Chris Drumgoole

Today I went to the bank to pick up my Olympics Tickets

This is a picture of the envelope.

This is one of the tickets.

I went to Shanghai this weekend to attend a Toastmasters conference (District 85P Spring Conference), and of course, to cheer on 2 of my club’s members who competed in the District-level Evaluation and Speaking contests.  Sadly, they didn’t place.

As a good friend of mine recently move from Beijing to Shanghai, I decided to extend my trip by one day to spend Sunday with him (I was originally supposed to return to Beijing Saturday night).

Shanghai is nice!

This was my 4th time to Shanghai, and for some reason, I hated it the previous times I went.  This time was different, but I’m not sure why.  Maybe it’s that I’m getting tired of Beijing after 5 years?

My return flight was scheduled to depart from Shanghai Hongqiao airport at 9:05PM Sunday night.  I get to the airport on time, we board on time.  Then the perser came on the intercom and told us our flight would be delayed 1 hour “due to bad weather in Beijing”.  Everyone sighs. People start getting up to get their books or music players from their overhead luggage.

Air China was nice enough to put on a movie (in English) that kept me busy…

After about an hour, the perser came on the intercom again, and regretted to inform us “that due to deteriorating weather in Beijing, we’ll be delayed even longer”!  I then decdied to check out just how much the weather in Beijing was deterioratin by SMSing friends in Beijing.  Pretty much, my friends thought I was nutts because the weather was actually fine.  It rained a bit earlier, but it was dry now.

These guys are pulling something!

I remember hearing from someone a while ago that there’s a law in China that if a plane is delayed more than X (I forgot what X was), then the airline would need to compensate  the passengers.  Clearly, this is a pro-passenger law.  But there are rumors that airlines, regardless of the problem, claim the delay is weather related so they can get out of compensating the passengers.  This allows time for the pilots to sober up or the engines to be fixed or whatever the case may be.

Any way, maybe half an hour later, the perser comes on again and says we’ll take off around 11:15PM.   Finally! Some good news!

We were pretty close to that estimate - we touched down around 1AM into the new Beijing Airport Terminal 3.  An improvement, but I wasn’t about to ooo and ahh at that hour (this was my first time actually traveling through this terminal).

Ok, story done.

I should have posted about this 2 weeks ago, but… As you see from the photo, Fred, Pockey, and I are sporting the brand new face masks brought to China by the BLUG’s very own Pollution Expert, Julien.

If you’re interested in getting one, check out his Website at http://www.pollution-china.com! (specifically here)

For the 3 or so weeks I’ve been using it, I have already noticed a great improvement in my breathing and less irritation in my lungs.

I’m hitting myself for not taking a picture, but, oh well.

In my office building, there’s a sort-of cafeteria where there are many different kinds of food stalls, and you put money on a charge card.

Well, apparently, the landlord is kicking these guys out (the whole operation) because they claim they haven’t paid rent since moving in.  After getting off the elevator, the landlord posted a big A2-sized notice stating what’s going on and how today is the last day!  They are also making announcements every 5 minutes or so informing the patrons to hurry up and get their money back.  I can tell the landlord is damn pissed!

Of course, the cafeteria management is claiming otherwise, but nonetheless, there was a mad dash to reclaim the stored money - big mash up of people at the counter, tempers flaring, kind of an interesting situation.

I got my RMB 103 back, so I’m happy.

So, now, 100+ people don’t have a job to go to tomorrow, and my colleagues and I will have to find alternative ways of getting lunch (along with the rest of the building occupants).  All around ma fan, no?

I was “Toastmaster” at my Toastmaster’s meeting last night, which means, I lead the meeting. And one of the responsibilities of Toastmaster is to give an opening speech. This is the 2nd time this year I have had this role - 2 speeches that could have been used towards my Competent Communicator manual, but, oh well… I’m also working on the Competent Leader manual, so at least one requirement was fulfilled!

As you might have guessed, here at Toastmasters, I like to talk about me. Why? Well, it’s because “me” is the topic I know most about. So, when I was thinking of what to talk about tonight, I thought about an event that happened to me last week. It doesn’t really have a theme or point; it’s more of a small slice of my life than anything else.

First, I’ll give you a little background. In China, the law states that upon arriving in China, foreigners need to register with the local police within 24 hours. This also applies to resident foreigners who move house. For those who don’t follow the law, they can be fined up to 500 RMB.

Some of you might know that I moved house in January. I knew about this requirement but kept putting it off as I didn’t think the authorities would care too much, as they haven’t in the past.

