's not as simple as you might first think - depending on who is at the table with you.

The Scenario

Here's what happened, as expressed in my recent communication to the restaurant involved.

Manager
Ocean Palace Restaurant
11215 Bellaire Blvd.
Houston, TX 77072

Dear Sir or Madam,

On Saturday, February 2, I brought my family to your restaurant for a dinner celebrating the adoption of one of my daughters from China. We have enjoyed your authentic Chinese cuisine many times in the past and expected a similar experience.

While dining, we noticed a commotion among wait staff and bus staff immediately next to us. Moments later I observed a bus boy beating a large rat to death with a broom. The rat was approximately 6 inches long, with an 8 inch tail. After stunning the rodent, the bus boy swept it into an enclosed dustpan and exited past my table toward the front entrance of the restaurant.

We were seated on the lower level, right side, at a table next to the bus area in the center of the room. Our table was next to the divider between the seating and bus areas. From the seat I was in, I could look straight into the bus area where I observed this incident.

Because I was dining with four children, ranging in age from 4 to 12, I chose not to alarm them by immediately leaving the restaurant, or telling them about what I saw. Neither did I want to give my two adopted daughters from China a negative, if not horrifying, impression of Chinatown and it’s restaurants. However, my wife and I now bear that discomfort.

I am deeply distressed over this incident, and must respectfully request that you refund the cost of my meal, which totaled $105 plus a $15 tip for a total of $120. I have provided my contact information below, and trust that you will handle this matter promptly and to my satisfaction.

Sincerely,

Phineas

Additional Information

At dinner were my wife - to be known on this blog henceforth as Ms. Finn, my three children, ages 4 (4 and 5/6 if you ask her), 10 and 12, along with a 12 year old friend.
My oldest and youngest are girls who were adopted as infants from China.
We are a middle-class family with Irish, Scottish, Dutch and Lithuanian roots.
We have few inherent connections to Chinese culture, other than what we've experienced traveling, reading (albeit extensively) and limited interactions with coworkers and neighbors.
We hold as valuable that some exposure to Chinese culture is an important facet of raising our daughters.
The restaurant is one of the largest and best known in Houston. It seats 1800 people. It is beloved by the large Chinese community, and when we dine there, there are very few non-Chinese customers.
Of the 300+ people in the restaurant at the time, the only customers aware of this situation were me and Ms. Finn.
The presence of rodents is probably an unavoidable occurrence in many restaurants. In all likelihood, their mere presence would not affect the meal you are served on any given day. But it is a possible sign of cost savings on extermination services.

What I Did

To start, as I watched this happen, I was informing Ms. Finn, who fortunately was not able to witness the details, though she heard the broom repeatedly hitting the floor/rat. The kids were busy tormenting each other in innumerable ways, so they were blissfully unaware of what was going on.

Consideration 1: Whether to leave immediately.

If we did that, we would either have to explain why, or lie to the kids. I don't mind a little creative diversion now and then, but after going well out of our way to BE at this specific authentic Chinese restaurant for a celebration, it would have been highly suspect to leave. The older kids would want an answer, and we'd not be able to give a legitimate one.

Worse, we could leave and refuse to give the kids an explanation - and probably scare them equally as well.

Consideration 2: If you stay, you'll be eating food shortly thereafter.

We were within seconds of having our appetizers served. While this lead to some squeamish feelings as we barely nibbled on BBQ pork and sesame jellyfish, I had trouble convincing myself that this one rat would have any affect on the meal we were about to eat. If the restaurant has a rat today, it probably has had them before and will have them again. The kitchen is in a different area than where the rat was. The restaurant serves 1000's of meals per week, and if there were rampant food-borne illnesses, they would already have been shut down.

Consideration 3: Our girls impressions of "authentic" Chinese restaurants, Chinatown and the local Chinese community.

We've balanced a healthy respect for Chinese culture against artificially trying to force it upon our girls. Eating authentic Chinese dishes in Chinatown is one of our few mainstream connections to China. OK - this isn't a deep cultural connection. But at least we're surrounded by Chinese speakers, eating traditional dishes (e.g., ordering a whole live fish) and traveling in an area populated by many Asian peoples. And we're not forcing surface-level activities onto the girls, somewhat pretending we're Chinese. It's a reasonable integration activity.

But what if the rat incident makes it impossible for us to bring them to such a restaurant again? Or to bring them to Chinatown again? Could this incident implant an impression of Chinese people - here and in China - as slovenly people living in rodent infested conditions?

So we considered that potential damage, and decided to stay for the meal.

Consideration 4: Would you pay for the meal?

I'm on shakiest ground here. I was thinking that a confrontation with a manager would send the same signal to the kids that I was trying to avoid by staying. "Why is Daddy over there arguing with that manager?" In fact, I should have spoken to a manager immediately, in private, indicated that we'd stay, but not be paying for our meal. On the other hand, I just watched a rat get beaten with a broom, so I wasn't on my best game. Thus, the after the fact letter.

Lastly: Of course, I reported the incident to the Department of Health. I also plan to never eat there again - despite this being contradictory to why we stayed instead of leaving immediately.......I know.

Oregon State Flag

2008-01-26T11:54:00.001-06:00

Cyber friend Michael 5000 is a bit of a flag geek - well, not really just a bit. After recognizing the extreme suckitudiness of the flag from his beloved home state of Oregon, he's issued a challenge to redesign it. Here's a great way to kill an hour on a Saturday morning. My entry:

Obvious choices of natural green and blue, with the blue signifying the ocean more so than the sky. The stand of evergreens is intended to also evoke a sense of a skyline in the Western portion of the state, recognizing growth and sophistication integrating with natural beauty.

The outline of Mt. Hood represents my dominant first thought of Oregon. I first call up natural beauty, with mountains and dense stands of trees; that is followed by images of meandering streams, which might also be hinted at in the silhouette line drawing. Then I think of Nike and Tiger Woods and how they systematically created a major presence in the golf industry, but that doesn't really matter.

Also, by way of flag design principles, it looks pretty good in reverse, too.

So there it is. Now if only Michael will forgive me and d for doubting that the Estonian consul replied to his notification that Estonia won M5K's award for Best Flag.

Pinewood Derby over the Years

2008-01-17T18:59:00.000-06:00

An exceedingly busy week and a half eliminated any chance of a blog entry here, with a huge project at the office, annual start up for the Waves swim team, and another annual activity that is a highlight in our house - the Cub Scout Pinewood Derby.

This year Alex and I made an ice cream sandwich car. This design was first considered two years ago, and I'm glad we finally built it. In fact, it would have been far easier that what we built those years, with more steps in which Alex could safely use power tools back then. Even though Alex will never win the "most likely made entirely by a scout" award, this year he did more power tool work than ever before, did some of the hand work (which was almost non-existent) and he did 100% of the painting. My contributions fell to a little band saw work (but Alex did half), routing the edges and installing wheels.

Not that this blog is going to ever be a source for Pinewood Derby tips, but we did something this year based on experience, that would help lots of people. We used purple painters tape (the lightest hold, lighter than the ubiquitous blue tape) to wrap the white parts of the car while graphite was being applied to the wheel areas and while wheels were installed.

To those not familiar with Pinewood Derby, it's a model car race, primarily conducted by Cub Scouts. It began in the early 50's in California, when a dad with a young son didn't want to wait until his kids was old enough to build a full size Soap Box Derby car (those are the ones that kids sit in and ride down a hill). He invented a small model - 6" long - and a track, to allow younger kids to get the racing bug. It took off and was quickly adopted by the Scouts. Some other organizations such as YMCA and Awana conduct similar races.

Though I was only a scout for one or two years, I recall attempting to whittle a car with a dull pocket knife. Not only is this not going to lead to much of a car, it also is dangerous for a kid. The majority of cars constructed rely on sandpaper and elbow grease, with maybe a few hand tools. The top cars from a design standpoint are closer to mini sculptures.

[ Note to those who don't know me - I've built furniture as a hobby for 15 years, and have a complete woodworking shop in the garage. Building / sculpting a small car is not too tough in our house. ]

Nearly every kid and the majority adults think that air resistance ought to be a factor in obtaining speed. Mais non, mon amis. The surface area is too small and the tops speed is too slow for this to really matter much. What does matter in Pinewood is friction and weight, not in that order.

Since the cars are started on a downward sloping incline, gravity has a say in the proceedings. Thus the heavy car develops (faulty scientific claims here - beware) the greatest initial momentum since the forces of friction are minimal among these objects heading down a steep hill. The typical weight limit for Scouts is 5.0 ounces. So it's in your best interest to get your car to the maximum limit.

But once the car reaches the flat of the track, the forces of friction take over. This is where races are won and lost. It is not uncommon to see a lead car get passed on the flats by car that has less friction in play. Especially if the lead car is heavy with poor friction control, and the surging car has excellent friction reduction.

How to reduce friction? It's all in the wheels, axles and where the wheel hub touches the body of the car. First - the axle is a nail, which has a small burr left on the inner surface. This burr needs to be removed by sanding. Using a drill in a vise or drill press, one uses sandpaper to grind off the burr. Most people do this, but for a truly fast car, it needs to go further. I like to use the expression "sand it down until it shines like machine tool". Using progressively finer sand paper, keep sanding the axle until it has a mirror finish. This year we used sandpaper in the following grits: 80, 100, 180, 400, 1200, 1500. For best results, those highest grits are used wet.

