Out of my 13 years at Microsoft, I think I went to the company picnic maybe 4 times – mostly when I was young and single and then once when I took my cousin and her family because I didn’t yet have kids of my own and figured they would get more out of it. [...]
Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
Microsoft Company Picnic – Taiwan
Posted in Uncategorized on October 11, 2009 | 1 Comment »
Taipei Lantern Festival
Posted in Uncategorized on February 13, 2009 | 2 Comments »
So those lights that started getting strung up every where back in December? Turns out they are for the Lantern Festival which according to everything I read, marks the end of New Years celebrations…. except here in Taipei, I’ve been wondering, “What New Years Celebrations??” Alas, the lantern festival has been making up for my [...]
Grass Mountain
Posted in Uncategorized on January 18, 2009 | 1 Comment »
Went to Yang Ming Shan National Park again on Saturday. This time we made our way to an area of the park called Grass Mountain where, well, there’s a lot of grass and not much else except great views assuming the weather is clear. Weather was indeed beautiful and at some points in the walking [...]
Peter, the big softie…
Posted in Uncategorized on January 15, 2009 | 3 Comments »
When I first met Peter in 1994, he was holding down two full time jobs. He was a software developer at Microsoft as well as an unpaid intern with an environmental non-profit in downtown Seattle. Newly out of college he didn’t own a car (although he could easily have afforded one) and relied on buses and his own bike [...]
Chinese New Year is coming…!
Posted in Uncategorized on January 12, 2009 | 1 Comment »
I think around here the start of the holiday season may come with Christmas even though it’s not an official holiday by any stretch. Excitement in Taipei seems to be building up for Chinese New Year which this year is in late January. Lights are being strung everywhere – especially on our street RenAi Road. I’ve [...]
Flying Cow Ranch and Strawberries!
Posted in Uncategorized on January 4, 2009 | 1 Comment »
On Friday Jan 2, we all had the day off. It’s not an official holiday per se but enough people pettitioned the government apparently (don’t ask me how that worked – I haven’t a clue, but the decision wasn’t made until mid-Dec… guess one of those decisions that a small country can make. Can you [...]
Year End Taiwan Sojourn Status Review
Posted in Uncategorized on January 1, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Sharon and I held a review of our Taiwan sojourn to date. Evaluating against the top priorities: Kid’s language & cultural immersion: Going well. Preschool kids are language sponges and seem adaptable to new surroundings. Sharon language skills: Starting school last month means this is now on track. Urban living : It has been educational [...]
Deciphering a credit card bill
Posted in Uncategorized on January 1, 2009 | 2 Comments »
I’ve always tracked income/expenses carefully. In financial software user parlance I’m a controller. Trying to do this in Taiwan is proving harder. Take credit cards. In the US I download transactions from the card website into my financial software, 90%+ of expenses are auto-categorized correctly given 10 years of history of spending. Here we get [...]
OK OK! Photos
Posted in Uncategorized on December 18, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Recent photos of Lucy and Leo. Click on them to view bigger.
Leo and his broken English outfit
Posted in Uncategorized on December 7, 2008 | 4 Comments »
For those of you following my shopping trials and tribulations. I’ve broken down and bought Leo an outfit sporting the lovely bashing of English I’ve described in previous posts. I know also that I haven’t posted any pictures of the kids for a while so I’ll be hitting two birds here in a moment. There [...]
