Slow Week outside of Intel

Well, it was a very quiet week outside of Intel. It seems as though all I did was work. Way too many hours put in. We continue to struggle getting started on the move in and installation of the process tools. Our general contractor now appears to be about 4 weeks behind the original schedule. We continue to work through the issues both with our own team as well as the general contractors team. I seems like we are spinning our wheels. I feel like I worked so many hours, did so many things, did so much planning but didn't accomplish anything. That is very frustrating. I told Rami today and I feel so out of control because I have no control. That may seem hard to understand but with the way we have our contract set up with our GC, we as Intel folks are not allowed to do much execution without putting Intel in a liable position and open to claims latter in the project. I see so many inefficiencies with the way our GC is setting up and executing the project that I want to just get in there and get it done. I have to be careful not to give specific direction or tell the sub contractors what to do. I can see so many ways we can get this moving and pick up steam. We will continue to give our thoughts and suggestions at this point, but it looks as though we are starting to take more control of some things. That is fine since our GC asked us for some help.

I watched some of our sub contractors install a pedestal yesterday in the fab. This was a comic relief. It looks as though nothing happens for so long and then all of a sudden it looks like when you step on an ant hill and all the ants come out of the ground at once and attacks. That is what this looked like. A bunch of ants on a sugar cube. The people were all over it and every where. They did finally get the ped in place but it took them well over an hour. Now they just have to set it, level it, shim it and grout it before the tool can actually be placed on it for final set and the start of safety sign offs.

I have no new pictures to share this week. I did not do anything fun. The most I did was play badminton on Wednesday night. That was as usual, very fun. The rest of the nights I just came home, relaxed and tried to get to bed a little earlier. I guess I will have to figure out something fun to do this coming weekend. Tomorrow is Friday and the weekend will be upon us. I will not think about work and see what is happening around Dalian.

The best part of the week really has been learning more and more Chinese. Nicholas has really improved on his English. It is getting easier to communicate with him each day. We have a goal to learn 2 to 3 new words each day. I have learned so many words and now he is starting to teach me sentences. This is a lot harder but the challenge is good. I think Nicholas gets excited and then he starts to talk really fast in Chinese. Then I cannot understand a thing.

Well, that was my exciting week. I hope to have more to share later.

Busy week, fun downtime

This has been a week of a lot of frustrating work. We continue to be behind in the work that has to get done. Our general contractor is now about 2 weeks behind in their commitments. They do not have many of the materials on hand or ordered for us to get started on tool installations. Because of this fact, they have asked us to step in and help them. The bottom line here is that we need to make them successful so that we are successful and Intel is successful. This has caused us to have to pull out all the stops and work some pretty grueling hours to help plan and execute the plan to get things going. Well, we started pulling out all the stops and use our Intel brain power to see what we need to do. I think we ended up working 3 out of the 5 days this week late. The team put in at least 13 to 14 hours each of those days. We were working together to figure out how to get materials in the plant, how to re commit the schedule milestone dates, search for long lead items all over the world with any supplier or vendor we could find. We are still behind schedule and it could be as much as 4 to 5 weeks. We have some good plans together right now to get some of he installations started. We will be able to move in pedestals, set datums in both the fab and subfab, move in a few tools and set them. We can get the electrical conduits, cables and power distributions run. At least we can say that we have started the installs. Waiting for the other facility material for piping and mechanical work will just have to start later as we get the stuff delivered. We have slipped the start of prefac but have not changed the delivery dates of tools or safety level sign offs. We will progress forward with perseverance and fortitude. We are Intel. We will meet schedule in the long run. It is not how you start the race but how you finish.

When the weekend finally arrived I was ready for some relaxation. My driver started it out with a new solar dancing bobble head type of dash toy. This is very popular here in China. All of the drivers have them in their cars. I think that we Americans like them for some reason. Here is the one that Nicholas got for me. He has it facing me on my side of the car.

