Some quotes, curtiousy of Shaw

george_bernard_shaw

Originally uploaded by MJM80.

I didn’t party it up in Beijing last night (Friday). Instead, I browsed around online & hit the sack early. Was a long week here, wasn’t up for going out.

I came across a few quotes from Bernand Shaw, I quite like these…

“I dread success. To have succeeded is to have finished one’s business on earth, like the male spider, who is killed by the female the moment he has succeeded in his courtship. I like a state of continual becoming, with a goal in front and not behind.”

– My take on this one (and, this is how I live my life) … don’t set out to acheive that “one big thing,” acheive many things, many times, that make you happy and feel like your worth something, to yourself.

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“If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas.”

– I love coming up with new ideas and believe that an idea not acted upon (if it’s a good one), is just a wasted thought. Share ideas, especially if you’re not going to do anything with them.

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“Alcohol is a very necessary article…It makes life bearable to millions of people who could not endure their existance if they were quit sober. It enables Parliament to do things at eleven at night that no sane person would do at eleven in the morning.”

– Just because it’s about alcohol 🙂

Smart guy….

I’m heading out of Beijing in about 6 hours, on to Buffalo for the last leg of my 2 week excursion. Looking forward to seeing everyone in Buffalo & playing in the KPL golf tournament, it’s going to be a great time, no doubt about it.

Brother in Baghdad – now blogging

gunner

Originally uploaded by MJM80.

My brother is now up & running on wordpress. You can find his blog at http://writingwithoutreason.wordpress.com . It will certainly make for an interesting read. He’s actually a great writer, just needs to do more of it. Just started out with the blog, but I’m sure there will be more to come soon.

The picture…it’s not Tim, but he emailed a story about how he was the gunner in the lead hummve for a Marine General’s security detail, must have been an interesting experience. I’ll let him decide if he’s going to write about that & other experiences in Iraq.

As for me… I’m back in Beijing, just for a few more days. I really need to get in the habit of daily writing (and I can publish to wordpress from China). I just need to get organized, figure out what blog I want to use and do it. This week has been pretty hectic though, I’ll get on it soon enough.

I LOVE the heat

I knew this four city trip was going to be a nightmare, travel-wise. I was to depart RDU @ 10:10 this morning…finally departed @ 2:30 this afternoon, due to weather in Chicago. It was tons-o-fun. The good news was, I actually caught my original 11:55am connection in Chicago to St. Louis (departed @ 5pm).

St. Louis had a horrible storm last night & it’s hot as hell here. Time to drink some beers and hang out with the boys from Buffalo.

btw…I still don’t have a resolution to my Priority Club issue, bet I won’t until after my trip to Beijing next week.

Priority Club is STILL pissing me off

A couple days ago I wrote about my recent Priority Club experience. Well, still not much progress.

I did go to their website yesterday, with the goal of finding a feedback form or survey of some sort. All I could find was a website survey, so I used it to complain about their customer support.

What did I get back? This…

“Thank you for contacting us. In order to better assist you with your inquiry, I have forwarded your e-mail to our Priority Club service center. Please allow additional time for a response. They can be reached directly at:

PriorityClub@ichotelsgroup.com

For immediate assistance, please contact the Priority Club Service Center at:
http://www.ichotelsgroup.com/h/d/6c/1/en/c/2/content/dec/6c/1/en/cs/center.html

If you need further assistance, please feel free to contact us.

Best regards,

Anne “
The Priority Club service center is who I initially contacted, it’s now been seven days since my first contact. I have not heard back from them in two days.

So…it will now be one email a day to them until I get a satisfactory resolution.

WordPress in China

I think I now have a solution for blogging while in China. I will use BlogDesk to post & manage my blog. I won’t have access to my wordpress dashboard, but I think I can do without it. When in doubt (or blocked), I’ll use flickr to publish.

I am also flirting with the idea of using Yahoo hosting (which will allow me to very easily use wordpress). I’ll simply register a domain, such as http://www.manninchina.com (done) & use that as my blog. I can also just transfer http://www.mannthoughts.com to Yahoo hosting. Not sure what I’ll do yet … I kind of like the idea of a “China only” blog. We’ll see.

Budweiser, Tsingtao, Labbat Blue, Carolina Pale Ale

Tomorrow morning, I start my two week journey around the world, kind of.

First, I’m heading to St. Louis (Budweiser). A couple friends of mine live there & some other friends from Buffalo are meeting there too. We’re going to party it up this weekend, one last weekend all together before I head off to China for a year.

Should be a great time. I’m sure I’ll have some pictures to share. I’ve also warned all of them not to even attempt waking me up via a horn, banging pots & pans or any other loud objects or devices. They have done this to me a few times, once with a beer in hand (was sleeping). I wake up looking like I’m having a heart attack. Funny yes, but it’s scary! I think there is some video of this somewhere…

Next, on to Beijing (Tsingtao). Only a week there this trip. Hope to get five very productive days in the office, then back on a plane Saturday. I’m sure I’ll have a few Tsingtaos while there.

From there, it’s on to Buffalo (Labbat Blue – OK, Blue is actually from Canada, but it’s very popular in Buffalo & I like it. I could have said Genny Cream Ale (which is actually brewed in PA.)).

Spending a few days with my family and playing in the KPL Golf Tournament. It’s going to be a great time. I need to write up the story of the KPL tournament…it’s a memorial tournament, for a great guy from Buffalo who died at age 32.

Finally, back to Raleigh (Carolina Pale Ale) … though, only for about ten days, then it’s off to Beijing for a year!

