Below are the 8 most recent journal entries recorded in bmc's LiveJournal:

Tuesday, September 4th, 2007
4:38 pm	I get so lonely, baby... I get so lonely... If somebody doesn't post a comment soon, I'm going to throw a tantrum.  THEN you'll all be sorry. Also, GAH!  I certainly hope I can bring this project to some kind of useful conclusion in another two days.  TWO DAYS?  Christ.  I'm fucked.  In three weeks, I've had to learn two AMS (Application Management System--the portion of the JME that is responsible for managing the lifecycle of Java applications on an embedded device) architectures, Windows IPC (*barf*), and the JSR 211 specification, and then mostly rewrite the JSR211 code because the new architecture that I'm porting to is so different. I'm being a whiny bitch--this is my JOB, after all.  But I'm also in China, which is, itself, a little stressful from time to time.  This morning as I was almost ready to head out of the hotel to come to work, the thought popped into my head, "Oh, shit, it's still CHINA out there, isn't it?"  As though "China" were a weather pattern I had been hoping would blow over.  So.... Ordering breakfast by pointing; wild gesticulations with the taxi driver to get him to drop me off where I want to go, instead of where he seems to want to take me.  Also, fast-ish food courts in and near office parks are, it turns out, mediocre the world over. At least Mo is home.  She's gonna be lucky if I don't break her on Friday night. Current Mood: rushed Current Music: Dr. Toast, "Oz So Late" (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, September 3rd, 2007
1:52 am	Something new... Time flows through me, in a hotel room high above Chaoyang.  I have come to Beijing to do my small part in the accelerating enrichment of the elite of China, and of those other nations that own and are owned in turn by parts of it. Time flowed through me in the eternal, unchanging summer afternoons of childhood, just the same.  Misdirecting mitosis; strengthening and building the striated muscle that allows me to do; bringing to seed, bloom and fruition the brain that allows me to be. I didn't know, then, that the vibrating rush of the unfolding was wearing on me. Or, maybe I did. I curse Frost for warning me that the memory fools.  Does this monkey tell himself lies about the past, to make the narrative more pleasing?  The flow of events more satisfying? Serendipitous? I cetainly feel in this moment, and in many others recent, a helplessness in the apprehension of inevitability. Whatever I choose, the world will continue to be.  However full my accomplishments, however tragic, comic, pathetic my failures, I am one small dog. What minute change in the stream--whatever chaotic,       dynamical    perturbation I can create--it seems I can not predict. And I have watched others, women and men that I admire, whose poise            direction                     serenity I seek after, err in recollection of their own days and concerns. There was a terror in seeing it. But as the time slides through me, its bulk filling the channel of my being as water fills a sluice through a dam, each drop that passes by is gone. So much water was before me once, and now so much is gone behind. And it is all full. Each moment pregnant with possibility, a tree laden with fruit of identity to pick, to crush between my teeth, to feel slide cool and wet into my throat on the way to becoming part of me. Current Mood: determined Current Music: Freestylers, "Painkiller" (Comment on this)
Sunday, August 26th, 2007
9:38 am	last.fm I got wiring loose inside my head I got books that I never ever read I got secrets in my garden shed I got a scar where all my urges bled I got people underneath my bed I got a place where all my dreams are dead --Porcupine Tree, "Blackest Eyes" Current Music: Porcupine Tree, "Blackest Eyes" (Comment on this)
Saturday, August 25th, 2007
2:47 am	Risk and Reward Just said "Goodbye" and hung up the phone with Mo for 9 days.  She has had a lot of anxiety and nervousness about going to the burn "alone."  But she is a rockstar, our friends are rockstars.  Rockstars are responsible for making the fun.  She will keep herself safe and healthy, or I will be very put out. It's 3 AM in China.  VPN proxied web access is slow.  Only ssh is really "reliable" most of the time.  When I have some time, I want to hook Alex up with a VPN connection through some infrastructure in the States so he can get secureish and privateish access. China is a strong contender for Most Interesting Phenomenon in the World right now.  It's deeply different.  In some ways, 80,000 years worth of different--back to when some humans coming out of Africa went West, and some East.  It is very old, and very, very new.  It does seem to be changing rapidly.  One hears this in the Western media often.  But being here, and talking with Chinese residents, it's clearer.  More on this later. Tomorrow, Badaling and the Great Wall, and then the Summer Palace.  I'll get at least four hours of sleep.  The sights won't see themselves, don'tcha know. Night. Current Mood: drained Current Music: Mum, "Finally We Are No One" (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Sunday, August 19th, 2007
