Thursday, June 30, 2005
Good Vietnam news site
Fail As Hard As You Can
When I was young I wouldn't even try something I knew I would not be good at. So I stayed away from sports, singing, math and science.
Nowadays I relish doing hard things, even if poorly. I run several times a week, even though I rarely get below and eight minute mile. I read science magazines, even though I don't grasp all of the theory behind the new ideas and innovations. And I forced myself through finance classes at Johns Hopkins as aprt of my MBA program.
So my advice is: do poorly at hard stuff and feel proud about it.
Nowadays I relish doing hard things, even if poorly. I run several times a week, even though I rarely get below and eight minute mile. I read science magazines, even though I don't grasp all of the theory behind the new ideas and innovations. And I forced myself through finance classes at Johns Hopkins as aprt of my MBA program.
So my advice is: do poorly at hard stuff and feel proud about it.
Tuesday, June 28, 2005
Six Cities
Going to the Six Cities/600 Photo reception tonight.
Here is what the co-curator says:
Bangkok/Berlin/London/Los Angeles/Manila/Saigon
10 artists from Saigon contributed 100 images to this
show, which all together presents 600 Images by 60
artists the 6 cities included in the show.
The Saigon-based artists are meeting next Tuesday
evening to celebrate Saigon’s participation in this
event and would like to invite you along. All the 600
Images will be screened as a slide show on TV
monitors.
Here is what the co-curator says:
Bangkok/Berlin/London/Los Angeles/Manila/Saigon
10 artists from Saigon contributed 100 images to this
show, which all together presents 600 Images by 60
artists the 6 cities included in the show.
The Saigon-based artists are meeting next Tuesday
evening to celebrate Saigon’s participation in this
event and would like to invite you along. All the 600
Images will be screened as a slide show on TV
monitors.
Friday, June 24, 2005
Totally Empty House
Our voices echo off the walls. Nearly four hundred boxes went out the door last night and the day before. Calista is having a great time riding her bike around the house.
A bit of history goes with this place, since the ConGen will not be renewing the lease. Bill Clinton was here briefly during his November 2000 visit. So was Brendan Frasier, during the filming of 'The Quiet American.'
The poet/Fulbright scholar Don Adams dropped by my office this morning. On an academic trip while his school is on break. He has been a wonderful contributor to Vietnam's efforts to grow its American studies and literature curricula.
The PM's visit to the US is heady stuff, eh? Amazing how far things have come between the two countries in the past few years.
An old old high school friend has a web page, www.JohnHewett.com; great to see his speaker career has flourished so well.
A bit of history goes with this place, since the ConGen will not be renewing the lease. Bill Clinton was here briefly during his November 2000 visit. So was Brendan Frasier, during the filming of 'The Quiet American.'
The poet/Fulbright scholar Don Adams dropped by my office this morning. On an academic trip while his school is on break. He has been a wonderful contributor to Vietnam's efforts to grow its American studies and literature curricula.
The PM's visit to the US is heady stuff, eh? Amazing how far things have come between the two countries in the past few years.
An old old high school friend has a web page, www.JohnHewett.com; great to see his speaker career has flourished so well.
Wednesday, June 22, 2005
Packing Out
Eight people have been doing the pack-out. They are true artists, eyeballing our artwork and vases and making safe coccoons out of raw pieces of cardboard and styrofoam. Amazing.
Tuesday, June 21, 2005
Primary Foods
This year's Folklife Festival in Washington, D.C. is not going to focus on particular countries like it usually does, but rather on world foods.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/22/dining/22folk.html?hp
The author refers to 'comfort foods' to explain the importance of menu items touching our cultural or hometown roots, but I prefer to think of them as 'primary foods.' That term far better explains an uncontrollable craving for a cheeseburger when I sit down to table full of beautiful pho or spring rolls in a gently herb-scented restaurant here in Saigon. It is vey hard to defeat our programming and add to our menu of primary foods.
Food is the glue that is holding the U.S. together. While Samuel Huntington (http://hnn.us/articles/4987.html) and Mark Krikorian (www.cis.org) rail against the dangerous effects of the New Immigrants, few can dispute the positive influence of the wild new tastes they are bringing with them.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/22/dining/22folk.html?hp
The author refers to 'comfort foods' to explain the importance of menu items touching our cultural or hometown roots, but I prefer to think of them as 'primary foods.' That term far better explains an uncontrollable craving for a cheeseburger when I sit down to table full of beautiful pho or spring rolls in a gently herb-scented restaurant here in Saigon. It is vey hard to defeat our programming and add to our menu of primary foods.
Food is the glue that is holding the U.S. together. While Samuel Huntington (http://hnn.us/articles/4987.html) and Mark Krikorian (www.cis.org) rail against the dangerous effects of the New Immigrants, few can dispute the positive influence of the wild new tastes they are bringing with them.
At Moving Time, More Thoughts on Useless Junk
http://www.theonion.com/news/index.php?issue=4124&n=1
But I'll defend to the death the right to own my bagel slicer, my Garmin ear-jammer rubber hoochies for my iPod earphones, and my oodles of spare computer cables...
But I'll defend to the death the right to own my bagel slicer, my Garmin ear-jammer rubber hoochies for my iPod earphones, and my oodles of spare computer cables...
Moving Sideways
Movers--now called relocators, I guess--packed up about half of our stuff today. Finally room to roam around in the house again.
Cal has been in Hong Kong the last few days, coming back tonight.