Next step - and this is a secret step I've not read about anywhere else. since the wheel's hub touches the exterior of the car, we place a dab of cryano acrylic glue right next to where the axle will be inserted into the body. While it's still wet, spray graphite dust onto the glue spot. As it dries, continue to spray graphite. This will create a surface of hardened glue and graphite flakes - much less friction for the hub to rub against than, say, painted wood, which is what everyone else has.

Final steps include some touch ups to the plastic wheels, but mostly it's about installing the wheels true to each other, not too much play, and a really excessive amount of graphite.

Prior year results:

2007 - "The Texas Penny" - 2nd place overall (about of 70 cars).

2006 - "Banana" - 4th place overall (about 100 cars). As a young up and comer, Alex's car was a surprise. Potential controversy when at the end of the night the car slowed down dramatically in the finals, and I found what appeared to be a small smudge of chewing gum on our tire. No lie.

The Five Intoxications

2008-01-04T09:37:00.000-06:00

While listening this morning to Bach's Sonatas (BWV 1001, 1003, 1005) transcribed for classical guitar, I ran across this snippet that I saved a few months ago. I don't remember where I ran across it.

According to the thinkers of the East, there are five different intoxications:

Of beauty, youth and strength
Then the intoxication of wealth
The third is power, command, the power of ruling
And there is the fourth intoxication, which is the intoxication of learning, of knowledge.

But all these four intoxications fade away just like stars before the sun in the presence of the intoxication of music. The reason is that it touches that deepest part of man’s being. Music reaches farther than any other impression from the external world can reach. And the beauty of music is that it is both the source of creation and the means of absorbing it. In other words, by music was the world created, and by music it is withdrawn again into the source which has created it.

Hazrat Inayat Khan (1882-1927) Founder of the Sufi Order in the West

2007 In Review - Part 2

2008-01-02T12:43:00.000-06:00

5. A couple good and a couple memorable rounds of golf. Father in law Pete spent much of the month of February with us. We played several rounds together, as well as Pete getting a few weekday rounds in with Paul S. I think I played well - around 80 at my home course, Deerwood - as I remember saving a card for posterity. Same with my dad in December. 39 on the front side of Deerwood in 40 degree weather, soft fairways, fast greens and a double on #1.

Other top rounds of the year: Birdied 18 for a 76 at Redstone with Paul C the day before going to Alaska (also a nice surprise getaway that day). 80 at Erin Hills, beating JN - who admittedly was still recovering from a wrist injury - but that score on a tough track in high wind was great. 79 at Deerwood just after Christmas in same cold, wet conditions - birdied 10, 11 and 15, tap in par on 18 for 36 on the back.

6. NY Times crossword - moved from Mon-Thur caliber to Mon-Fri, with some Saturdays. All Sundays are now in range too. This was aided greatly by NYT providing access to premium puzzles to regular paper subscribers, and the discovery of Rex Parker. Without the analysis from Rex, I would probably stumble more often on recurring obscure words, and would not have the insight into the difficult Sat puzzles. Now getting about 1/2 of Saturday done most weeks, and have finished a few without help.

7. Classical Guitar. Got hold of a beautiful Giambattista G6b this summer, and realized that waiting until retirement to pick up classical guitar was foolish - why wait? Using the 30 minutes or so in the late evening when M. gets ready for bed, I no longer watch the news, or whatever, and play instead. Add to that are some early weekday evening time, including bedtime songs for Amy. This holiday break I had a couple long sessions (1 to 1.5 hours) which were very enjoyable.

Working through studies assembled by Ben Bolt which include Carcassi, Sor, Guiliani, and others. Also have gotten hold of 4 tablature transcriptions of Sor's Opus 35, 25 studies for guitar. These are among my favorites. Last night while playing #1, Amy made up words to her own Opus 35 #1 song and sang along.

8. Blogs, the Thursday Quiz and some cool bloggers. I was lead to other blogs by links from the Rex Parker blog. I fell instantly for the Thursday Quiz in the Life & Times of Michael 5000. Wish I could do the Monday quiz, but the images don't render onto my office PC. From there launched into the blogs of many others around the country. Most of the more conscientious bloggers seem to be academics or artists, and many of the blogs are somewhat angst-driven by younger bloggers. But to glimpse into these people's lives is intriguing, and leads to various personal reflections: "I remember.....", "Thank god I'm past.....", "What if I had done.....". Mostly good thoughts.

9. What Tom Cooked. This here blog, Notes from the 3DBB, serves a only couple simplistic purposes. Specifically, it's an easy way to post the China Adoption articles to share them with others. Secondly, it's an outlet for a few mildly amusing stories, reportage and introspection. A few minutes at lunchtime in the office, or at home the in evening, and voila - there's a simple post for my own posterity.

What has really gotten me jazzed up about blogs is What Tom Cooked. I've always regretted not keeping a cooking journal, and can't even put my finger on why I've not done so. However, to quickly dash off a post to the cooking blog seems effortless.

The benefits:
- Capturing the non-recipe stuff - some are pretty good, but all are easily forgotten. Especially if a creation is based more on leftover ingredients, or pantry items - it's easy to never think through the same process again.
- Provide original sources for menus and recipes - too often I lose track of where a dish came from. Even if I know it was from a Gourmet issue, it may be monumental to determine which issue if I want it several years later. Though I create menus for big parties and holiday meals, I don't always note the source. This is a key purpose of my WTC
blog.

Future benefits:
- I've always wanted a forum for reviewing the recipes in Gourmet each month, and same for the limited number of cookbooks worth using. Doing a monthly review of Gourmet's offerings may be beneficial to many. And an archive with cookbook reviews may be good too.
- The day-to-day messages I've composed in my head for years on how to cook now have a home. Maybe the "Everyday Cooking" idea can take better root, by first capturing my many lessons and observations on cooking via the blog first.

2007 Year in Review

2007-12-28T07:29:00.000-06:00

1. Two ruptured disks in April. Obligatory FAQ: "How did you do that?". FPA: putting on my pants. Really. Heard a loud pop followed by intense pain. Laid down for 30 minutes and then gingerly walked around. Foolishly attempted to put on pants again, felt and heard an even louder pop. For the next nine days I could not stand for more than two to five minutes at a stretch. Pain killers and muscle relaxers were the only way out. Followed by steroid injections, physical therapy and loss of regular workouts. But, in some freak alignment of the planets, this injury is not aggravated by swinging a golf club and vice versa.

2. Spent more time with the kids. It's still a jumble of schedules, meals, bedtimes and too much TV, video games and computers. But thanks to a great boss, and some good professional accomplishments, had the most comfortable and rewarding year since moving to Houston.

3. Two week Alaska cruise / tour in May. Luxurious double suite on cruise ship, first class travel. Granted cruising requires mingling with the general public - people of the land, you know, morons. However with just a little effort we smoked out a few nice folks from all walks....the Jackie O look alike who is a capital projects manager for Intel and her luthier / semi-famous musician husband - the two were about to move to China for two or three years as ex-pats. The retired IT VP from Chicago (the Bears baseball hat never left his head), who we had dinner with at an Italian restaurant in Fairbanks on my birthday. Better Italian food there than in Houston.

Highlights: Hike up the mountainside in Ketchikan, hike and raft trip in Skagway, Glacier Bay, whalewatching/sea lions/eagles in Juneau, Denali tour, flight to Mt. McKinley, soaking tourists for $500 playing $1/$2 limit hold em in the cruise boat casino.

4. Nora and Alex swimming. Nora started US Swimming in February, then had her best summer season by a long shot and qualified for All Stars. Alex also made Al Stars, but my favorite of his accomplishments were his three or four top 5 finishes. Mostly in breast, but one in back. Once he starts USS this coming year, he should be a top finisher in summer league.

To be continued.....

Hotpot Chinglish

2007-12-16T22:17:00.000-06:00

We had a great meal of Sichuan hotpot tonight at home. The kids got quite excited by the whole process. For cooking details and a history of hotpot, see my cooking blog: http://whattomcooked.blogspot.com/2007/12/sichuan-hotpot.html

What cracked me up was the expected mangling of English on the back of the package of hotpot mix. (I know, it should have made it from scratch - but I've done that and wanted to compare the imported Chinese versions to my home-made efforts).

While in China, most Americans encounter twisted variations of English phrases multiple times per day. On China Airlines, the back of every headrest is embroidered with (not printed, embroidered) the phrase "Fasten Sest Belt During Flight".

Here the wording on the back of tonight's hoptpot package:

"Hot Pot-specialty and symbol of the "Mountaing City" Chongqing. It is well known for it's edible style and embodied Bashu culture. It's peculiar rlavoring skill, favourable fame, stable quality and numerous chainstore. Moreover, it has won "a golden medal of Italy International Fair" and "China Famous and Special Condiment Products" and "ChongQing The Best Famous Hotpot" and "Chongqing Famous Trademark". ChangGuang brand flavouring for Hot Pot is crystallization of Cygnet scientific formulation, practical experience and continuous improvement for 10.