On Friday night, Danny, Brian, Barb and I went out for dinner at Flares. This is a nice little restaurant. We all relaxed a little and then walked down the street to return to the scene of last weeks infamous pajama party. This night the place was empty and we were the only 4 folks in there. What a difference. We had a couple of drinks and suddenly there was about 5 more Intel people that showed up. One of them was my manager, Rami. I had another drink and then left for home. Got home about 10:30 and called Kathy and then fell asleep.

Today was a good day. We decided to go and visit a Chinese village. Jackie, who is Brian's driver, has an uncle who lives out in a village in the country about an hour from here. He is a farmer and has been all of his life. We thought this would be a great opportunity to see how over a billion people of China actually live.

We got out to his house. He has a nice one room place that is surrounded by his small parcel of land which he farms and has an orchard on. Now, understand, when I say farm it is really farming that sustains his needs. He does not grow the fruits and vegetables for anything other then what he needs to live off of. He has a very nice garden, apple trees, pear trees, peach trees and an assortment of radishes, lettuce, cabbage, peppers and pumpkins. He also has 2 dogs, one cat, ducks, chickens, a rooster and 3 very large pigs. His house was completely built by himself.

We walked up to his place and he met us with a bowl full of pears and apples which he had just picked. We ate one and it was one of the best pears I have ever tasted. We then walked around the village and met some of the residence. They were really interested in seeing us. There about 100 people that live in this small village. They all came out of their houses to look at us. They don't normally see people like us in their village. They were very curious. They also really wanted to have their pictures taken too. They would laugh and talk while we walked around and met them.

I am telling you, in many ways, they live a wonderful life. No worries, no problems and they just enjoy their families and neighbors. We actually could learn a lot from them and how they are completely satisfied with what they have.

All in all, it was refreshing to meet them and spend some time with them. They are wonderful people and as friendly as can be. I have been honored to have met them. I hope to get out their again to visit with them before I leave next year.

Tomorrow, I am just going to relax around the apartment and maybe walk around the city a little bit. Hopefully it will be another nice day. Right now you do not know what type of day it is going to be. It changes so drastically from day to day and even hour to hour. It is getting cold and windy here now.

Wild Weekend

Ok, picture this, a number of middle aged Americans, Irishmen, Israel, Scottish, English, Chinese and someone I am not sure about, all in a bar in pajamas for a wild night of celebrating a friends birthday. Well, believe it or not that is what we had Friday night. We were having a good time enjoying our international friendships and celebrating Barbara's birthday. The theme was pajamas. We all had to wear them. Well, at least some of us did. Here are a few pictures. You can see Rami, Wendy, Brian and Barb. They had their pajamas hand made here in China.

Brian did a great job in setting this party up. We had good food, drinks, a birthday cake, good music, fireworks and a wonderful crowd. The fireworks were set off a couple of hours into the party. We did this right outside the bar. This is not a problem in China as these type of fireworks are legal. Brian had 4 pick boxes of fireworks. We shot them off. The first set was pretty good. They exploded a little lower and had whistles and sparkles when they went off. When the explosions were done we had notice the building across from where we were having the party had a little flame on the top of the building. Suddenly, we realized that it was on fire. Yes, we started a fire with the fireworks. Luckily Fireman Rami grabbed a fire extinguisher, ran into the burning building, went upstairs, stuck his head out a window and sprayed the fire. What a hero. All he needed was a damsel in distress. I never thought we had to come all the way to China to burn down a building. Anyway, all was safe and we continued with the fireworks. Why not, lighting never strikes twice in the same place right?

We finished the night off with more drinking, more eating, more music, and the eating of cake. Who says you can't have your cake and eat it too? The cake was wonderful. The friendships superb and the atmosphere unforgettable. We even had our own godfather looking over us and keeping us safe. You can see him here.

We also had Barb cut the cake so we could all get a piece. She looked great behind here cake and blew all the candles out. The evening still continued and most people left sometime after midnight. It was a long evening. You can see that it was so long that I actually needed a haircut after it was over.

