short sedona vacation

Just back last night from a short vacation in Sedona, Arizona. Met with family and did a lot of hiking. It’s my second time there – last time we did basically the same things and the same hikes but it didn’t seem old doing them again. It’s such a relaxing place.

bee stings

First week of riding my motorcycle in SD. On the second day, I road though a swarm of bugs flying above the road – about ten seconds later I felt a stinging feeling on my thigh and at same time I looked down to see what it was, I realized it had been a swam of bees I road through since one was still stuck to me, stinging my inner thigh through my jeans. I don’t think I’ve been stung by a bee in over 20 years. It doesn’t hurt as much as I remember but it swelled up and hurt afterwards for about four days. I realized there’s not much you can do while getting stung in motion on the bike- try to brush it off without crashing is about it.

first impressions of israel

I arrived in Tel Aviv, Israel, last Friday for a one week work summit. Upon returning to San Diego after leaving Singapore I joined a group that is partnering with another R&D site just south of Tel Aviv. So today concluded my first business trip to Israel but I still have tomorrow for sight seeing in Jerusalem before a late night flight back to San Diego. The view from my hotel in Tel Aviv just after checking in last Friday

The work week is Sunday to Thursday here so we also had last Saturday for sight seeing so some of us hired a guide to tour around the North near Galilee. We mostly visited the main sights of Jesus’ life, his home while living with Mary and Joseph in Nazareth, the sea of Galilee near where he gave the sermon on the mount, the rock he and peter cooked fish and peter built the first church beside the sea of Galilee, Peter's Family house and the river Jordan where Jesus was baptized.
For lunch I had one of the fish the guide told us was still left over from after the sermon on the mount. Fish and chips, Israeli style.

We also had a work team building in Jerusalem Tuesday night at the Tower of David- a light show covering the history of the city over 3000 years. Before coming to Israel I didn’t know exactly what to expect. I'd heard stories of everyone carrying guns around the city but I couldn't really believe it. People always exaggerate what they don't know and it turns out it's not true, but couldn't help but notice our guide did have a pistol tucked into his back pant waistline and two other people not with our company that had joined our group- who I later found our were part of the security for our group. I can say that this is the first time I've had armed bodyguards looking after me (well, for our whole group actually).

The Tower of David at night

oh, yeah, one other interesting thing was the government started passing out gas masks to all the citizens while we where there- one of the distribution sites was at our office. Actually, only adults get gas masks, the children and babies get small gas tents to protect them in the case of chemical attack. I may have seemed strage to me but to the coworkers this was not that big of a deal...


Actually, I like it here a lot and it seems much safer than I'd imagined. Even walking around at night, the streets are still full of people and it feels surprisingly safe. Especially after spending the last three years in Singapore it's amazing to be around so much history intertwined with normal life. Just a few minutes walking south of the hotel is the port of Jaffa- one of the oldest in the work at about 4000 years and the place Jonah headed out to sea before being swallowed by a whale. The old neighborhoods are so cool to walk around night, full of character, life, bars and restaurants. The food is really fresh and healthy- literally I've never seen so many different types of salads in my life- and the people are friendly. I had never even considered coming to Israel before this but now that I’ve been here I am really excited about coming back and seeing more of the country. It will be nice to get home to san diego on saturday though.

iron pour

On Saturday night I was at Christmas party with some of the glass blower friends and found out an iron pour would be held the next day the crafts center. One of them was running it and some of the others had prepared molds for the pour so I decided to drop by and watch. I'd been to one pour at San Diego State University a few years ago and it’s pretty interesting to watch the process- fire, heat, white hot molten metal and beer (for the spectators). Since I’d left to Singapore they’d started up the equipment for iron casting at the studio here and have been holding a few per year following a mold making class. So all the prep work for the molds is done in advance then when the day comes they’re filled with molten iron leaving you with a chunk of iron in the shape of your design that will last literally almost forever.A fire is started in a special furnace using coke as fuel which is continuously stoked by an air blower. Eventually the temperature gets high enough to add in scrap iron which will melt and flow down to the bottom of the furnace. At this point a port is broken out from the side and the iron flows out into crucible at about 3200 degree F – at that temp the color is literally white hot and it flows out just like water. The crucible is carried over to the prepared molds and poured. After the iron had cooled and solidified the molds are broken apart revealing the cast pieces- not having seen and of the mold making it was fun to see what came out of all the molds at the end of the day.It’s really amazing to think people were doing this over a thousand years ago and basically the only difference is they didn’t have an electric air blower to stoke the fire. The air stream was supplied by hand pumped bellows! In this world with everything moving towards higher technology and virtual representations of reality it’s remarkably stimulating to participate is this kind of low tech activity and to actually make something real with your own hands.after the metal cools the molds are broken apart to release the form