Do understand that this transcription has been carefully compared to the package and this is EXACTLY what appears.

In my office we strive for continuous improvement of 21. We used to go for 11, but you know who over-popularized that concept.

By the way, the hotpot was not bad.

Treo 700w Rest In Peace

2007-12-13T22:58:00.001-06:00

Tom M.'s Treo 700wx passed away last night in a Houston office following a short illness. Mr. M. confirmed the death, but did not release a specific cause. It is believed that failures in AC/DC power conversion contributed to the Treo's demise.

The Treo 700wx first came into Mr. M.'s hand in October 2006 when it was learned that Lynn C. owned a Windows model Treo, but no analyst on the WES team had access to such a unit. A WES analyst at the time helped troubleshoot a problem Ms. Caddell had by simply reading an online manual for the device. Shortly thereafter Mr. M. acquired several Treo 700w's for the analysts and even himself, in order to better share in Ms. C.'s mobile computing experience.

From October 2006 to December 2007 The Treo traveled on business and pleasure with Mr. M. to locations including West Huntingdon, PA, Green Lake, WI, Lajitas, TX and Anchorage Alaska. The well used device was best known for it's random beeping and inability to complete calls in the Kingwood area; rather, it preferred to send callers directly to voice mail.

The Treo was preceded in death by a Treo 650p, a RIM 942 and many other demo devices which mostly failed miserably. No immediate successor to the Treo has been identified, so Mr. M.'s communication while off site will be impaired for the next day or so.

An Incredible Bowling Story

2007-12-13T00:59:00.001-06:00

As a kid in Chicago, in my neighborhood anyway, you bowled. Saturday afternoons - 3 or 4 hours. Only now do I know it was an inexpensive way for parents to lose their surly pre-teenagers cheaply for an afternoon.

My Dad - big bowler - 200+ average. Me - learned the game, got decent, grew up and realized that bowling is great if you’re a member in good standing in Local 494.

Jump to 2005. I fly from Texas to Chi to celebrate my Dad’s 70th birthday. I am the one to suggest that the three brothers bowling with the old man would bring a tear to his eye. Off to Lisle Lanes.

It’s bowling for blood right off the bat. First game not bad, and get into a groove by the end. Second game. Strike, Strike, Strike. Owww. Oh my god. Something snapped in my arm. Arm goes limp, ball drops in a tremendous thud. Can’t move my arm from the elbow down.

At lightning speed I recall prior orthopedic problems and correctly determine - I just tore my bicep off the bone in my forearm (if arm can’t move this way, what makes it move? Not too hard to figure). Shock sets it. Not figuratively, literally. That and a couple quick beers and there’s little pain involved (that’s the cool thing about shock - it happens for a reason).

Based on years of (correctly) choosing not to bowl, I end up torquing my muscle in such a way that I tore the tendon off my arm - BOWLING.

I end up in a cast for 8 weeks and now have a huge scar on my arm. For the rest of my life I have to admit that I had a serious injury….while BOWLING.

I hang my head in shame and return to my gin and tonic.

Statistics

Number of people who live within 1 mile of my house who have torn their bicep tendon off while bowling: 2. Me and Delton Hayes.
Number of people who live within 1 mile of my house who have torn their bicep tendon off doing something semi athletic: 3. Add Jeff Martin, fellow WM'er. Softball.
Number of people I know who have torn off their bicep tendon: 4. There was some sales rep from a software company. Can't remember exactly who, though.

TV Shows With "zo" in Their Title

2007-12-11T13:16:00.000-06:00

We upgraded our Dish Network receivers last week. Major trauma for the kids who had a bunch of shows recorded on the DVR. Reality is that they'd likely not watch most of what they saved anyway.

In the course of recreating their favorite shows to record, someone (Nora) made a small error while trying to set a timer to record Zoey 101, a tween favorite (elite California coastal prep school - all the kids too cool for themselves, blah, blah, blah). Nora accidentally set up a timer to record anything with the letters "zo" in the title.

The first day or two I saw a couple shows recorded and was surprised by the kids choices. The shows were not the usual fare. When some Spanish language shows appeared, I suspected something was amiss. Last night I discovered the "zo" problem.

But it was actually pretty cool to see what got served up by the DVR based on a couple random letters. In fact, it was so cool, I decided to capture the results. I even watched one of the shows last night, and saved the others.

1. Zoey 101 - 2 episodes. This is what Nora wanted to record in the first place. "Logan receives a care package from his father in Japan. The boys investigate who is pulling the fire alarm in the dorm." Actors: Craig Robert Young (ya think his parents wanted him to act, or is this a stage name?). and Sean Flynn Amir (Irish mother, Arabian sheik father?).

2. Zola Levitt Presents - "Bible teaching with an emphasis on prophecy, Israel and the Jewish roots of Christianity". I have heard of this show since around my childhood. I think it's been on since then, and if not, it's long running. Never seen it though.

3. Chalk Zone - Episode 1: "Wrestler Thor Throat plans to rob a bank. Rudy discovers evil chalk. Snap and Blocky find baby chocolate bunnies." Episode 2: "Rudy and Snap take Penny to see a night club act. Rudy and Snap get their eyeballs taken over by eye pods. Martial arts master". Kids show.....but what age. Love the eye pod pun.

4. 64 Zoo Lane - 2 episodes. No further description.

5. The Twilight Zone - 4 episodes. Score!! I haven't seen the Twilight Zone for years. Anytime I stumble across an episode I'm taken aback at how powerful these little plays are. Simple staging, clever and/or weighty topics, sometimes bordering on intellectual, and almost always thought provoking. And they were popular with the General Public too.

TTZ Episode 1: "A man sells his soul for immortality."
TTZ Episode 2: "Hostility greets a traveler bearing a gift."

TTZ Episode 3: "A ventriloquist thinks his dummy is alive." STOP RIGHT THERE - this was the episode that scared the living bejesus out of me when I was about 10 or 12 years old. I think I was babysitting at home (must have been about 12 then I guess). Scared me so bad I almost called my parents, but knew they'd kill me for a) watching that kind of show, and b) getting so scared that I had to call them as a result. I'm 100% confident I didn't pee my pants, but was definitely more scared than that. And that episode randomly (and I really mean random here) comes back to haunt me. I saw this episode again in college or young adult life, and clearly remembered being so scared of it as a kid. Watching it again, it wasn't that big of a deal. Can't wait to see it now - but I'll be sure to not let Alex see this one until he's older.

TTZ Episode 4: "A professor learns his daughter's fiance is immortal." I watched this one last night. Awesome. I just now realized that the first episode recorded is about immortality. I wonder if it's the same character earlier on.

These shows are almost perfectly "tight" - every line, every shot has meaning to the story, you just need to put the pieces together. Even the descriptions of the episodes are brilliant in their clarity - a simple terse sentence, making an elementary statement about what will be a captivating teleplay. Look at all the questions and imagery that are brought up by a phrase as simple as "Hostility greets a traveler who is bearing a gift". Hostility? Really? But he's bearing a gift. I wonder what the gift is? Immortality? A relic? Money? Why is he traveling? Does he bring this gift to many people / places, or is this a one time shot? What if the gift is bad? Is the traveler the grim reaper? Of course he'd be greeted with hostility. But the story could never be that simple.

Back to the shows:

6. Premiere League Fan Zone - English Soccer: "Blackburn Rams vs. West Ham United". I think West Ham is owned by the richest businessman in England, or at least he's the richest soccer team owner.

7. Un Tracazo de Dinero - "Dos amigos son lestrigos de una ejucacion, decidon irge a la capital y en el camino ecuentran dos maletas, una con drogos y la otra con dinero". Uneducated friends go to the capital and share a house with two bad guys, one with drugs, the other with money?? Never took a day of Spanish in my life......so this is likely way off.

8. Have You Seen Your Zoo Lately? OK - that's enough already.

Return to Wuhan

2007-12-05T17:34:00.000-06:00

Tom and Nora McGuffey Visit Wuhan China

My daughter Nora and I returned to her birthplace of Wuhan, China the summer she turned ten years old. It was my second trip to China in two years, so I would not be surprised by the dramatic changes in Chinese cities in the decade since Nora was adopted as an infant. Though we didn’t know it, neither of us were fully prepared for our visit to her orphanage and hometown.

Upon arrival in China we spent a day in Guangzhou at the White Swan Hotel to get over jet lag and to enjoy “breakfast with the babies” at the hotel restaurant. Since there are typically 200 or more adoptive American families in Guangzhou simultaneously awaiting immigration clearance, breakfast at the White Swan is a hectic scene. Newly adopted babies, toddlers and even older kids are everywhere, surrounded by their new parents and siblings. Nora was even given a gift of the “adoption Barbie” doll that the newly adopting families receive from the hotel.

The flight to Wuhan was short, roughly the distance from Houston to Chicago. Looking over the countryside from above, we saw new highways being carved into the gently rolling hills, but less evidence of industrial growth across the landscape than expected. The airport was quite familiar, as it had not been renovated since our first visit, unlike the airport in Guangzhou which rivals the architecture of the Hong Kong airport on a slightly smaller scale. We arrived in the full heat of summer, amid the glaring noontime sun – quite a contrast to our 1995 trips to Wuhan airport in dreary, drizzling fall weather. Both inside and out, the run-down and heavily used facility seemed familiar. Like most communist-era buildings in China, it was of utilitarian grey concrete and plain ceramic tile with few adornments, excepting the madding crowd and intense volume of voices and vehicles.