And the next party is who's??????????

The next day Brian and I went and played a couple hours of badminton. We had a good time and worked up a real sweat. James joined us. After badminton we decided to go to....what else, but an Oktoberfest in China. Yes, beer and brauts. Barb wasn't feeling up to going out again so we made it a guys night out. We found the place and James, Danny and Alex joined us. The food was good, the beer was outstanding and the band was fun. Who would have thought of an Oktoberfest in China. Well, you only live once right? We stayed and ate for a while. That is a way to wrap up the weekend. On Sunday, I was tired so we didn't do anything except to do a little grocery shopping.

I guess it is time to get back to the real world and start work again tomorrow. I finished off the weekend with a fantastic home made steak dinner at Brian and Barbara's apartment. It was the first steak I had since getting here.

Busy week, seems like a month

Well, the week is about over. It is Thursday night and it turned out to be a busy week. I didn't do much outside of work but it was a good week. I went out to dinner with friends on Monday. We went to a hot pot. This type of dinner is where you have a pot of boiling water with different spices and vegetables in it. You order off of a menu as to what type of food you want. You then cook the food in your boiling water pot and dip it in different sauces you make. You can order just about anything you want. The meat and fish are sliced paper thin and only takes about 30 seconds to cook. The vegetables are fresh and the beer even better. Anyway, there was 8 of us around the table, a ton of food (more then we all could eat) 2 bottles of wine and 4 large beers. The total bill came to 425RMB. This equates to less then $7.00 a piece for that much food and drinks. It was fantastic.

That was the most exciting thing I did all week. On Wednesday night I played badminton. Again, like always, it was a lot of fun. I don't think I am getting any better but none the less I am having fun and getting a good workout. This is not like your backyard picnic game, these people take if very seriously. So much so that my partner hit me a few time returning the shuttle. It actually hurt. One time he hit me in the head. Ok, so part of it was my fault for looking back at him, but come on.....your partner?

The rest of the week was really just filled with work. We are ready to go with the tool install start. Many people are in place and will begin the prefacilities work on different tools. That was scheduled for Monday, but it never happened. Here it is Thursday night and it still hasn't started. I guess we are going to have to kick some butt to get things started. We have awarded what we call a lump sum contract with a general contractor. This means that we will pay one price to the GC and anything beyond that need of installing the tool will now fall on the GC for any financial burden. That is of course dependant on if Intel directly caused problem with the contractor and delayed them in any way. Many hours work this week.

Tonight I was exhausted and we still have one more day to go this week. The thing to look forward to is a party on Friday night. It is Barbara's birthday and Brian is going to have one heck of a party tomorrow night with everything included. This means major fireworks. I am just glad I don't have to celebrate Kathy's birthday here. My co-workers have really set the bar high when it comes to birthday party celebrations. The theme of this party is a pajama party. You will only be admitted if you are wearing your PJ's. What am I to do? I don't have any PJ's. Some folks may be in for a surprise. Barbara and Wendy could not find pajamas here in China that were large enough to fit their husbands. So, what is the next best thing to do? Have some custom made by a little Chinese tailor. They actually call them a maker man here. These guys are going to have some fancy PJ's. I am sure they are going to look like Hugh Hefner. Custom made PJ were actually cheaper then purchasing already made ones. How do they do this kind of stuff here? I can't see how anyone can make a profit over here in China.

Well, I am taking my camera to the party so I will be posting some pictures. I just hope they are not to risky. I am getting tired right now and it is almost midnight so I am heading off to bed. I will post pictures and update blog this weekend. Until next time, bye bye.

Relaxing Final Day

The last day for Kathy here was Oct. 5th. Because of this my local friend and his wife wanted to spend the day with us and show us around the city. There names are James and Catherine. They have become very good friends. James has lived in the Dalian area for over 10 years. He has been a big help to me while I have been here. He knows where all the good places to eat are, talks to my driver and explains were I want to go when I need him and James is the one who has gotten me into playing badminton.

