What I am known for in Guangzhou

So this one hurt a bit. All the families arrived back in Guangzhou this weekend - I went to the clubhouse to take Martin swimming. Freddie was in the lobby with 8 or 9 of his middle school friends.

One of them, Sean, is an 8th grade (good athlete - his dad works at Nike!) and was on Freddie's local basketball team last year. I was the assistant coach.

Sean said hi to me. "Hi Freddie's Dad!"

Hi, Sean. How was your summer?

"Good. Hey - are you going to coach basketball again this year?"

You mean in the league that starts in January? Uh, I don't know. Probably.....

"Oh good! I love it when you coach and yell at the Chinese officials all the time!"

Oh - that's why you want me to coach? For your entertainment?

"It's great! You yell and they have no idea what you are saying!"

Maybe I should tone it down a bit in 2014.....

 

Twitter up and running

Yes, I know I am about 3 years late on this bandwagon - but I set up a twitter account last week. It is @Ericez74. I'll still have the blog for longer posts - like the one above - but it's much easier to post on Twitter when I am around on my mobile. Come follow me! (that's pretty shameless -ed. )

 

Eric as Kevin McHale

For the past couple of years, I have been playing basketball many Tuesday nights at the American school. The peope that play on Tuesdays are about 75% ex-pats and 25% Chinese. There are some (not many) Americans; Russians (hoo boy, that's fun), Filipinos, Africans, and Hong Kong-ese. The basketball there is fairly recognizable to any American....

However, I'm about to enter another adventure. The different functions at work (engineering, IT, line businesses, etc) have started a basketball round robin tournament. The engineering group have asked me to play on their team. These guys are all in their mid- to late-20s, and - well, they are fairly small. About 5 people have come up to me - seperately - and have said "oh great, we need a center. You can play center, right?" Um, I'm barely 6 feet and 41 years old, trying to run with 27 year olds.  A center? Sure - you realize I can't move well, right?

We had the first practice tonight in a university gym - with no air conditioning. Holy crap, it was hot. Some random notes:

- It's the first pick up game - ever - where everyone on the team says "ok, we are slow, so we are not going to play man-to-man." Zone? Really? In a pick up game? I haven't played a zone defense since 1989.
- We were shooting around to begin with; I hit a jumper. I stayed in my spot, expecting the rebounder to pass me the ball back.....uh, no. None of that courtesy.
- There is no "checking" when playing a half court pick up game. You get the ball at the top of the key, and go..... no chekcing to see if the opponent is ready.
- Rules will be obeyed! A team voluntarily called a half-court violation on themselves. They  actually inbound the ball when it goes out on the sidelines (vs. just checking at the top).
- Not a lot of jumpers are taken. The offense is either drive into the lane and get fouled (a la LeBron) or pass to try to get someone a layup. Many are reluctant to take the 10, 12 footer. I hit one near the start - that elicited a lot of ooohs and aaaaahs.
- Terminology: someone passed to me when I was open, but I wasn't looking.....I apologized; he said that I was "empty" and that's why he passed it. Empty? Oh, you mean I was open..... I guess it could mean the same thing.....unless I was insulted and don't know it.


Our first game is Sunday morning - and I've been told (by another American) that we are playing in a school gym that resembles the Thunderdome. I'll try to take more pictures.

Back (in China) for More

Hello all - back from our 4 month hiatus from blogging and back from our 5 week summer trip home to the US. Things got crazy in the spring with work and too many kids activities - no time for blogging.

As most of you know, we've got good news to share - Janice got promoted to a new role in late May. It is in Guangzhou as well.....so that means, of course, that we will be here for another 2 years, as the clock resets. So - 2 more years of fighting the VPN for blogging, 2 am Mondays in the fall and pretty cool vacations.

Thanks to all for a great summer - lot of memories and activities packed into the 5 weeks. Some random thoughts:

- I think kids need to be 4, 4 1/2 years old to be self-sufficient on long flights. Martin was not too bad on this trip - except where he spilled his Sprite on himself in the first 45 minutes of the 12 hour trip.....didn't expect to use the one change of clothes that early on.
- Thanks to Don for hosting the annual get together at his house.....it's always nice to have that to look forward to when the year becomes long in April, May.
- Golf over the summer is getting worse year after year; the Vineyard was an embarassment (especially round 2). But got to see our friend Paul win the event.
- A gambling bonanza from July 2-9, with a trip to Vegas to see Layup and his family, and then bonus days with Wiz coming into town for golf and gambling for 2 days. I introduced Layup to baccarat and Janice to Salon drinks.....saw the Hoover Dam in 120 degree heat....and, of course, had a horrible bad beat to a parlay where we needed an under 8.5 to come through to win, and the score going into the 9th was 3-0......
- I need to spend more time with Steve and Kermit somehow...... my 39 on the front nine at Champions where I hit 0 fairways and 1 green was the highlight of my golfing summer....

- Freddie and Warren are old enough now to play golf on a "real" par-3 course; my Dad and I went out with them during the last week. No, the picture is not from a real-life "storm chasers" - it's an impending storm coming while we were on #4 at the Bruin.
- It's good to be able to start clubbing your son; hole #5 is a 85 yard par 3 over water - it's no longer an automatic driver for Freddie. He hit a 7 iron over the green.

- Weight loss: I didn't blog about this, but in the spring (post-Vegas), I made a concerted effort to lose weight. I got serious about exercising and my diet. It's surprising to really see how much a difference my diet makes - if I just eat smart, I lose 1-2 pounds a week with regular light exercise. I lost a total of about 15 pounds from March - June; I only gained 5 back over the summer. Now, back in my routine, time to get back to the diet and lose some more.

It's hard to find 30, 45 minutes straight to write/post topics; I am thinking about getting a Twitter account to post quick thoughts about random topics, pictures, etc. I'll still try to post on the blog once a week - and the football picks will be coming too!