Nora and I easily located Nancy, our interpreter/guide for the next two days. She was accompanied by a driver who brought us into Wuhan proper in a non-descript white van. As the airport faded behind us, I was again surprised by the lack of industrial development in the outlying areas, something which I was never able to fully understand during my visit.

This surprise was countered by the expected urban development within Wuhan city itself. We were headed toward a Hotel Sofitel located within a major business district. Like in Beijing, Guangzhou and Chongqing, this area was heavily populated with soaring new glass and concrete office buildings, seemingly all labeled as banks of one sort or another. Another connection back to 1995 were the many buildings under construction. All were shrouded with scaffolding, mostly comprised of bamboo poles lashed together, even at twenty floors or more above ground.

An amusing sidelight was when our driver tried to avoid a busy intersection by cutting through a side street, but was ticketed for going the wrong way on the one way street. There was extensive arguing and bargaining with the cop, and the requisite crowd of onlookers, many of whom were interested in the weigouren (foreigner - me) in the back of his van. In then end, he got the ticket.

To The Orphanage

The orphanage was our first stop after lunch at an impressive and cavernous local restaurant where Nora and I ate dumplings, fresh pea shoots and lotus root. Business people at the large tables around us smoked excessively and drank hard liquor during lunch.

Wuhan is comprised of three towns, Wuchang, Hankou and Hanyang, which were originally independent of each other. The orphanage is located in the Wuchang section, the oldest and most historically significant part of the city. It was in this area in 1911 that the first uprisings against the Qing Dynasty emperor occurred, lead by Sun Yat-sen. Because Hanyang stands at the mouth of Han River where it flows into the Yangtze River, it has been important port city as far back as the Han Dynasty in 200 BC. And as long as 300 years ago Hankou was one of the top four trading towns in China. In several stages from the 1920’s through the 1940’s these cities were merged into today’s Wuhan.

Amidst a horrendous traffic jam, we crossed the Yangtze River over the three mile expanse of Wuhan Second Chang Jiang Bridge, which opened in 1995. Chiang Jiang is the Chinese name for the Yangtze River, literally translated as “long river”. The First Chang Jiang Bridge opened in 1957 and was the first bridge built over the Yangtze to accommodate railroad traffic from northern to southern China. Prior to the bridge being available, railroad cars were ferried across the river taking up to a full day.

In 1995 we crossed the Number One Bridge just once, to reach the airport. But we were near the base of the bridge one morning on an excursion. At the time we were surprised to see the bridge guarded by military staff armed with automatic weapons. After 9/11, Americans can better understand the importance of key infrastructure and the diligence needed to protect it. That day, we also stopped briefly on the banks of the Yangtze River, where I dipped 5-month-old Nora’s toes into the water. Back near the bus, we bought water chestnuts from a local vendor, not even knowing what they were until he pulled out a sharp knife to peel back the tough skins. As compared to the same root that comes packaged in cans or in American Chinese food, it was a delicacy.

Bad luck continued for our Wuhan driver as he headed toward the orphanage. The neighborhood streets were convoluted and the driver was somewhat confused about exactly which street we were looking for. Stopping many times for directions, he never got clear answers. We were surprised that the orphanage, which we know is a fairly large campus of several buildings, was not something that many locals were aware of.

The closer we got to our destination, the surrounding buildings became more decrepit and the streets were in great disrepair. As we stopped for the final time to discuss directions with locals, I felt a bit uneasy about our surroundings. There weren’t many people, but the few we saw were indigent even by Chinese standards. Several middle aged men appeared to be rather tough characters and their expressions while observing us (or more precisely, me) were a bit menacing. This was the only time in three long trips to China that I felt threatened in any way.

Greeted by Caregivers at The Wuhan Children’s Welfare Institute

We finally pulled up to the base of a steep hill where we were greeted immediately by a woman in a white medical coat. After a short introduction we walked up the slope to the first level of the complex, perched on a plateau with a view far across the city. The four story building was impressive with white exterior tile and reddish-orange trim and roof tiles. The majority of the surrounding landscape was concrete, except around a few pieces of stationary playground equipment. As with cities like Houston or Phoenix the oppressive heat makes grassland expensive to maintain. But I felt sorry for the children who were a couple miles from the closest large park.

Once inside, we were seated in a large, modern conference room. We were joined by a woman in her late forties who was described as one of Nora’s caregivers. For quite a while I led myself to believe that this might have been Nora’s “foster mother” who brought her to our hotel in 1995, as there was a resemblance. With further reflection, I no longer suspect this. Unfortunately, I do not recall the names of the two female caregivers. For readability, allow me to refer to the first caregiver in the white coat as Ms. Han and the second woman as Mrs. Wu.

We all sat one at end of the conference room on upholstered chairs in front of a coffee table. Mrs. Wu pulled out a “100 day” picture of Nora – the same picture we were given by Nora’s nanny. Mrs. Wu told us that she remembered caring for Nora as a baby. While this astounded me, I realized that our visit was planned well in advance, so there was ample time to review files and jog memories. In fact, review of Nora’s files was certainly necessary in order to grant approval for the visit.

Consider how school teachers can remember their students many years afterward. Especially if given the chance to review an old class list or photo, a teacher would easily remember nearly every student. Probably most of us can picture grade school classmates whom we’ve not seen since 8^th grade. So my initial skepticism was appeased.

Mrs. Wu pulled out a small gift-wrapped box and handed it to Nora. Inside was a silver necklace, a gift from her own daughter who is Nora’s age. Of course we had small gifts for the caregivers, but I no longer recollect what they were.

Wuhan Children’s Welfare Institute Director Li

When a very small man as much as ten years my younger entered the room, I was surprised to learn that he was the director of the orphanage. We greeted and he sat stiffly in front of us in a hard backed chair. He spoke very deliberately to Nancy our translator, who related to us a history of the orphanage. Started in the 1920’s by a religious mission group, it was taken over by the government in the early 1950’s. In 1997 a Taiwanese group donated the funds to build the current buildings, leaving a small portion of the original building intact.

Director Li told us that Wuhan Children’s Welfare Institute was the largest children’s institute in Hubei province with over 300 children in residence. He indicated that the facility accommodates the most severely handicapped and ill children who are transferred to Wuhan from other orphanages in the province. Many times he told us of the need for more money to be able to run the orphanage effectively.

He said they had trouble transporting children from their grounds to hospitals for treatment and were in great need of an ambulance. At first this didn’t make sense to me, but later when we saw the critical nature of some of the young children, it was apparent that an ambulance-caliber vehicle would be needed for proper transport.

The discussion with Director Li ran about 15 to 20 minutes. Somewhere in the middle of all this, Nancy began to use the word oxygen instead of orphanage. Earlier in the day she had it right, but we had already established that she had never worked with adopting families or returning adoptive families before.

Nora and I were both confused, and first believed we were just hearing her wrong. But after a few repetitions of the word oxygen, I realized what was going on. Not wanting to embarrass her in front of the others, I didn’t correct her. Later, in the hallway, I clued in Nora as to why Nancy kept saying oxygen. To this day we chuckle when we sometimes call the orphanage “the oxygen”.

A pre-condition of our visit was that we make a donation to the institute. Just prior to our arrival, we had purchased two large floor standing air conditioning units from a local store, which were to be delivered later in the day. These units look like very thin refrigerators and vent both cold air and exhaust (safely) into the room, unlike the familiar window air conditioners seen in the U.S.

Having remarked on the duct work visible around the conference room, I was told that the buildings had central air conditioning, but that it was too expensive to use. Thus, portable air conditioners were used to cool off key areas.

Director Li filled out a certificate of donation and we posed for pictures as he presented it to me. This was a very formal procedure for a simple donation, but it reminded me of the protocol we experienced in 1995. While in a dimly lit, run-down conference room the morning before we met our girls, we signed documents with a local official. We were all prepared to present a gift to the official after signing. Thinking either it wasn’t important, or that everyone else already knew, I didn’t mention to our traveling partners that when presenting a gift one was to hand it over using two hands, not one. When it was our turn, I stood and held out the gift with two hands. Recognizing this sign of respect, the official quickly rose out of his chair, accepted the gift with two hands and kowtowed to me. I thought of this incident as Director Li and I smiled, shook hands and bowed back and forth at each other far too many times that afternoon.

It was then time to present Director Li with our gifts. The first was a double frame with a picture of Nora as an infant side by side with a recent picture of her with our family. We also shared a ceramic dish decorated with the red, white and blue design of the Texas state flag. He turned it over and quickly found the words “Made In China” on the back, pointing them out to me.

Touring the CWI Facilities

Just before embarking on a tour of the oxygen, we were joined by a portly woman in a lab coat who was introduced to us as the medical director. She too recognized Nora and described her as a well behaved, happy baby. In describing her as an infant, she made a reference to Nora having a problem in which “something” covered a large portion of her head. I asked what she meant, but through the translator was unable to get a comprehensible answer.

