Hong Kong Brother

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Each month I will keep a running list of news items, including info on my schedule, etc. It's in order from LATEST entry at the top on down to the OLDEST entry at the bottom.

Here are the "News" archives, feel free to browse them for some interesting tidbits:

April/May 2002 Archive	October 2002 Archive
June 2002 Archive	November 2002 Archive
July 2002 Archive	December 2002 Archive
August/September 2002 Archive
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January 2003 Archive	June 2003 Archive
February 2003 Archive	July/August 2003 Archive
March 2003 Archive	Sept/October/Nov 2003 Archive
April 2003 Archive	December 2003 Archive
May 2003 Archive
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January 2004 Archive	June/July 2004 Archive
February/March 2004 Archive	August 2004 Archive
April 2004 Archive	September 2004 Archive
May 2004 Archive

An Honest Drunk:

A woman was shopping at her local supermarket where she selected a quart of 2% milk, a carton of eggs, a quart of orange juice, a head of romaine lettuce, a 2 lb. can of coffee, and a 1 lb. package of bacon.

As she was unloading her items on the conveyor belt to check out, a drunk standing behind her watched as she placed the items in front of the cashier.

He said, "You must be single."

The woman, a bit startled but intrigued by the derelict's intuition, looked at her six items on the belt. Seeing nothing particularly unusual about her selections she said, "Well, know what, you're absolutely correct. But how on earth did you know that?"

The drunk replied, "Cause you're ugly."

I had a birthday back a few weeks ago, and my friend Audrey (above) sent me some cards -- she said she couldn't decide on just one card, so she sent me a whole handful of them.

One of them, though, was so beautiful that I've kept it here next to my computer ever since. The poem inside says:

That is just so beautiful and sublime that I can't stop thinking about it. And I keep thinking how she only picked that card because of the picture on the front, but it was one of the most profound things I've read for a while...

Just for kicks, here is a photo from the last time I saw Audrey (when I was home, in August of 2003) -- she wanted us to make goofy faces, so I, uh, did my best to comply.

I heard some shocking news yesterday, that my friend, Denny Inzer, died of a heart attack while jogging on Sunday.

I played in a band with Denny for several months back in the early 90's, and then later became friends with his sons, especially his oldest, Colby, who still works for my former employer. Denny was an AMAZING musician, he knew more songs than any other person I've ever met in my life, and I mean he was a talented singer as much as he was a guitarist. He was also an avid sports enthusiast and jogger.

Colby got the news while at the airport on his way home from the big jazz educators' convention we used to always go to -- I can't imagine what he felt getting that phone call while at the airport waiting to come home.

I wish you'd pray for these guys -- Denny had three kids, all of whom I ended up working with at some time or other, Colby, the eldest, then Josh, and finally Erica.

Okay, so we've been doing this "English news broadcast" at the school, where the kids present "news" about our school via reports and interviews -- ALL while they try to "speaky ze engrish"... It's been a real challenge for the kids, but fun, too, and I have FINALLY got the first three "episodes" uploaded so that you can download and watch them, too.

And that is EXACTLY what you ought to do -- DOWNLOAD AND WATCH THEM!! They are very cool and cute and funny, and I expect you will love them.

The files are quite large, but that's the problem with videos on the internet. I have compressed them a LOT, so the versions you'll see here look all blotchy in places -- I'm sorry you can't see the kids more perfectly, but no one likes downloading a 16-meg file.

If you don't have too much time, or don't have broadband, etc., then I insist that you go right to broadcast #3 about Christmas, and jump to around the 4:15 mark -- it's a short montage from the school's Christmas events and I love it, I can't stop watching it, actually. Yeah, it took me about 10 hours to make it (my first time trying this sort of thing), but it's really worth it...

The kids doing the news are all P5 or P6, and they are all among the "elite" students of our school -- I LOVE THEM DEARLY. They wrote everything they said, though they sometimes used a template that we gave them to structure their ideas and sentences.

Actually, since it's 1:15am, I suppose that it's technically the 16th of January here already... But anyway...

Because of the late hour, let me just make a quick post, and tell you I've added a page about a new CD I'm playing on here in HK. It's called "Vanilla Me" by my friend, Frances Chiu, and I hope you'll take the time to download it, listen, and let me know what you think. It's the first real music I've worked on since I've been here, that's over 2 and a half years, folks. Read about it HERE.

