122507 Last week was just pure crazy as Murphy turned his ugly head and stamped my forehead with his name. One thing that has always been a pain working in Shanghai, is the fear that the Home Office checks in a broken build, because that means there's a good chance that we could be shut down for a day, and there's no one around who can fix it. There's no way to verify any new work, and so people are forced to slow down within an all ready tight schedule. Not fun. If last Thursday was any indication of things to come, we're going to be in a worlds of hurt. Here's a brief description of the things that went wrong;
Wednesday morning: Went into the office and started syncing all the new data for our build from the Home Office. A few minutes later, one of the artist raised his hands and indicated that his, proprietary Maya tool for our complex pipeline, is not working. Oh, what could that be, pray tell, let me take a look? Anyway, to make a long story short, I tried a lot of things and finally tracked down the reason - broken code from that morning's check-in by the Home Office. As artists started to come in, more of them had broken tools - this is not good; the TAD is off to Beijing setting up another studio, and I'm no tools expert. The only thing I could do was to revert some of the tools to the previous day and hope that nothing breaks because of it. That got six of the artist going by that afternoon, but only one had other problems and could not be fixed until the next day. One of the artist here checked in some broken data at the end of the day, causing me many hours looking into the problem. i didn't get home until midnight.
Thursday: Went into the office and find out that the link that was sent to me the previous day was the wrong one, which explains why it didn't work. Th rest of the day was spent on fixing other issues. Another day gone.
And, so I have had no time to do the daily sketch and have mist a few.
Be seeing you.
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120107 This has been one hell of a long week, so long that it feels like I've been back for several week because I can barely remember what happen, except that I have been work super long hours and didn't get home til midnight on Wednesday. I have also been working the past two days, that is the weekend, playing catch up for all the missing work that I've miss last week. Am I having fun, yet? I think not. I just want to zone out and do nothing for a month!
112507 Well, it has been an absolute bliss to be home and relaxed, if only for just half a week. Now it's time to go back to the grind that is Shanghai.
112407 This week went past, way too quickly. Just when I'm settling down and relaxing, I'm on my way again. A scheduled Sunday flight will have me landing Monday evening. This time I'm taking the guitar with me, so I don't get totally bored sitting around the apartment after work. I hope I don't get any jet lag like I have this trip back. I usually stay up throughout the entire flight, reading a book. This way, when I get back to shanghai, I'll be good for a few more hours, and then it's off to a good night sleep and be ready for Tuesday long work day. Just lovely...
112307 Today is a good day. It's a good day because the sky was clear, the air is clean and the temperature was just right. Got the house vacuumed and dusted. The filter for the fish take was cleaned, and I got to go do one of my favorite pass times, which is sitting somewhere with a friend sketching people. We met at the Great Mall in Milpedas, and sat around an indoor fountain. The place was crowded and dense with people doing their holiday shopping. But it was not as crowded as some of the malls I went to in Shanghai. And today is a good day because I finally got a really good, good night sleep! Too bad I can't have more days like this:-I
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111907 First day back at the office and nothing gets done due to the mess that is my new location. Yes, indeed, I was moved while I was away from the office. Nothing was set up properly and setting things up again was not on my list of "fun things to do". I can feel a vein popping while crawling under the desk sorting out the spaghetti of wires. I am not liking it.
111807 The concrete jungle. That's how I would describe what Shanghai is like. It's not like Los Angeles or New York, where high rises mark the heart of the city, and one can see where it is at any given distance. Nope, there are so many high rise buildings in Shanghai that one looses sight of any one landmark building as little as three miles away. So it's good to be back home and have ample view of the sky and the quiet of the burbs, hahaha. So this week will be a nice break before the need to go back and run with the fast paced life that is back in Shanghai. Some things in Shanghai that I do find nice are the fact that one don't need a car to get around the city. The subways are clean, efficient and can get you just about anywhere within the boundaries. The taxis are everywhere and are pretty affordable. Convenient stores are practically on every block and stays open late into the night.
Today is the first time that I went sketching with a friend at the local Borders since I left on my tour of duty. The Goober came along too, as we were hanging out and catching up earlier during the day. The store was pretty crowed so finding a seat was hard to do, but once we found one, it was not too difficult in finding subject matter for the sketching exercise. Since I didn't find a lead pointer for the drawing utensil I'd normally use, I had to use a .5mm mechanical pencil - don't much like sketching with those, because there's just not enough character in the lines drawn. I must try and find a place to do this when I get back to Shanghai. Tomorrow is another work day and lots of things to do at the office.
be seeing you.