We wandered down dank hallways, which even when painted gave the sense of bare concrete. Though it was mid-afternoon on a sunny day, the hallways seemed dark owing to the limited number of windows and because interior lights were turned off to save money. With an estimated temperature of around 100 degrees, the lack of lights and windows seemed to somewhat relieve the oppressive heat.

Our first destination was a nursery visible from the hallway through several large paned windows. Despite the building being only eight years old, it gave the impression of a hospital ward from the 1940’s or 50’s. Inside we found about thirty children in industrial style cribs, also appearing to be decades old. We were specifically asked to not take pictures in this nursery, which made sense given the age of the children – from weeks old to about 18 months.

Babies were both standing and lying down, with only a few of the youngest sleeping. Quickly we came upon a highly inquisitive child about nine months of age grasping the edge of a crib. Bright, engaged eyes followed our every move and facial expression. Unfortunately it was hard to return our gaze to this child. Her head was grossly swollen, close to double the normal size of a child that age. I was told of the medical condition involved and that the child would likely not live more than a few years. I forced myself to return eye contact and made pleasant faces, smiles and some small waves with my hand. Not being sure of the immediate severity of this affliction, I was reluctant to make contact with her hand or arm. Admittedly, I was also a little afraid. But through those brilliant eyes I could see the completely functioning brain of a fragile child who couldn’t realize there was anything physically wrong with her body.

I leaned over to Nora and whispered to stay calm and patient. I told her that although these are some very sick children, most of them are very glad to have visitors.

In the third of four cribs in the central area of the room was a child we were also not prepared for. He was another 9-month-old with untreated cleft palate. His upper lip was non-existent, and skin and nose area appeared to be pulled up exposing what should have been top teeth, but instead was a reddened jumble of unfamiliar flesh and bone. I told Nora it was okay to look away and move on toward the other cribs, where there were no more babies with such severe problems. Having no medical background or prior exposure to such a condition, I was taken aback even more strongly than with the first baby. But, quickly realizing what this condition was, I reassured myself that with several surgeries this child would be very close to normal since I have seen evidence of many successful cleft palate treatments in China in the past.

The remainder of our nursery tour was less dramatic, though we saw several babies with heart defects and other serious internal problems. But most were healthy and happy pre-toddlers, who were receiving tender care from the three nannies in the room.

The medical director excused herself, but not before I collared her and the interpreter for another moment to try to clarify an earlier comment that Nora has “something covering her head” as an infant. I indicated that we were told that Nora had no current or prior medical conditions when we adopted her. It seemed to me that she was thinking of a different baby. But she persisted and was convinced that she was recalling my Nora. Still slightly concerned, we bid farewell. I looked at Nora and pictured her lifetime of good health, trying to convince myself that this knowledge didn’t matter much, receiving it so long after the fact.

Our tour continued upstairs where we saw rooms for the kids. Sleeping rooms were institutional, practical and not decorated in any way. Each contained one or two beds and a single cabinet. We didn’t see any large rooms with multiple beds, though I suspect there must have been some dorms of that style given the number of children on site. Nearby, we were also shown several small music practice rooms with classical Western and Chinese instruments inside.

Next we were brought to a large dance studio where we found over a dozen girls and boys in matching Snoopy tee shirts. The far wall of the studio was entirely covered with a Ronald McDonald mural. All of this took us by surprise, being in sharp contrast to the institutional nature of what we’d seen so far. The kids were in the middle of a dance class, but stopped to visit with us. We made only small talk through the interpreter, as I was fearful of asking an inappropriate question and making anyone uncomfortable. I wished we had prepared for this interaction better and had some questions on hand. We had brought several small gifts for each of the kids, including bright green bracelets from Waste Management in the style of the Lance Armstrong bracelets. They seemed to enjoy these most.

We proceeded to the remaining section of the old orphanage where we took a peek into a kindergarten classroom. These children were not orphanage residents, but rather neighborhood kids who came for this class conducted by the orphanage. I suspected that this provided additional income to the orphanage, but could not divulge the specifics from our guides.

We returned to the conference room, took a few more pictures and allowed Director Li to implore me again to raise money for the orphanage. With the best intentions I took his message to heart, but knew that I was already overextended with community and charity work, so would likely not be able to arrange for his ambulance.

As we walked toward the front gate, we were presented with a large envelope containing 8x10 glossy pictures of the orphanage and important sites around Wuhan. Director Li inspected the back of the Texas dish several more times, and I feebly tried to explain that my display of Texas pride should override the country of manufacture of the dish. He just seemed more confused.

We received very warm farewells from Mrs. Wu and Ms. Han, but immediately began to feel an unexpected and intensely strong emotional drain from the visit.

Incredible Strokes of Luck

Nora’s adoption documents indicate that she was found on Zhongnanlu-jie Street in Wuhan. I vaguely remember consulting a map in 1995 to determine the approximate location of that street, but we came to the conclusion that it was not nearby. One thing we regretted from our 1995 trip was that we didn’t try harder to find this street. For this trip I was armed with the street name and as soon as we met Nancy I began pestering her to find Zhongnanlu Street.

As we were returning from the orphanage we traveled a very busy major thoroughfare. Out the window I spied the words Zhongnan Lu on a bus stop sign. Upon seeing the next bus stop, it turned out we were actually on Zhongnanlu Street at that very moment. It was one of the major streets through that section of Wuhan, densely packed with a vast array of small shops and businesses. The sidewalks were thick with pedestrians and each bus stop was crowded with commuters. Ironically, it was a short walk away from the Lijiang Hotel, where we stayed in 1995, and we should have easily found the street.

While driving a major thoroughfare toward the orphanage I had noticed a large plaza with a sizable building toward one end. The building was vaguely reminiscent of the sports arena across the street from the Lijiang Hotel. I’ve always had a good sense of space and location, even in new cities, so when we neared this area on our return trip, I asked our driver to make a few turns in that area. Lo and behold, it was the same arena, and after a turn southward we were in front of the Lijiang Hotel.

Despite being truly exhausted from the orphanage visit, we stopped briefly and went inside. Some minor remodeling had been done, but otherwise the main lobby features were immediately recognizable. I quickly climbed the spiral staircase to the second floor and found the conference room where we first met our babies ten years ago. Continuing down the hall, and raising suspicion among staff since I was so singularly focused on showing ourselves around, we entered the room. Dark and small, possibly carved into a smaller configuration than the original room, it contained a conference table and the modern stackable chairs found in any western conference room. Gone were the grey oversized upholstered chairs and militaristic décor. I was a little disappointed by the change, but we took a quick picture and departed for the hotel. I convinced our guide that we should return the next day for lunch in the hotel restaurant and a walk around the neighborhood.

The Provincial Museum and Yellow Crane Tower

On our second day in Wuhan I was looking forward to visiting the provincial historical museum and the Yellow Crane Tower. Besides being the two biggest tourist attractions in Wuhan, they were sure to bring back fond memories of the first few days with our new babies ten years earlier. But before traveling back to the Wuchang area, I wandered around the streets near the hotel to view the early morning scene. As in all large Chinese cities there are more people around than one would ever expect. People of all ages and walks of life were rushing to work, shop, exercise or just out for a stroll. There were definitely more automobiles on the streets than ten years ago, but walkers and bike riders were still the majority. For hauling goods, motorcycles were the norm, side by side with a large contingent of human pulled carts.

We returned over the Number Two Bridge without a repeat traffic jam and arrived at the provincial museum around nine in the morning. I was certain that there was an error communicating with Nancy, as we were nowhere near the eighty year old grey stone building we previously visited. But we were both certain of the name – Hubei Province Historical Museum. I soon learned that the old museum had been torn down and a modern facility was still being constructed. One third of the museum was open and it contained a set of enormous bronze bells dating from over 2400 years ago. That sealed it – we were definitely in the right place.

In 1978 over 15,000 relics were dug up near Suizhou city in Hubei province, belonging to a local marquis named Zeng Hou Yi. The museum now contained a far more modern presentation of the contents of the marquis’ tomb than the musty old museum. In fact, it included the marquis’ tomb, which was an enormous wooden vault the size of a small house. Inside, it contained the marquis’ coffin, coffins for 21 slaves (buried alive, unfortunately), a dog, a horse and an enormous stash of household goods, musical instruments, weapons and ritual items from the era.

At this point, try to picture a slightly jet-lagged 10-year-old, still shaken from the emotional visit to the orphanage the day before, who had absolutely zero interest in regional Chinese history. You can image how little fun she was having that morning.

We bought a few nice gifts for Nora’s friends and teachers and headed to the Yellow Crane Tower. This too was not recognizable at first. We first encountered a bank of shops perched above a large unfamiliar parking lot. From there we entered a small but colorful midway of additional shops selling trinkets. It was a colorful sight, but certainly not anything we saw at the Yellow Crane Tower the first time we were there. This area emptied out into a plaza with a small man made pond and stone pagodas. While pleasant, it was still not our tower.

Continuing forward, we finally saw the pagoda towering above the trees. It was a few steps to the side entrance and ramp that I remember climbing with Nora in a Snügli on one of our first days together. The tower and yellow crane (atop snake and turtle) statue was a little more interesting to Nora, but not a lot. And it was HOT. The tiniest breeze up on the 5^th floor of the pagoda was the only relief we got.