Another of my friends turned me on to a Chinese lady from New Zealand who sings cover songs, and I can't resist posting these .mp3's. I want to try to stress that I mean absolutely NOTHING by posting these -- they speak for themselves, I'm fairly certain.

The Postman Always... uh, Rings... or, something or other...
So two days ago, I get this notice to go to the post office, see? Because in HK they can't deliver anything to your mailbox larger than a pop tart. Though actually no one has ever tried to send me a single pop tart, so maybe even THAT wouldn't work. I KNOW it wouldn't work for TWO pop tarts, the way they are normally packaged, that's DEFINITELY too big. But I don't know, maybe a single tart of the pop persuasion would work... Hmmmmm....

But anyway, if anyone sends you anything thicker than, say, a paper clip, then they just put this notice in your box that says, "we're holding this package for you, and we won't tell you how big it is or who it's from, but just come get it before we throw it away -- and by the way, our office hours are for every time you CAN'T come pick it up."

(I don't have the form with me, so that's not a QUOTE of what it says, but that's the gist of it. )

Don't get me wrong. The post office really is NOT all that inconvenient to go to -- there's a shuttle van from my estate to the estate where it's located -- but whenever you get one of those notices, you know it will take an HOUR at least to get there and back.

It being Christmas, however, I got a little anxious, if you see what I mean -- what could this be? A package -- for me?!? Could it be something - (gulp) - GOOD?!?!?

So being as yesterday was the last day of my holiday from school, and being as if I didn't go THEN I might as well forget getting that package for about a week, I scurried off yesterday afternoon to get it.

I get to the stupid post office, and there is a line completely out the building and running down the hall!! I couldn't believe it. They only had two guys working in there on the busiest day of the entire year, and trust me, those fellows weren't ABOUT to break a sweat, as slow and casual as they were going. HK people get pretty mad about stuff like that, I guess, and fortunately there was a comedian in the ranks to break the tension (he made everyone laugh at his comments, something about the guys being slow as pigs or something, though I couldn't catch much of what he said). The people who continually tried to walk past the entire 60 people standing there and cut to the front of the line was also a source of alternating hostility and then amusement -- some person would just walk right past the entire line to the front to ask a question (tension!) and then the slow-moving employee would smile and (slowly) say, "Very many people!!" while pointing at the line (release!), and finally everyone would chuckle at the gall of the line-cutting guy -- "CRAZY!" they would all say and laugh...

Okay, so I ended up waiting at least an hour to get that package, and yes, I grumbled a bit -- BUT IT WAS WORTH IT!!!

They sent me more cookies and fudge and cookies and candy and cookies than I could eat in TEN lifetimes!!! It was so much fun to open that box, and then take box, after box, after box, after box of that stuff out of there!!! In all, there were EIGHT TUBS of cookies, candy and fudge; a coffee mug full of peanut-butter and chocolate candy, then another big can of cookies!!!

True Love
My Aunt Judy is so much fun. She is always the life of the party -- ask anyone. But let me tell you, she has such a huge heart, too, and she loves our whole family so much -- all us cousins, and aunts and uncles, and grandkids and everything in between (we Watts' have a LOT of "in betweens")...

Anyway, I was cleaning house a few days ago and ran across my stash of letters that my Aunt Judy has sent me -- she has been so kind and loving to write me, and I mean to say that I see a card or letter from her at least once or twice a month.

Well, so I don't keep very many of them or anything, but I had a small stack that I had kept from this year's letters -- and when I counted, IT WAS 34 PAGES!!! And listen, I'm saying it was at most only half of what she's written me this year!

I don't tell you that to make you feel guilty for not writing (ha ha), actually lots of people are good about writing and keeping me in their thoughts (my Aunt Clara also is just so gracious in sending me cards or whatever)... But no, I just tell you all this because as I sat down and re-read those letters from my Aunt Judy, I marveled that I might be given such a gift as that. I'm serious -- I re-read every single word on every single page, and yes, I got all weepy (but don't you dare tell anybody that) -- but mostly I just sat there, just now, thinking how I must be one of the luckiest bozos in the world to have an aunt that would take so much time to keep me "connected" with everything.

Now, I have all these really great photos from the holidays, but just NO TIME to post them now -- which probably means they'll never get posted -- I'm so sorry about that, too, because I really wanted you to see them. But anyway, if I can find the time I'll put them up....