Friday, June 27, 2014

June...my how the time flies.....

I realize that it has been almost four months since I've sent an update!


First off, let me apologize to everyone for not being able to see everybody when I was back in April.  The good news is, I'm less than 60 days from my August trip home!
The other big news, is that I was promoted to the General Manager of the business unit.  The announcement was made internally in March and went public in April of this year.  I'm humbled and excited for the new opportunity!  We're incredibly busy here, and just booked an order that will keep us occupied till the end of 2015. 
I have had a lot of friends leaving China.  My friends Susan and WIll completed their stay and headed for Russia and then Europe. They were some of the first people I met here and I'm going to miss them a lot!  Fortunately, they have introduced me to some other expats that I'll get to know better as time goes on.  Their last day here, they bought me supper at the new Westin Hotel in QIngdao.  It was VERY nice inside!    My Yoga instructor and her husband will be leaving, and my other friends Jennifer and Conor will be headed back home too. 
Updates from me are fairly sparse, mainly because life is pretty 'normal' now here.  I went to a photography expo in late February of local photographers.  It was funny to see many people entering stuff that they took on an iphone, and once its blown up to 2'X3' how pixelated it becomes.  My friend Rita actually shot with a DSLR and won 2nd place! 

In March, I took the guys picking strawberries.  The cost was high and the strawberries have no flavor in China.  The weather has been 95 some days, and then we'll get a rain and it will be 60 degrees the next.  Its cherry season right now so Cherries are everywhere.  Last week on the hottest day, I bought 20 watermelons and took them back to the office and let everyone have some watermelon to cool down and enjoy a nice piece of cold watermelon to cool off from working in the factory.  I made a trip to Yantai about 2 weeks ago, and took half a dozen young folks from the office to show them the shipyard and let them see up close the products we build and what a drilling rig looks like.  Many of these guys never get the chance to go out and see for themselves, they are told what to do/draw/design and sit behind a desk all day.  Next weekend, I'm taking the guys to go paintballing.  In March, we organized a factory wide tug of war between different departments.  That was a lot of fun!
More updates later!

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