There have been pagodas on this site since 223 AD, which have been destroyed by fire or invasion and rebuilt many times. Models of previous towers can be found inside, along with stunning mosaic murals of the fictional Yellow Crane and other art. There are several legends attributed to the yellow crane and the tower with over three hundred poems written about them, including ones by famous poets such as Cui Hao, Li Bai and even a 1927 poem by future Chairman Mao Zedong.

Back to the Lijiang Hotel

Our next destination was a return to the Lijiang Hotel, at which we arrived just in time for lunch. All the restaurants in the hotel served only local Chinese food and Nancy tried her hardest to convince us that we didn’t want to eat there. But we love the local food and it was so important to enjoy some time in that hotel that we prevailed. Nora enjoyed noodles and several bowls of rice. She even ate quite a few chicken pieces that were prepared in a very spicy sauce that reminded me more of Sichuan province than Hubei.

There were no fewer than three waitresses hovering near our table at any time. I talked to them for a while about Nora and our visit to Wuhan. I asked them what they knew about adoption. They said they had heard that American women are afraid of the pain of childbirth, so they adopt babies instead of going through labor. I told them I have never met an America woman who had done that and had never heard of that practice. They assured me it was true. Actually, the pain of childbirth is a common fear among Chinese women, given their slight build. These girls simply took the local viewpoint that rich women can afford to avoid childbirth and projected it upon American women.

After lunch we walked around an enormous plaza that was immediately to the north of the hotel and the arena. Though there were some trees and a few grassy spots, it was mostly paved in concrete – making it difficult to appreciate in the 100 degree plus heat. Even though we initially wanted to explore the nearby neighborhood, we simply took one complete walk around the plaza, noticed a small amphitheater for musical performances and quickly crossed the street back to the hotel and our car.

Once there, we met a woman begging near the hotel entrance. Nora has a big heart and wanted to give her some money. Unlike some of the “professional” beggars we encounter routinely in Houston, this woman was clearly in need. I was quite proud of Nora wanting to help this woman and this scene was one of the highlights of the entire trip to me.

On To Other Parts of China

Nora and I were drained by this short visit to Wuhan. We relaxed as we drove through the countryside for several hours to reach a cruise boat on the Yangtze River in Yichang that would take us through the Three Gorges and into Sichuan Province where Nora’s sister Amy was born.

I may have brought Nora to China a little before she was ready. Yet we clearly met our goal of giving Nora a better understanding of her birthplace and birth country. As we traveled into other areas of China and we met other American families and kids to play with, the trip got more enjoyable for her.

Despite the challenges in the orphanage, jet lag, language barriers and “historical museums”, Nora and I both look back on our trip and smile about the best parts. We remember with certain clarity the moments that were uncomfortable at the time, but were important parts of experiencing China and understanding where our family comes from.

Two Poems Inspired by the Yellow Crane Tower in Wuhan

Seeing off Meng Haoran for Guangling at Yellow Crane Tower
by Li Bai

My old friend has said goodbye to the west, here at Yellow Crane Tower,
In the third month's cloud of willow blossoms, he's going down to Yangzhou.
The lonely sail is a distant shadow, on the edge of a blue emptiness,
All I see is the Yangtze River flow to the far horizon.

Yellow Crane Tower
by Cui Hao

The yellow crane has long since gone away,
All that here remains is yellow crane tower.
The yellow crane once gone does not return,
White clouds drift slowly for a thousand years.
The river is clear in Hanyang by the trees,
And fragrant grass grows thick on parrot isle.
In this dusk, I don't know where my homeland lies,
The river's mist-covered waters bring me sorrow.

Two Poems by Chairman Mao Related to Wuhan and the Yellow Crane Tower

Yellow Crane Tower (1927)

Wide, wide flow the nine streams through the land,
Dark, dark threads the line from south to north.
Blurred in the thick haze of the misty rain
Tortoise and Snake hold the great river locked.

The yellow crane is gone, who knows whither?
Only this tower remains a haunt for visitors.
I pledge my wine to the surging torrent,
The tide of my heart swells with the waves.

Note: Chairman Mao was a prolific poet, and owing to his position many of his poems became well known. Swimming became one of the most famous of Mao poems. But critics rated his poetry skills as average. Notice that the first two lines of the second stanza of Mao’s poem are almost identical to the first two lines of Cui’s poem. While maybe not plagiarized, Mao’s lines are too similar to Cui’s to be original thought inspired by the same pagoda.

Swimming (1956)

I have just drunk the waters of Changsha
And come to eat the fish of Wuchang.
Now I am swimming across the great Yangtze,
Looking afar to the open sky of Chu.
Let the wind blow and waves beat,
Better far than idly strolling in courtyard.
Today I am at ease.
It was by a stream that the Master said --
"Thus do things flow away!"

Sails move with the wind.
Tortoise and Snake are still.
Great plans are afoot:
A bridge will fly to span the north and south,
Turning a deep chasm into a thoroughfare;
Walls of stones will stand upstream to the west
To hold back Wushan's clouds and rain
Till a smooth lake rises in the narrow gorges.
The mountain goddess if she is still there
Will marvel at a world so changed.

Note: The “bridge….to span the north and south” is a reference to the Wuhan Number One Bridge. The “Walls of stones” refer to the Three Gorges Dam. While Mao expected both bridge and dam to be quickly built, the dam project didn’t begin construction for decades and will be fully completed in 2009.

Just Remember You've Been To This Place Today

2007-12-04T03:01:00.000-06:00

A Father and Daughter Make a Return Trip to China

Return Trip Expectations

Wang Ya was the seventh and last child brought into the conference room in Wuhan’s Lijiang Hotel in 1995. My wife Margie and I were near breathless as we waited for one the nannies to announce that our new daughter, soon to be named Nora Jane Ya McGuffey, was the five-month-old child in her arms. Finally, a smartly dressed woman in a western-style suit called out “Wang Ya? Wang Ya?” and handed Nora to us. This past summer we were fortunate to have the opportunity to bring Nora back to visit China for the first time since her infancy.

To talk to Nora over the phone, she is indistinguishable from any other fourth grader in suburban Houston. In person the only difference is her outward appearance, of course, having been born in central China. Nora makes occasional references to China and shows a certain amount of pride in her Chinese heritage, but fitting in with her classmates is a high priority now, so her interest in China has diminished a bit lately.

From the earliest age, we have kept Nora connected to information and experiences to preserve a link to her Chinese heritage. We’ve seen some parents provide quite a bit more than we do and some less. A return trip to China was simply another step in the ongoing process of keeping her connected to China as best we could. It might invigorate Nora to further appreciate Chinese culture and paint a realistic picture of the China that she has idealized in her head so far in her life.

In 2004 we adopted Amy, now two and a half. Using the China-based guide who handled that trip, we created an itinerary that would bring us to the places that are important to our family’s adoption experiences – such as Shamian Island in Guangzhou, Nora’s orphanage in Wuhan and Amy’s orphanage in Fuling. In addition, we would take a Yangtze River cruise through the Three Gorges, see Panda bears in Chongqing, a visit to Beijing and the usual tourist sites. We also had an invitation to a remote Sichuan village where we would meet a former student of my sister-in-law.

I expected that Nora would be fascinated by the frenetic pace of the major cities and excited to see the most recognizable sights in China like the Great Wall, Forbidden City and Three Gorges. Visiting the orphanages would provide a connection with her past. Cruising the river would be a break for us to just relax, eat, read books and play some games.

Did I expect much commentary and insight from Nora during this trip? Yes and no. I expected a running commentary, but not insight. She is bright and energetic but Nora is not highly introspective and contemplative. Overall, I was confident that Nora and I were well prepared for a great adventure – as long as she could handle the excruciating flights overseas.

Adjustments on Day 1

Departing Houston mid-morning on a Sunday in late June, I fully expected that our three-flight, 25-hour journey would be difficult. But there were enough movies, music and a little sleep to keep us from losing our wits or nerves. Despite the excitement of finally arriving in Guangzhou, we were exhausted once we reached the White Swan Hotel shortly after midnight on Monday.

Or so I thought. I awoke at 6 am to take Nora on a walk to show her tai chi, river swimmers, fan dancers and the unique wake up activities around Shamian Island. To my dismay, I learned that Nora had been up all night enjoying the cartoon channel. Wide awake on the outside, I knew she must be exhausted – and now the prospect of an early morning walk seemed bland for a weary young traveler.

Off we went, despite mild protests. Protests already? This was our very first activity in China. Weeks ago I had discussed with Nora that waking up early and walking around the island might not be that exciting, but she would see things unlike she’d never seen before - all typical of everyday Chinese life. I also promised a wild scene in the White Swan restaurant where fifty or more families would be having breakfast with their new children and making friends with whomever was at the table next to them with their new child.

When we hit the humid Guangdong air, our camera lenses fogged up so badly that we couldn’t use them. Nora was not all too fascinated with the morning exercisers and many of the areas I was used to seeing filled with people were empty or sparse. Had we come out too early? We walked around the island and returned to the hotel for breakfast. I don’t think Nora asked a single question or made a comment. One word answers were the only responses I could draw out.

