What Goes Down, Must Come Up

Or something like that. So last we talked, I had just brought down the old, ugly fence. This, of course, left my backyard open to hooligans and hoodlums, of which my neighborhood has plenty. While constructing the new fence, many of my neighbors deemed it a good time to come out and meet me. I met Shirley and Margie, two sisters who live across the street (and are slighly racist). Mr Sederberg, the elderly gentleman who is "getting the hell out of here." And some crazy dude, who lives in the high rise, and hasn't left the 60s. Shirley, Margie and Warren (Mr Sederberg) have all lived in this neighborhood and feel it's really going to the dogs. I don't feel the same way, just that every locale has it's bad eggs. There has been a lot of crime lately, and it seems people are finally up in arms over it, though. The local paper has been very critical of the police in Northeast Minneapolis, so we'll see if things get done.

Anyways, like I said, I wasn't a fan of having an open backyard, so I replaced the fence. The layout of the fence changed, increasing the size of the backyard, only costing some useless space in the front. It's finally done, just in time for me to return to China tomorrow.
Although the fence was a sizeable job, I also had a chance to take care of some other things around the house. With any heavy rain, the trees would let their leaves go, and fill up my gutters, causing the rain to run off the roof and puddle up near the house. This would lead to water in my basement at times. The solution? Gutter guards.
And while I had been gone, Kelsey made some nice additions to the yard. A nicer border for the crabapple tree and flowers in the front and side were the biggest changes.
Now that the house is done, I can head back to China. The flight is at 3:05 pm, and lands at 10:35 pm on Thursday. And then a great day of work on Friday! Whoo hoo! Thanks to everyone for making some time to hang out. And congrats to Sara and Michael on their wedding!

Random Stuff

Congratulations to the Miami Heat, 2006 NBA Champions! Interesting facts I recently discovered:

• Both the Heat and the Mavericks made their first Finals appearances this year
• Heat home arena: American Airlines Arena
• Mavericks home arena: American Airlines Center
• Other random stats

Some other assorted sites worth checking out:

• 100 AWESOME Music Videos
• The most fuel efficient car EVAR!
  
• Where does the fuel go?
  
• They just didn't want to get fat
• Levers. Although I believe they're just class 1, no 2 or 3.
• Powers of Ten (original and Simpsons)

The Walls Come Down

So as you all know, I've been in China, and my house has been occupied by Kelsey. She's done an admirable job keeping it tidy, and making improvments, mostly in the garden and landscaping department. Some very nice flowers took up residence in the front yard, as well as filling out the back. But one thing she felt like leaving to me was fence maintenance.

For any of you who have been to my house lately, you've seen the debacle that is my fence. Even the neighbors were wondering when I was going to do something about that fence. The problem is, it felt like a landmark in the neighborhood. But I don't think there was much choice. On Sunday, with a little help from my friends, we tore down the wall!

Before, the fence was a basketweave, approximately 50 years old. Posts were rotten, and I needed to prop up some of the sections. This is a picture from last summer.
During demolition.
The new view (if only temporary):
The rubble left over:
Of course, nothing gets done without some delicious fuel to keep the troops happy!
After we got the entire fence down, one of the neighbors, Anastacia, stopped by and had a chat. She mentioned how they completely missed the turn for the alley because the large red fence wasn't there anymore, so it really was a landmark for navigation! I have to give a huge thanks to Kelsey, Steve, Megan, Jake, Nate and Tony for the assistance over the day.

This week is reconstructing the new fence. All cedar with dog ear panels. I've already got the holes dug, and have placed the posts.

Escapade

This is not Guangzhou. I have departed that place of rain, to seek something better, or so I thought. Little did I know exactly how difficult my journey would be, the tests that I would face.

Thursday night (GZ time) I still had plans to go to Phoenix this weekend. I would fly from GZ to Tokyo to Portland to Phoenix, arriving around 4pm on Saturday. I hd the thought, "why fly to Phoenix, when I can spend Saturday night in Minneapolis?" After all, it is my home, and I have many friends and important people I would like to see there, like Kelsey. So I changed my flight. The travel agent told me that unfortunatly ALL the Tokyo to Mpls flights for Saturday were sold out, but there was a Friday available. SOLD! And the packing began. As this was less than 12 hours from said flight, I hustled. So excited, I could hardly sleep, managing only 3 hours of shuteye. Up and at 'em at 5am, to make it to the airport with plenty of time, no chances taken here. The flight crew arrive and board... hmm... 15 minutes later, all the flight crew disembark. This is not encouraging. Right, the pilot tells us that it's a broken plane. NOT GOOD. NWA only flighs one flight out of GZ each day, and this was it.

NWA's local representation did a less than stellar job of handling the situation. I won't go into it here, for fear of throwing my computer across the room just thinking about it. Needless to say, I was forced to find my own way back to the states, and damnit, I don't care what it takes! So that led me to a 9pm (after arriving at the airport at 6:30am) flight on China Southern to LAX. Fortunately it landed two hours early, so I cought a 9pm (Pacific) to Las Vegas, and a 11:00 to MSP, landing at 3:45 am, Central Daylight Time. Total travel time: just about 36 hours. Not fun. One benefit is I made a few friends on the flight, who were all in the same situation as me, and ended up on the same flights back. So that was cool.

In the end, I made it home, and really surprised Kelsey. It felt great to just sit in my own house again. I was even able to make it out to the bar on Saturday night, surprise a couple more people, and have a birthday drink at midnight. Unfortunately, as soon as I landed in Minneapolis, I pretty much had to leave for Phoenix and a 4 day work conference. But then it's a week at home, a new fence to install, and a wedding to attend.

Someone's a Year Older!

Happy Birthday Tina! And now, cause I don't delete anything, ever, a visit from the ghost of birthdays past:

2004

2005

Sorry I missed this one. Hope it was good!

Support System, Dwindling

Well, one more westerner on the way home. My co-worker Eric has finished his tour of duty, and is headed back to the US. This means two things, I need to step up, and I'm totally screwed. See, Eric had been here for 9 months, and knew the place pretty well. We'll see if I survive.

Food of the Week:
Well, like most weeks, I've eaten a couple of things that I have no clue why I did. This week? Fish intestine omlette. An omlette with fish sounds bad enough, but fish intestines? In all fairness, it wasn't bad, but I didn't eat much of it. Omlettes are hard to eat with chopsticks, btw. And today, I had Mexican food, with that special Chinese twist. I had a serious craving for tacos, so I found a place. And they were pretty good! Better than Taco Bell at least (which I have failed to locate).