111707 With my arrival at eight in the morning with very little to no sleep on the plane, I busied myself with necessary shopping for the depleted drugs to take back for the next rotation next Sunday. I wanted to get as much of the shopping and prep work done so I don't need to worry about it at the last minute, which seems to always be the case. Tomorrow will be a round at the big box store for needed towels and foods that are non-existent, rare or too expensive on the other side of the water. Since the apartment I stay at has no dryer, typical, I've decided to pack more camping and hiking attire so air drying would be faster after they are washed - not having a dryer for laundry sucks!
111607 Today was the last day of work for me at the office before I fly back to the Homeland, and wouldn't you know it, right before I was about to leave the office, all hell breaks loose with some of the check-ins that people are doing for the environments! The artist were in a slight panic as they got error message after error message in the build log for the sections that they were working on - this is the day they have to submit their work for review from the home office, and nothing gets checked-in that has errors. I grimaced. I have the other half waiting in the car at the apartment to take me to her place so I can get dropped off in the morning for my flight back. Needless to say, she was not happy that I had to stay for a little bit. Forty five minutes later, with most or the errors trouble-shot and fix, I ran out the door with a request to my fellow adviser, who's also here on an extended tour of duty, to help them with further errors. He graciously agreed and that was that. Next weeks submission should be interesting, for I will not be around when they do their submissions. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.
111507 While on my way back to the office from lunch one day, I've noticed that someone was making a delivery of some food. A security guard was talking to him and I can hear him telling the delivery guy that he needs to take the service elevator, the ones that are located at each end of the main elevators to the upper floors. These "service" elevators are about half the size of the main ones and can only fit maybe four or five people comfortably and are lined with ugly ass brown particle board.
111407 111307 I've been burning the candle on both ends and it's beginning to show. twelve to fifteen hour days for the past four weeks, though fun, has been showing at the seems by the appearance of the dreaded sickness - the COLD! Nothing I can do except take the effervescent cold preventatives that is rapidly being depleted. I must remember to buy more from the trip back to the homeland this Saturday!
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110907 Saw these little round piggy speakers for mp3 players and the like, in some of the small shops in the subway, and had to get one, hahaha. They are just too cute, hahaha!
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110207 Wow, what a long ass week, practically "Working from seven to eleven, every night. Really makes life a drag." No time for anything except work and sleep.
A few items of interest; A friend was here for a week of vacation from the States, and we went to a restaurant called "People Restaurant" with one of his local friends. This restaurant was pretty interesting outside and in, because the entrance didn't have a recognizable entrance for a restaurant, it was more like a night club. The entrance was set inside a dark alcove with a small, logo light shown at the base of the stairs, which were also lit much like stairs in a movie theater. At the top of the landing were six, about eight inch cylinders set about a foot deep, clustered in a square pattern much like a telephone key board, back lit and on the wall facing the stairs about four foot off the ground. There were no vi sable "doors" that one could identify or see, because there were no other lights. The friend's friend then stuck his hand into the cylinders in a random pattern, and all of a sudden, we heard a motorized whirling on the wall to our left as it slid open like a sliding glass door. We went through to a dimly lit reception counter. After confirming our reservations, we were than escorted to our table on the third floor of the restaurant. I told that the drinks at this restaurant were pretty good and was know for it. I don't doubt it as we went pass the bar that ran the entire forty or fifty feet along a back wall. while waiting for the menu, My friend and I asked for directions to the rest room. we were then given instructions to them on the first floor. When we went into the hall that was supposed to house the rest rooms, all we found were three steel doors that reached the eight or nine foot ceiling. I tried all three knobs only to find them locked. "Closets", I thought. we tried several other doors in the opposite side of the hall only to find a broom closet. Again, we asked a waitress, and again she pointed us down the same hall with the three doors. This time, as we tried the door knows again - nothing. I then heard a door squeak and turned around to find my friend with a surprise look on his face with his hands on the cracked open door that hinged on the door knob side, what the hell? This was confirmed as I pushed on the opposite side of the door knob, that was interesting, so i go in. Inside was lowly lit, I could barely find see anything except a vague reflection from the basin counter - what the hell? I tried grope around the wall around the door for a light switch only to find none - again, what is going on? What kind of restaurant is this? "Oh, well", I though, I guess I'll have to take a piss in the dark??? That blows. As I engage the sliding lock on the door, the lights go on! Now that's pretty cool! Seems like a pretty good gimmick to get people to remember this restaurant, for they sire did their job with me, hahaha.
As for the food; the portions were a little small, but tasty. we had two stew-like dishes that were served in a paper bowl, heated from the bottom with alcohol burners. The egg plant was excellent, and so were the roast duck. We also had a bottle of California Zinfandel. Good food, good times. Now that you know about this place, I sure you'll probably want to try one when you visit Shanghai or Taipei.