Breakfast did not disappoint. There were ecstatic parents, babies, and toddlers everywhere. We saw many older siblings traveling with their families. A recently adopted toddler with one arm fascinated us, while her mother juggled two older siblings and comforted the toddler effortlessly. An eager new father brought his guitar to breakfast to serenade his infant daughter.

Nora finally got to sleep and I got to thinking about our itinerary. Far too much of what we were planning was not really kid-friendly. Nora wasn’t showing fascination or inquisitiveness. Maybe she was just tired. I began to suspect that she might also be intimidated and uncomfortable. Did I not plan this trip adequately?

On the spot, I committed to myself to make any adjustments necessary to make this Nora’s trip, not my trip, or ‘our’ trip done my way. That meant that I’d have to be willing to spend a little less time on adult-level sight-seeing, be willing to adjust schedules and attempt to find as many kid-friendly activities as possible. We’d also likely have a little more room service and HBO than originally planned.

As it turned out, some of our fondest memories are from our evening wind-down time in the hotels. There were lots of movies on cable, including some that wouldn’t have been allowed at home. A few bad words or mature situations had to be rationalized, but there were only two or three English language channels to choose from. Nora learned the rules of nine-ball billiards by watching late night Star Sports coverage and really enjoyed the one-week-delayed Wimbledon coverage. All of this was accompanied by lots of soda and sour-cream Pringles chips.

Surprises in Wuhan

We arrived in Wuhan on a sweltering day. The airport was comfortably familiar, as it had not been renovated or replaced since our trip in 1995. As we approached the city proper, it was clear how much new development had occurred. There was extensive new construction, many modern buildings, industrial parks and the expected signs of commercialization.

When we were in the area of the Lijiang hotel and the orphanage, it was as if a new city were dropped in place. The amount of change and progress in the past ten years seemed equivalent to thirty years growth in a US city.

We were not allowed to visit the Wuhan Children’s Welfare Institute in 1995, so the ride through a dilapidated section of the Wuchang district to reach the orphanage was a first. A new orphanage building had been constructed in 1997 and from the pictures on the internet it looked much like a modern hospital. However, the shining white tile exterior belied the wear and tear inside that makes even new buildings in China seem to age immediately.

We met two staff people who were nannies back in 1995. Nora felt uncomfortable by their attention and hugs – much like a child confronted by a distant relative who showers unexpected affection. We definitely sensed that the nannies were happy we could visit the orphanage. One of them pulled out Nora’s 100-day picture, a copy of the same picture we were given 10 years ago. She too had a daughter Nora’s age, who sent a small necklace as a present.

Unfortunately for me, this nanny appeared to my eye as the same woman who presented Nora to us as an infant at the hotel – described at the time as her foster mother. There has been some discussion lately about variations in the meaning of “foster care” in the orphanages, so this was not a major issue to me, just a surprise.

While touring the facility, we met the medical director who claimed to remember Nora and the condition she was treated for. We had been originally told that Nora did not have any notable medical conditions when she was referred to us. The next day we inquired further into the medical director’s statements, which were indeed verified in Nora’s files.

Director Chen was very formal in describing the history of the orphanage, current operations and that 85% of the children were physically or mentally handicapped. When we toured the nursery, that reality was painfully evident. More enjoyable was to see neighborhood children in a kindergarten class held at the orphanage. We met some of the older kids who were in the midst of dance class, and gave them small gifts that we had brought from home.

We left Wuhan CWI emotionally drained due to the difficult conditions, ailing children, Nora’s discomfort from the nannies affection and the shock of learning new information about Nora’s stay in the orphanage.

Our visit to Wuhan concluded the next day by visiting the provincial museum and having lunch at our old hotel. Nora offset a cranky morning in the museum by impressing me with trying several very unfamiliar dishes during lunch. Next was a drive through the countryside to reach our Yangtze river cruise boat.

Up the Changjiang to Fuling

The river cruise was impressive in its natural beauty. Waking Nora at pre-dawn to see the gorges was not. Fortunately we met some other kids on the cruise, played card games and watched movies on our laptop. From Nora’s standpoint the trip was getting a little better.

On July 4^th we visited the Fuling SWI, about one hour southeast of Chongqing, where we had adopted our youngest daughter Amy last year. Margie and I had visited the Fuling orphanage when we got Amy, so there would be some familiarity to this visit. We were greeted by Director Yang and quickly joined by another American, Karen McGinty, and her six-year old daughter Molly who was from Wuhan like Nora. They were in Fuling to meet their two and a half year old daughter Mia, who walked into the conference room in squeaky bottomed shoes.

Karen was curious as to why Nora and I we were on hand for their momentous family event and assumed it was a Gotcha Day for us too. After a quick explanation of our visit, I became an extra photographer for her and a new friendship started between the McGinty’s and McGuffey’s.

We all went back to the nursery area for pre-toddlers, which was filled with about twenty babies in wheeled walkers, making for a near comical scene as they pinballed among each other. Every nanny I encountered was recognizable from our prior visit, a great sign of consistent care. In addition, there was a grandfather-aged resident helping out with the children.

The nannies were getting six children ready to meet their new parents. Nora was beaming to see these healthy, happy babies and was further thrilled when a nanny handed her a baby to take care of. A half hour later the babies were with their parents, including Hailey Elizabeth AiJun Turnage, the baby that Nora held and played with. It was a pleasure to tell Hailey’s new mom Christi that we had lots of pictures and video of their new children getting ready. Nora felt a bond with Hailey and we plan for the girls to keep in touch in the future. I wonder what Nora might tell Hailey a decade from now when she is ten and Nora is in college.

Another new family friendship developed in Chongqing, where we met the Bell family from Indianapolis. Kim and her husband Gregg had just adopted 16-month-old Lia from Fengdu, a city we passed on our river cruise. They were traveling with three of their five other children, including daughters Lauren and Kaitlin who are near Nora’s age. Another stroke of luck.

I escorted this large group into a local Chongqing neighborhood market area familiar to me from last year’s trip. We caused quite a commotion since we were in an area that few foreigners visit, let alone a party of seven, most with blond hair. We had a terrific dinner at a local restaurant that evening, encouraging the kids to try all kinds of authentic Sichuan foods. Including multiple excursions to the hotel pool, Nora and the Bell kids had a great time.

Countryside and the Big City

Following our orphanage visit, we traveled outside Fuling to a small mountain village called Shanwo, which translates to “mountain’s nest”. My sister-in-law taught English in Chongqing for several years and put us in touch with one of her former students who now teaches in the middles school near Shanwo. The details of this visit will be the subject of a future article in Adoption Today, but in short, Nora again was happiest when she was with children. Our host Zhang Fei Ao has a four year old son, and despite being closer to younger sister Amy’s age, playing with little Harry was at least as interesting to Nora as the rural village. Well, that is, until we got to the farmhouse and she found a little kitten inside.

In Beijing, we were greeted by Nelson Lie, the guide from our 2004 adoption trip and his wife Nancy. Nora met Nelson when he visited our home in Texas in October last year and his son Tom was in fifth grade, only a year ahead of Nora. Nelson and Nancy planned a visit for us to Tom’s school and an afternoon of play with Tom and another young friend. All went well, but the school visit put Nora uncomfortably on display. The Chinese students all spoke some amount of English, and did their best to welcome Nora. But Nora speaks no Chinese and only slightly warmed up when several of the excited school girls crowded onto her bench. We brought some small gifts for the children, but were surprised when each student gave Nora a small gift of their own. Several necklaces she received are prized possessions from the trip.

Right now just remember you've been to this place today

I had felt prepared for our return trip, but now think I underestimated how ‘grown up’ our itinerary really was. Though pleased that I had quickly recognized that we needed more age-appropriate activities and entertainment, it took the good fortune of meeting families in Fuling, Chongqing and our friends Nelson and Nancy in Beijing to add more and more enjoyment for Nora as the trip progressed. Possibly an organized group tour, with multiple children traveling together, would be the best insurance policy to ensure a pleasurable visit and appropriate activities for a 10 year old.

Another differing expectation is an important one to consider. Never did I expect that new information about Nora’s health and care as an infant would be revealed, nor that the orphanage and children would be in so much need of assistance. The visit to the Wuhan orphanage was expected to be a pleasant homecoming not an emotional revelation.

I thought Nora would be intrigued by the vast differences in Chinese and American culture. Every day she saw things that were unique to her prior experience, but such sights didn’t make for a day of enjoyment and pleasure. Maybe she was a little young for the kind of visit we assembled. Certainly she absorbed a lot of information, but may have felt uneasy about how it related to her potential life without adoption. Maybe she just had difficulty talking much about it.

I’m still perplexed by Nora’s lack of commentary on the trip. She shares very little detail with family and friends, though just recently has opened up a little bit. I have been hoping that Nora will look back on this trip a few years from now and appreciate what she experienced and maybe share the feelings she’s having.

One of the people we met on the river cruise was Douglas Ching, a Chinese American from Los Angeles. In a recent email message he told a story that confirms what I hope the value of this trip will be to Nora, based on his own experience.