Now, finally, motivation to register my residence, my employment visa expires next month and this is one of the required documents I need to provide. So, I decided to make my way to my local police station last Friday to get my new Temporary Residence Permit.

In the past, this has been a 5 minute job – walk in, hand over the passport, photo copy of landlord’s ID, and proof of ownership, and get back the temporary residence. Done, easy. No talking required (in my case, this is important as my Chinese is terrible and the police officer usually doesn’t speak English).

This time, it wasn’t so straight forward. As it was pretty much a last minute decision of mine to go to the PSB at that time, I totally forgot that I needed to also bring a copy of my landlord’s ID and proof of ownership. Oh, and I was over a month late in registering!

I just showed up, gave them my passport and rental contract, smiled… But then the officer started asking questions! The first couple, I could answer. But then it started getting complicated. At that point, I told her I’d call my girlfriend and she could talk to her.

Long story short, the officer was asking whether my landlord even registered the apartment for rental. Of course, my landlord did not! Yikes!

I called my landlord, gave the phone to the officer, they talked a while, and I ended up having to wait an hour for my landlord to get to the police station with the relevant documents to register the apartment.

Meanwhile, I’m sitting in the police station, people are looking at me, probably thinking “what’s this foreigner in trouble for?!”

I managed to get off with an official warning letter that the officer made me sign. I am not in the “system” for breaking the law…

I have a few observations from this story. First, the authorities are really getting serious about foreigners and ensuring foreigners who aren’t supposed to be here, aren’t.

Second, it’s important that if you don’t speak the language, always have a friend or two on standby who can translate over the phone!

Expats take note!  If you’re like me who has to do a lot of the “admin” stuff yourself (because your not a delegated expat executive with a staff), such as registering at the local police station when you move, don’t delay. It’s only going to get more mafan, and cops don’t like to smile too much.

I was talking to one of the members of my TM club last night after the meeting and she made a few good points (the commentary is mine, the general ideas are hers):

1. If you have a foreign guest visit you, you are technically required by law to register that guest at the local police station. If you don’t, the same penalties can apply.
2. The authorities most likely have a hidden motive for all this added mafan, and it’s unlikely due to them just randomly deciding “hey, let’s keep track of these foreigners!” It’s clearly Olympics-driven, and one theory is they want foreign guests to stay at the overpriced hotels instead of having short term apartment rentals (there are services that are lining up apartments for visitors during the Olympics - so if you have an apartment, and don’t want to deal with the Olympics, you could go on a nice holiday and make some $$$ renting out your place). I bet they want to crack down on that stuff as these “behind-the-scenes” deals won’t be contributing to the tax revenues of the city. See? It all boils down to “bring the dollar in through the door” (or RMB in this case).

Results of fireworks

Originally uploaded by chrisdrum

Walking along the street last night around 10pm, the city sounds like a war zone - people are taking full advantage of this being the last night of the Chinese Spring Festival - they’re setting off every last firework they can get a hold of.

What’s left is these cardboard boxes with cylinder tubes used to launch the fireworks into the sky.

I’m impressed the city organized these “we do everything from haul garbage to moving household appliances” cyclists to help with the massive clean up effort, in real time.

This photo is of one such cyclist was crossing the intersection in front of me.

Well, sort of.

I’ve got an S60 mobile phone (the Nokia N82). This application, JoikuSpot, when installed on my S60 device, creates a WIFI Hotspot which shares the GPRS connection. I can then connect to this hotspot using my iPod Touch while, oh, sitting in Beijing traffic!

This solves the only real complaint I had with the iPod Touch (no bluetooth for internet connection sharing).

Rocking!

Buy Data!

Those of you in China, be sure to buy a data plan from China Mobile or China Unicom! Otherwise you’ll be surprised with a rather large bill at the end of the month (or your employer will be surprised, which ever the case may be).

I have the 100RMB a month for 800 MB of data. I’ll monitor this to see how it goes. I hope this is enough…

Some Initial Concerns

As this is “beta”, there are some deficiencies worth mentioning. First, the hotspot it creates doesn’t have any security yet. Yikes! Joiku, the software maker, states future versions will add security. Let’s hope this becomes a reality sooner rather than later. Second, I am curious what the battery consumption on my N82 will be after a 30 minute cab ride. I’ll report back if I notice any excessive consumption. What’s probably more of a concern is me hitting, and then bypassing my monthly limit of 800Megs.

GigaOm suggested not to use this application unless you had a nice 3G service for your phone. But in actuality, now that China Mobile has Edge, the speeds are acceptable, at least for the time being.

Here are some screenshots I created from my S60 device:

It was a very small download and quick install. It automatically placed the icon in the Applications folder.