Will I be sick of flying and airports and delays and lost luggage by the end of this ~15,500 mile trip? I bet YES

Priority Club is pissing me off

Priority Club is the rewards program for Crowne Plaze (Holiday Inn). I joined the program just into my trip to Beijing, because I forgot to join prior to leaving. I also failed to give them my membership # while there, so didn’t get any points for my three week stay.

Well, I figured the solution would be easy enough, have done it before with airlines…I’d just go online & submit a form to collect points for a previous stay. HA

After four emails so far, no dice. The first two consisted of me validating various pieces of information such as address & phone number. Now they are telling me I have two accounts…hmm, do I?

Well, I thought maybe I could have opened one up a while ago. Or maybe, they were confusing me with my father (also named Michael Mann, but has a different middle name). So, tried explaining that one via email – of course they didn’t understand that one, why would they?

They have come back and told me that I have an account with a Beijing address and phone number. I know for a fact I never opened an account with Beijing info, couldn’t have…unless I used my work address OR, maybe I used the Crowne Plaza address? jack asses.

The issue still remains in the email pipes. I guess I could call them, but I don’t want to deal with that frustration too. Why? Because I guarantee the call center doesn’t have access to the email. They also likely don’t keep a central log for a customer. On top of that, since I supposedly have two accounts, they probably wouldn’t even know who I am!

This is where it would be nice for them to do one of three things…

1) Just trust me with all of the information I have already provided & validated and give me my points!

2) CALL ME – the person (or someone who has access to the email chain) should pick up the phone and call me … phone # is a mandatory field when registering, use it!

3) On-line chat – do you have it? For issues like this, they should send you a url that will trigger an on-line chat session (again, with someone who has access to the email chain).

I just want my 36,000 points!

Almost doesn’t count…

Multimedia message

Originally uploaded by MJM80.

This is by far the closest I have ever come to a hole-in-one. I’m sure I would have pee’d myself if it went in. Was one of those wedge shots, flying high, dropped down about a foot from the hole & rolled slowly to the cup, coming to a stop about 6 in. away, putting an end to my celebration. I did get a birdie!

16 July, 2006 @ Eagle Ridge

Not Buffalo’s Cup, but this will do…

Yes, I was disappointed to see Buffalo get taken out by Carolina in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Finals. But, was good that I still had a team going to the cup, my second home town team.

Every player, coach & even other team personal (i.e., training staff), gets one day, 24 hours, with the Cup (sometimes more). You can track the Cup’s journey with Carolina here.

Last night, I was fortunate enough to get an invite to Glen Wesley‘s house in Cary, NC, for his last hours with the Cup. This was Glenn’s first Cup win in 18 seasons. Needless to say, he’s been enjoying every second of it.

Here’s Glenn asking me if I brought some Buffalo Wings over & me telling him this Cup will be in Buffalo next year.

(Pictured left to right: Barb (Glenn’s wife), Glenn & me)

Flickr stream here

Slow from China

I didn’t expect my network connections in Beijing to be fast, especially when trying to connect to US hosted websites and company intranet/notes (US hosted for me).

Was talking to Jim Leonard about this, and he pointed me to the Internet Traffic Report…cool stuff, can see the connection qualities across the world. Geeky stuff, but I like it.

Why I’m reading this…

I’ve always been interested in writing, but have never really seriously pursued it. Though, as I embark on a journey to China, for at least a 1 year stay, I am finding myself wanting to write more & more. I now feel regret for not having captured my past, so I’m going to make sure I capture my present & future going forward (just haven’t figure out the best way to do that yet … blog – not everything … paper & pen – not everything … computer – most everything … how to put them all together – I’ll figure it out later).

Anyway, I picked up Anderson Cooper’s “Dispatches from the Edge”. His mother, a Vanderbilt, his father, died young & his brother, committed suicide. He has also covered many stories for CNN over the years. So, I think he will have a lot to talk about.

What am I hoping to get out of this book? I’m not sure I really care much about his life, though I am sure some parts will be interesting to me…I’m really looking to see how he captured his life, his stories, his “great moments.” That’s what I’m hoping to get out of this.

I won’t execute the same way, I’m sure…I hope to come across other books that will help me better understand how to capture (not yet knowing if Cooper’s book will do anything for me, we’ll see).

Finally laced ’em up

After a six week exit from the Raleigh Adult Hockey League , I finally laced ’em up tonight. It felt good to get back out there, even though I was dying after every shift. Had a goal & an assist, even though I played like shit (we played the last place team).

As much as I’d love to watch pathetic adult league games live, online…I think I could do with just some recordings from the bench. I was laughing non-stop, forgot how fun it is to give each other shit from the bench. “Move your ass 21 (my uncle) … stop looking at your skates and do something!” OR “Good period Gumper (our goalie)” … followed by some idiotic response from him that no one understands.
It was especially good to get out after the game for a few beers with the guys. Miss hanging out with them every Sunday night, win or lose.

I think I found a Sunday night league in Beijing…we’ll see if I get into it, and if it’s as fun as the RAHL.

Brother in Baghdad – nice quote

Got this from my sister after a chat with my brother…

Tim: “i have a truck i can drive around on base and sometimes i’ll catch a techno song on the radio on one of those arab stations and i arm pump like a motherfucker.. ”

I have a cell video of my brother “dancing” … it’s hilarious. I’m going to have to post it, if I can figure out how.

Where I’ve been

I’m trying to find some online map’ware that will allow me to plot city/state/countries that I’ve visted. So far, I’ve only found something that allows me to plot countries.

Tall Ships pics

P7010115

Originally uploaded by MJM80.

Pictures from the Tall Ships in Beaufort, NC