Douglas wrote:

“I've been there [Three Gorges] when I was 5 years old, when our family went from Chongqing to Taiwan after World War II. I vividly remember one night on the river ship. My mom woke me up telling me to take a look of White King Temple near Qitang Gorge. I barely saw it in the dark and asked my mom what's the big deal. She told me this is the place that one of the kings, the defeated Liu Bei of Su kingdom located at Sichuan, implored his premier, Ju Ge Liang (another name is Ju Ge KongMing) to devote his loyalty to his heir-son before he died. This was about 1700 years ago.

But [the words for] Liu Bei pronounces like the back of a cow. I kept asking my mom what the back of a cow has got to do with a king? My mom sighed and said, ‘Son, some day in the future you'll understand. Right now just remember you've been to this place today’. Indeed, twelve years later, I finally understand what's going on when I read that famous book of Three Kingdoms at the End of Han Dynasty. And now, as our cruise sailed past White King Temple, I said a prayer to my mom. The memory of my mom and the feeling how I miss her is hard for me to describe with words.”

“Right now just remember you've been to this place today.“ Douglas’s mother said it perfectly. In different words it’s something I tried to say to Nora during our trip. Sometime in the future I’m certain that Nora will have the same experience as our friend Douglas, maybe even while cruising the Changjiang with her own children.

2007-12-03T17:13:00.000-06:00

[[[[[ Insert witty and insightful first post here ]]]]]]

Instructions for new bloggers:

Demonstrate an initial burst of enthusiasm with several soul searching and heart-rending posts.
Publicize blog among friends and family
Build on the momentum by demonstrating true cleverness and humor in daily posts
Be sure to tell us EVERYTHING about your dog. Use verse if possible.
Ditto on cats.
Let enthusiasm wane slightly, then don't post for 2 years.
Return with a vengeance, committing to yourself to post regularly because gosh darn it there are people out there that want to read about the random details of your life.

Or just write down some interesting stuff once in a while.

Adoption Trip for Amy

2007-10-01T13:39:00.002-05:00

Margie and I both pictured that we would walk across the Great Wall. We never anticipated a climb up a demonic Stairmaster of variable height steps in zero-degree wind-chill. Just thirty-six hours earlier we had arrived in Beijing at the start of our second adoption trip. Eight-year-old Nora and her brother Alex were safely at home in Houston with their Grammy and we were spending a couple days as tourists before traveling to Fuling to meet Fu Xin He, the 11 month-old who would soon complete our family.

Following a frigid day exploring the Forbidden City and the hutong (old city courtyard residences) of Beijing, we found ourselves twenty five or thirty miles north of Beijing staring up at the Great Wall, prepared with six layers of clothing. Packing for our trip was challenging, given that we would visit the same climates as Chicago, Houston and Havana all within a two week timeframe in early February. With five layers not working well the previous day in the 11 degree temperatures (ironically, as we toured the summer palace), we were surel to be prepared for the potentially high winds on the open wall.

We traversed a gentle slope of newly paved walkways amidst souvenir shops, food stands and forebodingly, a medical clinic. Within minutes we were on steep, irregular steps worn smooth by years of foot traffic. We passed red-faced school children, parents and grandparents, many of whom were pausing for breath. A few gentle souls scooted down the steps sliding on their bottoms, too worn out or unbalanced to rely on the 1930’s style handrail to clamber down. Within minutes our two outer layers were gone as we trudged upward.

Forty minutes later we had passed three guard towers and peered down the winding trail of steps with a feeling of accomplishment and anticipation – much as we felt about our growing family at that moment. When we adopted Nora in 1995 in Wuhan, it was not yet common for adoption groups to spend a few extra days sightseeing – and as first time parents we had no patience for such trivialities. But now we savored a couple of days by ourselves, our first vacation alone since February 2002 when we saw a young Chinese family with two girls playing on Silver Strand beach in San Diego. On the spot we began discussing adopting another daughter, as we always pictured our family as having two Chinese girls. Our biological surprise, Alex, delayed that vision temporarily, but now we were two days away from meeting our Amy.

We traveled easily from Beijing to Chongqing, a huge, metropolitan city at the confluence of the Yangtze and Jialang rivers, about a ninety minute bus ride from Fuling. While we were thrilled with modern accommodations at a new Hilton hotel, we were preoccupied with our pending “gotcha day”, where we would meet and return with our new daughter.

We had received our referral to Amy the previous November, along with more medical detail than we had learned about Nora, and three color pictures. We had gotten only one black and white picture of Nora, no larger than 1 inch square. Amy beamed a delicious smile in one of her pictures and we wondered whether this was an indication of her personality or just a lucky snapshot.

The first group of adoptive parents of girls from the Chongqing Fuling First Social Welfare Institute started a networking group and web site (www.fulingkids.org). We posted Amy’s picture on their website along with other recent referrals and immediately noticed the same bouncy seat and stuffed animal as in Amy’s pictures. Few of the girls were smiling, so we continued to hold out hope that Amy had an exceptional level of sparkle in her personality.

Upon arriving in Fuling, we wound our way down a narrow street to the SWI, as locals stopped their business to watch us. Yang Peishu, the orphanage director, invited us on a tour of the facility. We expected a bit of touring until we met our daughters, but actually went straight to a section dedicated to pre-toddlers. In it were about 20 girls, each in rolling walkers and matching pastel outfits. It appeared to be an invasion of babies on wheels. As they touched us with their wordless pleas, we also saw the loving care and attention they received from four young caregivers overseeing the scene.

Suddenly, from an adjacent doorway, Director Yang called out a baby’s name in Chinese. While we thought there was more “touring” to do, it was actually time to meet our girls. Fu Xin He, soon to be known as Amy Rebecca XinHe, was the second baby brought forward. Amy’s first look at Margie prompted the same huge grin we’d seen in her picture, so we believed (accurately) that she had a naturally happy disposition, which has been proven true ever since.

Since we were somewhat comfortable as third-time parents, we patiently learned Amy’s capabilities and preferences. She was pleasant and agreeable beyond our expectations and after just a few days we established our routines and became a micro-family on a great adventure. We joined our travel group on excursions to a silk factory, the Chongqing City Hall and a quick visit to the zoo – where we dashed in to see only the pandas then dashed out to lunch. Taking in local destinations was to be expected, but our favorite moments came interacting with locals, soaking up day-to-day life as we walked and drove from place to place and getting out into the neighborhoods on our own.

Our most consistently enjoyable times were during meals at local restaurants, with Chongqing offering up the most fascinating experiences. Mealtimes were prime settings for meeting local people – both restaurant staff and customers. It seems that everyone in China openly displays affection for children. Since most children learn English in school, we had many family-to-family conversations about everyday life and especially our babies. Without exception the people we met wished us well, even if it was without successful English/Chinese translation.

For several reasons we encourage adoptive travelers to stay away from the western style cooking while in China. First, it is likely to not be comparable to our back-home versions of hamburgers or french fries. Fewer locals will be dining nearby, cutting down the number of enjoyable conversations and interactions. And lastly, real Chinese food is simply excellent. There’s such a wide variety of dishes in all regions that just a little trial and error should turn up a favorite dish or two that can be repeated throughout a trip. For us, though, we wanted to eat as many interesting things as we could find.

Chongqing was until recently a part of Sichuan (or Szechuan) province, known for the spiciest of Chinese cuisines. The traditional local method of cooking is known as ‘hot pot’, which is like a spicy fondue. A circular cutout in a communal table fits a large pot of heavily spiced broth. Underneath it is heated to boiling point by propane heaters (or traditional wood fires, though this is now rare). Meats, vegetables, seafood and even sticky compressed rice is heated in the spicy broth. While most hot pots are pretty spicy, it is not comparable to our jalapeno and cayenne style of spice. Rather, there are layers of multiple flavors - spices, herbs, garlic and peppers – which create a tingling sensation that becomes addictive.

When we got to Guongzhou we felt at home – or at least we were in a comfortable and familiar place. The old-world charm of Shamian Island had not changed, but the number of little shops and street vendors had increased dramatically in the eight years since our last visit. While we waited for our appointment at the U.S. Consulate, we started our days by walking the island with Amy secured in her Baby Bjorn, strolling through the Tai Chi gentry, badminton players, ribbon dancers and even a couple brave swimmers in the Pearl river.

Knowing that thousands of families pass through the same place, seemingly all staying at the White Swan Hotel, makes for a kinship among singles and couples from all walks of American life. As we simultaneously considered Amy’s toddler-hood and Nora approaching middle school, the importance of providing a connection to their homeland was never more evident. We bought the obvious trinkets and mementos, like nearly all the other families, but we knew that the doors we needed to open for our girls were far more complex.

Despite our two adoption trips, knowledge of Chinese history, and extensive reading of classical and modern Chinese literature, the fact is we’re not Chinese, yet ethnically our daughters are. To pass as much to them as possible, we savored every minute we were in China and vowed to share with our girls an appreciation for the everyday life we observed. A few thousand pictures and some well chosen video are a start. Scroll paintings in our hallways at home will be ongoing reminders. But it seems apparent that we need to connect our girls to China as often as we can, in our own way, and hopefully by bringing them back to their birthplaces, to share the wonder that we did when we first met them.