As far as what we were going to do for the day, we decided to tour around the area of Dalian called the DDA. This stands for Dalian Development Area. This is the area of Dalian that the Intel plant is actually in. James and Catherine gave us a first class tour. First we picked them up and they presented us with a present. Catherine gave Kathy a set of chop sticks from Chengdu. This is where they raise Panda bears. The chop sticks had pandas on them with 2 small Panda bears to place the chop sticks on when we are not using them. They also gave me some Sechzwan beef and some tea from Chengdu. Well, once we got underway we headed toward Golden Pebble Beach. This is a very nice area of the DDA and a very expensive place to live. It actually has two golf courses. One of them is very big and a beautiful course. The annual membership to it is about 175,000RMB a year that is about $25,000 US dollars. A little to steep for me and most of the Chinese folks. The drive was beautiful. If followed the coast and the overlooks were stunning. There is a pretty sandy beach and many natural rock formations that take on the look of a variety of things. These are in a natural Geographical park. We stopped to take some pictures.

Our day was not done. We headed toward a place that looks like a flying saucer. This is called the UFO. It is a lookout to be able to gaze upon a part of Dalian. We were able to climb to the top and get some pictures of Dalian in the background.

We couldn't have have for a better day. It was clear and warm. The weather was perfect and we could see for miles. Once we finished here we decided to get some food. Since Kathy had never had Korean food before we decided to go for some Korean BBQ. It was delicious. We tried many different things. We even had BBQ fried eel. This was actually very tasty. I never thought that either Kathy or I would ever be eating eel in China on a beautiful Fall day in October.

Now we thought our day was just about complete and thought we would head back to downtown Dalian. On the way back we decided to visit the Tea House. This was the same place that I had been once before but I knew that Kathy would enjoy it. We had some wonderful black tea which was prepared in the way only a girl who has gone to 3 years of school could prepare it. Actually we found out that the girl serving the tea was only 16 years old and was given a special arrangement by the Chinese government to attend school so early. This was because of the terrible earthquake that happened last year in Chengdu. It had killed over 60,000 people. The tea girl was from there and needed to finish school quickly in order to get a job and move back to Chengdu to help her family. That is why she was in her second year of tea school and working as an intern at the tea house. That is unusual because the legal working age in China is 18. No one younger then that is allowed to work by law. Well, she did a great job serving us and she was just a doll. As you can see by the picture, she is very cute. We had a great time sitting there and talking with James and Catherine. We ended up staying there for about 3 hours. Then we decided to leave since we had taken up the whole day of James and Catherine's. They were very gracious. We had to get back to the apartment anyway to get Kathy packed for the next day.

This was a fast and furious 10 days with Kathy here. We made many friends, went many places, and enjoyed the food and culture very much. There is of course, more to do and see in China and hopefully we will be able to enjoy more of it in the future. The next trip hopefully Brian and Kevin will be able to visit as well. It looks as though we will be planning that for around Christmas time. It will be freezing but we will figure out what to do. I will close this now with a warm thank you to all of our friends who made the trip very special for Kathy. They made the transition to China easy and pleasant and showed her their warmth and kindness. Thanks to all of you and I know Kathy thanks you as well.

From now on I will be beginning to work a lot as we will be starting our tool installations next week. This is what we have been preparing to do for the past year and a half. Busy days ahead. My blog updates will probably be boring to everyone but I will keep them up non the less. Till next time. Bye

What a Good Holiday

Well, where did I leave off? I was at the foot of the great wall with Kathy and friends and we were just steps away from North Korea.