Www.VoDaCo.blogspot.com has a story about Calista...
Cal has been in Hong Kong the last few days, coming back tonight.
Www.VoDaCo.blogspot.com has a story about Calista...
Saturday, June 18, 2005
Word for a New Generation
Remember when Dustin Hoffman in the movie 'The Graduate' received this single, bizarre word of unsolicited career advice? PLASTICS
I think the next generation word is: SPINTRONICS
http://policy.iop.org/v_production/v5.html
I think the next generation word is: SPINTRONICS
http://policy.iop.org/v_production/v5.html
This Is Broken
A great way to vent your customer service frustrations, or to see others vent theirs:
www.ThisIsBroken.com
www.ThisIsBroken.com
Wednesday, June 15, 2005
Paris Hilton in Saigon
Cal got into a reception and fashion show on Monday night to introduce Paris Hilton's new perfume line. He has the dignity and poise which I so sorely lack.
Saturday, June 11, 2005
Chronicles
Bob Dylan's Chronicles Volume One brings to life a truly disappeared world in NYC in the early 1960s, a world of heavyweight boxers and folk singers and Irish rebel after-hour pubs, a feeling of huge impending change in a city crammed with faceless masses but a friend at every other bar or gallery. You can get a better grasp for the city than reading a serious historical text, and you can also think about what cities in the world match that spirit nowadays. I'd daresay HCMC is one of them.
Total Personality Change
I have a friend who drinks a couple of beers and goes form an extremely stable, mature businessman to a bizarre philsosopher within a matter of minutes. He scares other guests. It is unnerving and I am going to have to only see him duirng the day from now on.
Public Rolfing
OK, where have you barfed in public and under what circumstances?
I'll go first:
King's Department Store, Rutland, Vermont. I was about 10 years old. I got car sick in the back of my aunt's VW Beetle and hurled all over the floor at the entrance to King's, which was like a cheesy Kmart.
You're next: post here or to staticvoid@Hotmail.com and I'll share your experiences.
I'll go first:
King's Department Store, Rutland, Vermont. I was about 10 years old. I got car sick in the back of my aunt's VW Beetle and hurled all over the floor at the entrance to King's, which was like a cheesy Kmart.
You're next: post here or to staticvoid@Hotmail.com and I'll share your experiences.
NRBQ/Baby Macaroni
OK, my suggestion is that Chandler Travis join Baby Macaroni for at least the summer months!
Moving Out
I was lying on the couch early this morning watching a Seinfeld episode ("The Movie") when two guys arrived at our front door and took all our living room furniture. It's nice rattan stuff, but not at all suitable for Korea, so we sold it for a hundred bucks (probably a tenth of its value in the States). After they took the stuff out I swept away dust bunnies, pistachio shells, a La Vie water bottle cap and a blue crayon. Lots of room now for Callie to peddle her tricycle around.
I have always enjoyed the house before the household effects arrive and after they're gone. It reminds me of a Buddhist friend's house in Springfield VA. They belong to an ultra-serious temple and they have gradually been giving away their household belongings over the past decade. The first time I visited they had given away their living room set. Last time I was there they had no dining room table. It was GREAT, so much wall-to-wall carpeting and space for the kids to go nuts in.
I have always enjoyed the house before the household effects arrive and after they're gone. It reminds me of a Buddhist friend's house in Springfield VA. They belong to an ultra-serious temple and they have gradually been giving away their household belongings over the past decade. The first time I visited they had given away their living room set. Last time I was there they had no dining room table. It was GREAT, so much wall-to-wall carpeting and space for the kids to go nuts in.
Saturday, June 04, 2005
Revenge of the Sith
'Sith' has revived the Star Wars legend! My son's friends are already talking about when George Lucas/Rick McCollum will move on to parts 7, 8 and 9. A colleague has flown to Bangkok this weekend to see it, and another one made his trip to Hong Kong last weekend the focal point of his trip. It's coming to the big screen in Saigon next month--will show at a new, supposed Arundel Mills-style theater.
Wednesday, June 01, 2005
Deep Throat
This revelation is a bit anti-climactic. Weren't you expecting someone a bit higher profile? Have you ever heard of him?
####Washington Post Confirms Felt Was 'Deep Throat'
By William Branigin and David Von Drehle
The Washington Post today confirmed that W. Mark Felt, a former number-two official at the FBI, was "Deep Throat," the secretive source who provided information that helped unravel the Watergate scandal in the early 1970s and contributed to the resignation of president Richard M. Nixon.
The confirmation came from Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, the two Washington Post reporters who broke the Watergate story, and their former top editor, Benjamin C. Bradlee. The three spoke after Felt's family and Vanity Fair magazine identified the 91-year-old Felt, now a retiree in California, as the long-anonymous source who provided crucial guidance for some of the newspaper's groundbreaking Watergate stories.
####Washington Post Confirms Felt Was 'Deep Throat'
By William Branigin and David Von Drehle
The Washington Post today confirmed that W. Mark Felt, a former number-two official at the FBI, was "Deep Throat," the secretive source who provided information that helped unravel the Watergate scandal in the early 1970s and contributed to the resignation of president Richard M. Nixon.
The confirmation came from Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, the two Washington Post reporters who broke the Watergate story, and their former top editor, Benjamin C. Bradlee. The three spoke after Felt's family and Vanity Fair magazine identified the 91-year-old Felt, now a retiree in California, as the long-anonymous source who provided crucial guidance for some of the newspaper's groundbreaking Watergate stories.
