…Or else you’ll end up with 7 stitches in the face…

Ouch…

It’s a long story, but to sum it up, it was my fault. I was cruising in my mountain bike in excess of 30 km/h going uphill when I encountered an incoming bike that swerved right in front of me, going to my right. My bad for hitting the front brake after I hit wheels - that ensured that I got catapulted out of my seat and over the handle bars. I landed squarely chin first on the ground.

Why the mess up with the front brake? Because my bike in the Philippines has the brake levers reversed with functions (that is, my front brake is actuated in the left hand, while my rear is actuated in the right hand). I carried the bad habit with my new bike here in Beijing which was fully stock.

Moreover - what I didn’t like was the fact that nobody cared while I was sprawled on the ground. There was this lady just beside me, up on the sidewalk, sending SMS on her phone, and not giving a damn about what just happened in front of her. Also, the guy that got me into the accident fled the scene (he was on a motorized tricycle).

I am recovering now. The intern who attended to me in the ER did a good job on the suture - just hoping now that infection won’t make the best out of the scarring that will occur.

Peace with all Chinese bikers!

My Yingqi’s Evolution Sent Items Folder hit 1.5 GB… after sending a message last Saturday, Evolution can no longer display the Sent Items Folder. I am not sure what are the causes, but whatever it is it’s a major no-no…

Scouring the internet for answers, there seems to be no cure for this bug. My not-so perfect solution - switch back to Mozilla Thunderbird. Copied the files located in the “mail” folder under .evolution to Mozilla Thunderbird’s user local folder, and manually deleted the unnecessary files (you’ll get to see them once you start-up Mozilla Thunderbird).

One caveat - how do you manage transferring your addressbook and settings?!? Argggh!!!

I’ve been playing golf recently with my brother-in-law here in China. Guess what - I think I’m going back to the sport. After the recent improvements in my short-game (that’s rock solid - however, my full swing has to be reviewed - it ruins the game), I think I should give Golf one last chance.

Now the next question - equipment?!? Golf privileges? OK, it’s at least RMB 100++ per session. Maybe I’ll stick with my brother-in-law until I get my pennies paying for myself

These days, the thought of me losing my significance in the office is becoming stronger. Just today, I got a directive to transfer part of what I am doing to my assistant. It may be a form of “off-loading” some of my routines to give me more time to make decision making rather than menial tasks, but I do feel uncomfortable about this latest news. I’ve been 4 years on the job for this one, and it just does not feel right…

I wanted to change the News section of my company’s website. Weblog, anyone?

Yes… it was a pain-in-the-ass to edit the html pages just to put a few lines about the current events within the company. So I decided to use Wordpress as my publishing engine.

However, here in China it’s not easy getting access to popular blog sites. I had to go around the GFW of China by using some fancy proxy settings. Credit goes to Lost Laowai getting this tip out into the open!

For the remake of the news blog - well, it will take time for it to have content. Now I have to get myself busy every morning publishing content for the company (and I was already comfortable with my routines!!! arrrggghhh!!!)

Yeah, that pretty much describes every foreigner that comes here in China - be it short-term, or long-term. Foreigners will forever be “Lao Wai” in China.

So what’s up with this post? I just joined a community of expats in the WWW - http://www.lostlaowai.com “Lost Laowai - the no-nonsense China expat community”.

Very interesting community. I might be seeing some action here in the future

Things have really been for the better in the Linux world… and because of this I think my lappie will serve me good for another 2 or 3 years. Ubuntu 8.04 is that good that going back to Windows is unthinkable (yeah, the manifestation of which is that I tried fixing a colleague’s Windows Box… damn I cannot remember what I’m supposed to do).

Yeah, and my wife’s computer has the latest version installed on her lappie as well. Quite hesitant at first, but after having it for almost 2 months now everything is OK with her - she’s confident that somebody is behind her to fix anything that’s broken!

Rock on Linux!

I’m writing a hate letter against my first web host. I do not know what happened to the automatic payment updates, but you sure screwed up big time. I lost a big chunk of files I have been saving since 2004.

I do hope that my new host, InMotion, will do a better job of reminding its members about the payment deadlines.

As for my blog and my gallery from my former web host, IPOWER - well, they were erased out of the system before I could even react. Sure, you can back up everything and put them all in with your new host, but that will take a lot of time to finish.

Grrrr!!!!