rain and planes

It’s been a week in San Diego and so far it's a lot of rain. On my first day here last Saturday San Diego had the first measurable rain in 163 days, and today it's been pouring all day long. People in San Diego don't see much rain so when they do, they drive really crazy- I noticed the roads don't deal with the water, allowing it to drain off quickly, as well as the Singapore roads. The first rain days of the season see literally hundreds of car crashes on the roads throughout the county since the roads are at their most slick state when wetted after the long dry period.

Over the weekend I flew up to Sacramento for my brother's swearing in to the Bar Association. It's a quick flight up to Sacramento and was pretty routine until after we landed. After we reached the gate and the seatbelt sign was turned off things got very strange. Nobody got up to grab their bags, stand in the aisles and push to the front to get out first. This is so common and almost second nature to me after being on flights in Asia so long that I really had to fight the urge to keep seated and wait for the people to deplane in such an orderly manner. It's actually pretty nice, and doesn't take any longer to get off the plane.

In Sacramento we also had a turducken for dinner Saturday night. a turkey stuffed with a chicken that is stuffed with a duck which is stuffed with ... stuffing. First time having it and it was pretty good. Coined "The Trinity of the Fowl" by our grandfather. The turkey part exploded during the cooking splitting it in half It was a bit of a mess to cut and ended up as a huge plate of fowl and stuffing

Back to San Diego

Today was my first official day back in the San Diego office- My three year Singapore contract is up and the terms to stay on longer locally weren’t that great so I’m back to San Diego for a new job with the same company. The original role of my group had changed a lot since I started in Singapore and the work wasn’t as interesting as it first was when I had arrived. I feel that staying on longer would have been interesting because of the local travel opportunities around the region but not for the actual work which had become pretty boring.

Actually I got back to California last week in time to spend the Thanksgiving holiday with family which was nice. The last two months have been hectic with friends visiting, last minute traveling and packing/preparing for the move so I’ve been very negligent at keeping these postings updated- well it’s been that way for most of this whole year really.

I can’t believe how fast these three years have gone. It’s been a blast and a lot of times felt more like vacation than actually working here. I’ve been lucky to see a lot over SE Asia and meet some really great friends. I still have a lot of trips to write about and pictures to post from this last year so I’ll keep updating this site.. but my first priority now is to find a car (since you can’t get around anywhere in San Diego without one) then a house.

Always something

Singapore is a city that is constantly changing, always with something new going on- somewhere. Over the last few months I’ve been away for two separate 2-3 week trips and coming back into the city afterward you really notice how much and how fast it changes- some entire buildings could be gone, or an intersection redesigned- new buildings going up. Even without the construction, the city has so much more going on beneath the surface that takes time and effort (and a desire) to see- the remaining jungles, smaller islands, the different ethnic neighborhoods, Little India, Geylang- really, a lot of Singapore is not as clean as it’s made out to be and I’ll never see a lot of it.


Last Sunday I took and aimless walk around my neighborhood- ending up near the Singapore River, and just before reaching the much built up waterfront I had to do a double take. I heard some scratching in the rocks that didn’t register and on looking back I saw two chickens and a rooster pecking for food in the gravel just off River Valley Road. I stopped to watch for a minute- I hadn’t even given it a second thought at first but then kept wondering where they were from and how they’d got there. I’d seen some before way outside the downtown area but never right in the middle of it. For as modern as Singapore currently is, it’s not that long ago that this would have been a much more common sight as even some friends the same age as me grew up in some of the last kampong fishing villages 30 years ago. Singapore’s always got something going on…