3:39 pm	Beijing So, here it is, my third day in Beijing.  It's somewhat alienating to be in a place where I have no hope of understanding anything anyone says, and I can't read any of the signage.  My and Mo's friend Alex lives here, though, and speaks Mandarin.  It's a relief to have someone here who knows me, and for whom I have some social context. Last night, Alex tended bar at a large club called Banana, so I went to hang out.  Being white and Alex's friend, the bar staff made sure I had a beer in my hand all night.  Today I have a slight hangover and smell like cigarette smoke.  I guess some things are the same here--bars are still boring.  :-)  I got hit on by a prostitute at the bar.  Her English wasn't very good, and I have no idea what she was saying to me.  Prostitution is big, here.  I wasn't checked into my hotel 90 minutes before someone slid a card under my door advertising "massage" services.  Their menu of "Service     item," reproduced verbatim here for your entertainment, includes: TheRussianyoungladymassage Theladymassages Walesexualfuntionobstacle Thefootbottomcaresthemassage I was tempted to call just to find out what a "Wale sexual function obstacle" might be.  I guess if you're one of those unfortunate few who is only able to become aroused in the presence of cetaceans, they're happy to bring a porpoise by for your benefit?  Who knows.  The Chinese give the Japanese a run for their money in the "weird" department, for sure.  Yesterday, I was awakened at 10 AM by a phone call from a woman whose only command of English seemed to be repeating the question, "Massage?"  She did not appear to understand, "No." Yesterday, I was fitted for a three-piece suit for the wedding.  They'll have it put together tomorrow night, apparently, at which point I go back for another fitting.  The suit, as well as five custom dress shirts, all in high-quality fabrics, came to $260.  Unreal.  The suit is going to be this long, many-buttoned, almost Victorian-looking affair.  It should be hot.  I picked the design out of a catalog, and then talked with the tailor about making it slimmer, more fitted. Something that took me by surprise about foreign travel is that economies vary not just in scale, but in, um... proportional composition, I guess?  There's probably a word for this in economics.  But what I mean is that a car doesn't necessarily represent the same multiple of monthly income here as it does in the States, or Argentina, or elsewhere.  Ditto a house or apartment, or a meal out.  So it's not like the usual guideline in the US that your rent or mortgage should consume 25%-40% of your monthly income applies everywhere (or anywhere) else.  It never occurred to me that those sorts of ratios would vary.  But, in retrospect, there's no reason they should be fixed, I guess.  The market for any particular product or service would be completely dependent on the particulars of production, availability, demand, laws and regulations.  And the demand for it would be dependent on all sorts of cultural factors that it would take considerable knowledge and experience to begin sorting out. I feel vaguely embarrassed or inadequate that I don't have anything to report regarding the Great Wall, or the Forbidden City, or the Summer Palace, or any of the "omigodi'minchinaihavetogoseethe-" kinda things.  After all, I've been here 72 hours!  What the hell am I doing with my time?  :-) And tomorrow morning, I go to work!  Weird. Current Mood: curious Current Music: Tortoise, "Huge Hidden Spaces" (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, August 13th, 2007
10:20 am	dot see enn Hm.  So I'm going to China.  I have to do a software port onto a new phone platform, and the rest of the engineering team is in in Beijing.  I'll be leaving middle or end of this week.  I'll be back on 9/7. This means I miss three weeks' worth of wedding preparations (out of three months available to us), as well as Mojgan's preparations for, departure to, and return from Burning Man.  I can't say I'm happy about any of that.  On the bright side, obviously, I do get to go to China.  Mo's friend Alex is an American who speaks Chinese, and is currently living in Beijing.  I'm relieved to know somebody there--three weeks seems like a long time, especially if I'm going to be working a lot.  I'm not planning on working the weekends, and if I get away with that, I'll have three of them to explore.  I'd like to see the Great Wall and the Forbidden City, but I also want to see China as it is, and how it's changing.  It occurs to me to go check out some open-houses, since personal property ownership is on the rise; it would also be interesting to see things like how health care operates. I guess I'll blog the Beijing trip here.  I might copy the posts over to Tribe, as well, since I hardly ever log onto LJ anymore.  This will be a little experiment. If anyone has any experience or advice to offer me on first-time travel to China, business travel specifically, and/or Beijing, please jump in and let me know. Current Mood: optimistic Current Music: Global Communication, Pentamerous Metamorphosis (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, September 22nd, 2005
4:43 pm	Also... Whoa, like, people read that. And quickly. The big headache and drama with my weblog since $FOREVER was that some of the stuff that I think about and want to write about has to do with, like, the people in my life. Namely, y'all. So, I guess I can ask y'all. What do you do when posting stuff about the emotional content of your daily lives, and your thoughts and feelings about your intimates, friends, and acquaintances? Make the posts friends-only? How, then, do you decide who the "friends" are? What do you do when you want to post about one of them? Etc. I know ndh has thoughts about this, and will be happy to share them with us--couched, of course, in her characteristic sarcasm. :-) Current Mood: cuz it beats the alternative. Current Music: Boards of Canada, the new album. Thank you, Internet! (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, September 21st, 2005
2:52 am	So how does this ridiculous thing work? Sick of maintaining my own infrastructure for motd'ing. Skeptical of having info in company-owned database. Feh! Hello! :-) Current Mood: discontent Current Music: System of a Down, "Toxicity" (8 Comments |Comment on this)