Well, the bottom line is, not much. The past couple of weeks have been pretty uneventful. the workload continues to go up at work and the hours continue to increase. There have not been any new adventures to speak of and I don't actually have any new pictures to share.
Our project continues to fall farther behind as our general contractor is just not getting the job done. The good thing though is that we do continue to bring tools in and get them in place on the factory floor. We have a good number of them now. It is actually looking like a factory now. Even being as far behind as we are there are some positive aspects.
in the past couple weeks we have had a few parties happen on the weekends. Our team had a party with our contractor to celebrate our first tools being installed and the partnership between them and our team. We had a great time and had a fun evening of inter team entertainment. People on our team danced and sang. I didn't realize there were so many talented people on our install team.
The following week Intel had their annual Chinese New Year party. I have been with Intel almost 30 years now and other then the 25th anniversary parties Intel had back then, this was the largest crowd I have seen at one Intel gathering. There was over 1200 employees there. They were all yelling, screaming, shouting and the loudest group of people I have ever heard at an Intel function. They obviously take their party's seriously. It was a good time, but very crowded. When dinner was served they were going to call table number by table number to go to the buffet line. Well that worked out good, as soon as they announced that dinner was ready everyone did as the Chinese people do......disobey all rules and sense of assembly and everyone in the place got up and rushed the food tables. The unfortunate things was that there were 3 buffet lines set up and all of them were rushed and it was total caos. The lines, if that is what you want to call them, were so long. Actually the only people who were actually standing in line was the expat Americans here on assignment. Everyone else just rushed to the tables and grabbed plates and food. It was like no one had ever eaten before. I didn't want to stand in line so I just walked around for a while. I just watched the people. It was a very interesting observation. People were just grabbing food with their hands and people were actually eating the food will in front of the food platters. It was gross. There was absolutely no order. The people who were in line ended up standing in line for over an hour. I wasn't about to do that so I just blended like the locals. After all, I have been here almost 6 months now. I am practically Chinese. I just pushed my way in the so called line and forced people to make way for me and I grabbed my food too. Once I got in there and got my food, I found there was not really anything good to eat or actually edible. I ended up raiding the fruit trays and the desert table. That was enough for me. Here are a couple of pictures showing the crowd and the F68 staff. They tried to act Chinese but just looked foolish.
There were a bunch of prizes given away that night and true to form, I did not win a thing. 30 years at Intel and I have never won a prize at a major party like this one.
After this party was over the normal "gang" decided to head over to Friends for a final drink. 2 hours later I headed home.
Well, that pretty much brings us up to date. Like I said, there was nothing over exciting that happened the past couple weeks. Now, going into the Chinese New Year, I should be able to gather some new pictures and share them. I know there is going to be many many fireworks. Only I know they will not be outside of our apartment complex. I think that is because of what Brian did at Christmas. We shot the fireworks off out in front of the apartment. The way they were set up when they went off about 18 stories up, they hit the building next door. Well, today, we all received an email stating that we are not allowed fireworks in front of the building.
We are just going to have to find another spot. I am thinking that the best place is just across the street. Who knows. Where ever we end up doing them, I will get pictures.
I have been invited over to my drivers house on New Years eve. He did not want me to be alone on New Years Eve. I will get a chance to meet his wife and 10 year old son. I will also get to meet his sister.
OK, that is it for now. See you when I see you
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