After we finished up taking pictures of North Korea we headed to 5 dragon mountain to a China Buddhist Temple. The temple is called the 5 Dragon Temple. I guess that comes from being on the top of a mountain that looks like it has Dragons laying on it. We had to travel up the mountain in the car and once part of the way up we parked and walked. One of the drivers told us it was 108 steps to the temple. I believe he was right but only for the first level of the temple. I am not sure he knew there was 5 levels of temples until you got to the Buddha cave that housed the Jade Buddha. After climbing the Great Wall this was a little more difficult but none the less, we did it. The temples were very interesting and the views spectacular.

What can I say, we got our exercise for the day. After the temple and the modern day exercising we decided to call it a day and head to the hotel. The hotel we stayed in that night was the Crowne Plaza. It was one of the most beautiful hotels I have ever been in and I have had the privilege of staying in many 5 star hotels. Well, we were put up on the 27th floor and we had a wonderful view of the city. This room was really nice. I had to get two rooms for the night, one for Kathy and I and one for my driver. For this wonderful hotel that would normally cost a couple hundred dollars a night was only $65.00 and that included a buffet breakfast the next morning for us and our driver. I will definitely try to stay there again when I go up to Dandong again. The next day we had to continue on our journey. We stopped at an old bridge that connects China to North Korea. The only problem is that the bridge was bombed by the US Air Force in 1950 during the Korean war. This was one of the most precise bombings the military has ever done. The bridge was destroyed exactly from the boarder half way across the river and included the whole Korean side of the bridge. the bombing had to be so precise so as to not destroy any part of the China side of the structure. If that would have happened it would have been seen as an act of war against China by the United States. The bridge was never rebuilt but the China side of the bridge still stands.

From the bridge we left for a water cave that contains stalactites and stalagmites. This was a living cave in which you had to get in a boat and ride back deep into the cave. The formations in the cave was very pretty and massive. This cave went on forever. It was also very cold inside. You could see your breath. It was awesome.

After this tourist trap we decided to head home. It was going to be a long drive home. I think is was about 3 hours. Not a bad drive when you have a driver and you can just sleep in the back seat. Here is a picture of the three drivers that took all of us up to Dandong. My driver is on the right. If you remember, we named him Nicholas. He told me today that he really likes his American name and his wife does too. He said that she calls to him now by the name Nicholas. He asked me to thank Kathy for the name.

In the next blog I will recap the last day Kathy spent here in China. We spent it with some new very good and fun friends, James and Catherine. They showed us their city.

A Couple Weeks Behind

Well folks, I am not sure where to start. I am a couple weeks behind on my blog. I have been very busy and just have not had time to update my life. This posting will be pretty long but I may have to make to entries. You may get a little bored with my happenings but I guess this is about as exciting as my life gets. Hope you enjoy the good, the bad and the ugly of the past 2 weeks.

I will start with the saga of my passport. I am sure everyone wants to know what I had to do about this. This all started with losing it or at least not knowing what I did with it. I waited about a week before I decided to follow the process to get a new one. I thought maybe by some unbelievable chance it would show up. I turned my apartment upside down a number of times and checked in every stitch of clothing I had looking for the stupid passport. I checked the obvious places like the refrigerator and the washing machine as well as every drawer in the place. I checked on top of and below everything in the place. Guess what, I couldn't find it. I checked every shirt pocket, pants pocket and my underwear drawer. Nothing! I finally came to the realization that it was truly lost. By Thursday of that week I decided to start the process of procuring a new passport. I took Thursday afternoon off and started with having to drive back to my apartment an hour away from work to go to the police station and report the passport lost. The first police station by my apartment told me I could not report it there and had to report it at the police station where I thought I lost it. This happened to be about 20 minutes away. I got to that police station and went inside with my interpreter. The police looked at me like, what a stupid American. I have to admit, I would have to agree with them. How the heck do you lose a passport? Only the most important document you need in this place. We finally convinced the police that I was truly an idiot for losing the passport but still needed a report from them in order to me to go to the Chinese security bureau and report it missing. The formal report they gave me? Well, it was a hand written note from the police officer with an official stamp on it. Kind of like a note from my mother excusing my stupidity. My next trip was to the Security Bureau. Of course I couldn't go to the office which was just down the street in downtown Dalian, I had to go to the office which was where the Intel plant is in the DDA area an hour away. We jumped in the car and drove to he Security office in the DDA an hour drive of course. I was rushing to get this all done so I could go to ShangYeng and the American Embassy on Friday. Remember, ShanYeng is a 4 hour drive and is only open from 1:30 to 4:30 3 days a week. Also China was coming up on a National Holiday where the country shut down for 6 days. I got to the Security office and did the paper work there. They told me they would have a report and letter I can give to the American Embassy in 5 working days. Well, that blew my thought of going on Friday. I then had my driver take me home, an hour away back in downtown Dalian.

