I think I am losing it

Another week and a half in China and things continue to mosey along. Nothing really exciting has been happening. With the start of real hands on work of moving equipment into the factory the hours in the day fly by quickly. It is not that there hasn't been anything to do but with work being so busy I have been so tired that I have not wanted to go out and do anything in the evenings. Even with a Halloween celebration that happened last week, I didn't have any costume to wear so I just stayed home that night.

This past week I was lucky enough to be invited over to Barb and Brian's apartment for dinner a few times. It was very kind of them to invite me. Both of them are good cooks and they take great care of me. They are always looking out for me. One night last week our normal group went out for a good Japanese dinner. We had a great time with a lot of food. As you can see we also had a good cook at our table preparing the food. At one point he flamed the shrimp. It was delicious.

You can see that we are about to enjoy our dinner. Brian, Barb, Danny and Alex are sitting here relaxing.

Here is Brian and I enjoying a glass of beer before the meal

Our Chef

Our shrimp

On Halloween Barb and Brian had Danny and I over for dinner. This was after we had worked all day in a task force mode. Unfortunately this was Saturday. If I had know we were going to have to work Saturdays here I would have never accepted the job! I thought this would just be a fun time and cheap way to see China. I am going to have to talk this over with my boss. Anyway, we had a wonderful chicken dinner that Barb made. Afterward we played a game called Mexican Train. This is a domino type of a game. It was a good game but Barb lost. We didn't rub it in too much because after all, she did cook dinner for us. She wanted a rematch after that so we decided to return on Sunday afternoon for a rematch. The next day, Danny and I met to go buy some more DVD's. I was able to purchase about 15 recent release DVD's for 95RMB. This is about $10 US dollars. Before Danny and I went back to Barb and Brian's we stopped and got a couple of pizza's from Pizza Hut. We brought it back to their place and had a good pizza dinner. After that we played the rematch of Mexican Train. Barb didn't lose this time but she didn't win either. Guess who came in last this time? It is a stupid game.

Now the beginning of this week started where last week left off with work. We are still behind, missing materials to install tools and began docking tools for move in to the factory. Monday morning we had our first process tool show up. This happened to be a tool I am responsible for. Well we started moving it into the factory and I got my first taste of what the winter is going to be like here. It was so cold and very, very windy. The temperature was 0 degree's C. That is 32 degrees F. Now, that with the wind, it was absolutely freezing. I had to walk to the dock and by the time I got from our office building to our dock on the fab, my ears were about to fall off. If anyone would have hit them they would have just crumbled. We did eventually get the tool moved into the factory and in place. A good accomplishment and just one of over 800 we have to move in. It is a start.

The next couple of days it was even colder out. We hit -5 degrees C. I have been told that in the middle of winter it will get close to -20 degrees C. I don't even know what that is in Fahrenheit. I just know it will be cold and the wind is going to kill me.

Now, tonight you may wonder why I am up so late? Right now it is 1:20 am. Well, I actually have not been up all night. I actually went to bed at 10:00 tonight. I fell right to sleep as I was exhausted. I was sound asleep and I thought I heard my alarm go off. I reached over and turned it off. I then finally got up, stumbled into the bathroom and took my shower. I shaved, brushed my teeth, got dressed went in the kitchen and made a smoothie to drink. I sat down and drank my smoothie. I turned the TV on to catch some news and at the top of the hour I was ready to catch my ride to work. I turned my phone on and noticed it said 11:58. I thought something happened to my phone. I turned it off and turned it on again. It still said 11:59. I went and got my other phone and it had the same time on it. I thought......oh no.....I then went to my room and looked at the clock......it was midnight. I was still not believing it. I went to the window and looked out. Other apartments had their lights on. Finally, for final verification, I turned my computer on. It verified that I was a complete idiot. I usually don't admit that because it confirms what my friend Don has always said about me, but none the less I am because here I am, at 1:30 in the morning and sitting fully clothed typing on my blog. If that is not an idiot what is? Well, I am now done and I am going back to bed. I can actually now sleep an extra half hour in the morning because I don't have to shave or shower.