After running the application, it first asks whether you want to share your connection. When you select “yes” it will ask what connection to share. For me, I shared the “CMNET” connection (note, this is only valid for China Mobile).

Now, you can see the Wifi Hotspot is connected and available for your device(s) to access.

After selecting the JaikuSpot Wifi hotspot on my iPod Touch, I can began accessing Websites. On the phone, it shows you how much data is being sent in both directions.

You can also see what devices are connected - a useful feature, at least until security is added to the app.

I’ve been back in Beijing for a few days and have had a chance to play with my new gadget, the iPod Touch. Here are some observations:

• I jailbreaked it. Currently at version 1.1.2 - waiting to upgrade to 1.1.3 until the jailbreak process is more fullproof. Here are my jailbreaking notes.
• It’s slick - nice interface, and Safari + Wifi makes it a nice toy while at the coffee shop.
• I am surprised why Apple decided to make 2 partitions - the first one is around 300 MB, the 2nd one, for lal your data, spans the rest of the storage (in my case, almost 8GB). The problem with this 300 MB limitation on the first partition is that is where the applications are installed to. I am already full! I have read though that people have simply moved the Applications folder to the other partition and created a symbolic link. I’ll try that today or tomorrow. But, why bother with 2 partitions?
• I wish it had Bluetooth (and consequently Bluetooth-enabled internet access). I’d love to be able to pair it with my mobile phone so I could access the Internet in the taxi. YES, I know that an iPhone is essentially this! But I didn’t buy an iPhone, did I?! (besides, unlocking would have been a pain, more expensive, etc.)
• The build quality and packaging is surpurb. Nice all-metal casing, glass scratch-resistant face - gadgets are getting somewhere!
• I haven’t gotten music and movies to sync properly yet with gtkpod or amarok. I’m following this guide, and am getting close! Will hopefully get this working soon. The files transfer, but the iTunes DB doesn’t get updated properly. But, I won’t be using this as my primary multimedia device. I want it primarily for these two reasons:
  • Internet Tablet
  • Big(ger) screen movie viewing during travel

Well folks, I think I have out done myself this time.

Really…

As some of you may know, I had to make an unexpected trip to the U.S. for a funeral. Well, I am currently on my way back to China - I am at the Minneapolis airport waiting for my flight to Narita.

Well, on the way to the lounge, I found this neet ZoomSystems vending machine selling ipods, among other things. Here’s a photo I borrowed from anoither website, click on the image to go to that Website.

Just for fun, I went to it and played around with the touch screen interface. Hmm, they have iPod Touch’s. It sure would be nice to watch my videos on that nice 3.5″ screen instead of the smaller 2.5″, or whatever it is, that I have on my 5G iPod Video… Hmm, the 8GB model is US$279.99… I figured I could transfer my videos over between the two iPods during my almost 3 hour layover. The plan was perfect!

A quick impulsive credit card swipe later, I was the new proud owner of the iPod Touch. And because it wasn’t an iPhone, it wouldn’t (or shouldn’t) have any nasty activation issues.

Ha!!

It turns out that this bloody thing REQUIRES you to “activate”, or initialize it using iTunes. And, of course, iTunes runs only on Windows and Mac.

The world is not fair for us freedom loving trouble makers…

Here’s a picture of my currently useless iPod Touch plugged into my old Appe PowerBook G4 running Ubuntu. Oh, the irony. I just had to have Linux on this thing, huh?

As you can see, it requests a connection to iTunes. Grrr…

So, I’m stuck not being able to use my new toy until AFTER my long flight - which was the main reason I bought it in the first place!

And here’s a random tidbit… For fun, I decided to scan the lounge for open bluetooth devices. Here’s a screenshot:

Steve is my phone, but it’s interesting to note the 3 computers with bluetooth and the 2 BlackBerrys. Is it normal for BlackBerry to have Bluetooth open? Maybe it’s those people with the stupid bluetooth ear pieces with the annoying “I’m Cool, But Not Really” blinking blue light…

Oh well, time to go to my plane…

Folks,

If you’re like me, you have a sidecar motorbike, you like to drive year round. And if you’re like me, it’s because you hate taxis for a multitude of reasons - those of which I will not go into now.

But, I have a small word of advice:

During the winter, check the damn weather report for current conditions before driving to work.

Today, I didn’t. Oh my god… Pain. Pain all over my body.

When I finally got to my office (lucky I didn’t freeze to death), I checked the weather on CNN’s website, and this is what I found:

New rule: no driving in below freezing with wind more than 5mph.