The next few days I got ready for Kathy to come and visit me. She was going to be here on Sunday morning. I did a little shopping and bought some flowers for her so my bachelor pad looked inviting to her. Just like before we were married. It worked:-). Anyway, Sunday morning I was going to go to church with my driver. He picked me up at 6:00am. I got dressed and started out the door. When I got to the elevator I went to put my glasses in my pocket of my pants, and to my amazement, my passport was in the pocket. I cannot explain how it got in a pair of pants that I have only worn once since I was here and that was the previous Sunday when I went to church and after I had gone to the Metro shopping center. I had checked those pants at least 3 times. I am not even going to try and explain it but the main thing is that I found it. I now have it under lock and key in a safe in my apartment. Now I don't have to go to the Embassy and reapply for the passport and then back to immigrations to apply for a visa and work permit and residence license. Problem now is that I think the police and security bureau have already logged me as lost. The story of my life. I will have to figure that out this week.

That Sunday morning it rained hard for the first time since I have been here. It just down poured. The streets flooded in a matter of minutes and many of the roads were impassable. That was not good since I had to get to the airport to pick Kathy up. Finally made it to the airport. Kathy was tired but ready to go on a wild adventure for the next 10 days. Our time together was non stop from the moment she showed up. We went back to my apartment and had some lunch. Kathy then took a nap for about 3 hours. Once she woke up, the 10 days began. On the go constantly. The first stop was to the Brooklyn Bar to meet our friends Barbara and Brian. The Brooklyn bar is run by a Chinese national who grew up in Chicago. He decided to move back to China and open a New York style bar complete with real western style food and thin crust pizza New York style. This is a local Intel Ex patriot hang out. Like I don't see these people enough at work already right? Anyway, we had some good pizza and enjoyed the atmosphere. We got home about midnight. This was the beginning of a pattern for us the next 10 days.

While I worked for the first 3 days while Kathy was here, she was able to do some shopping and begin to understand the size of shopping opportunity. She and Barb had a couple of very good days of walking and shopping and the obvious, spending money on items made in China. By the time Thursday came around we were ready for a good 6 days off together and with friends. Thursday we went to the Russian street and did some more shopping. While walking around with my driver, Kathy decided that he needed an American name. We narrowed it down to 2 names. Teng Jun likes both Bruce Lee and Nicholas Cage. We knew we had to choose one of those names. I thought we could call him Kado. Bruce Lee played him in the Green Hornet. We actually decided on Nicholas. It seems to suit him better. Kathy bought some things on the street for friends and I bought myself a new hat. Here is a picture:

Friday we left for a city called Dandong. This is a city that is right against the North Korean boarder. The first stop was the start of the Great wall of China. The wall was a good hike. We climbed up to the top of it with friends. From the top of the Great Wall we could see North Korea. You can see North Korea in the back ground behind Kathy in this picture:

We could also see from the top of the wall a small North Korean Village. Once we came down off the wall we walked over to a spot that was about 50 feet from the North Korean boarder. In the picture Kathy and I are standing next to a marker in China that says, Korea, only a jump away. We were not allowed to take any pictures past that rock, but I did. You can see the guard tower in the background.

Well, I still have days to talk about but will close this for now. I will pick up the rest in the next day or so.