Madness In The Middle Kingdom

Hello out there
We’re on the air
It’s hockey night tonight
The tension grows the whistle blows
And the puck goes down the ice.

Carter discovered a table hockey game hidden in a closet that Alice bought months back in Beijing for some future surprise and we had forgotten about it. He wasn’t sure what it was but when I pulled it out of the box he exclaimed “Ooooh hockey”. He is not exactly sure how to play this game but I am sure he and I are going to have many fun hours of intense rivalry.

Today Carter (and eventually Nathan when he is old enough) got the Mala easel from IKEA. Mala in verbal form means to grind or mill in Swedish - so what does this have to do with an easel?

Carter seems to enjoy it and so it was a worthwhile purchase even if it meant trudging through IKEA which is Swedish for “only women like this store”.

Thanks to the help and graciousness of my lovely wife Alice I will be heading to Changchun ronight for 2 days to watch some hockey and curling at the 6th Annual Asian Winter Games. As I was prowling the net trying to find maps of the city and book a hotel I came across this beauty of a video posted on YouTube. In the action you will see a nifty little on-ice brawl between a Japanese team(red) and the Changchun team(white). It reminded me of a similar incident in 2002 the Dalian Ice Dragons had with the Changchun boys. Chowie if you are reading this .. does this video look familiar?

By the way Changchun means eternal or long spring which must be a joke on how cold the winters are there.

I shoulda been a Province newspaper headline writer.

Well … we have officially started the potty training and the first day was marred with many accidents - think Titanic, Hindenburg and Exxon Valdez. We also have learned a lesson in toddler avoidance behaviour and a few other lessons as well. For example when a child who is being potty trained suddenly streaks off to his room and closes the door you are too late to avoid the “embarassing wetness”.

It is now the 3rd day of the training and Carter has responded amazingly well. He now gets his potty out of the bathroom (wish I could break him of this habit) and pulls down his own pants and uses it. Not to be too graphic but he has successfully recognized the No.1 and the No. 2 urges and like a trooper has done what needs to be done. We are soooo proud of him.

Carter took an interest in letters and the sounds they make at an early age (ok .. at 2 and a half he is still at an early age but you get my drift as the Fonz would say). He is now trying to take things a step further by identifying what letters will start words but he does this by the sound of the letter not the sound the letter makes. Confusing? A few examples.
1) He is correct when he says Jacob starts with a J but not because he hears the ju sound instead he hears “Jay”cob and so it must start with the letter “Jay”
2) This pattern fails him though when he says that cucumber starts with the letter Q because he hears “queue”cumber so it must start with the letter “queue”

Although his reckoning is incorrect I am impressed by his creativity and attention to sounds. He can get easily confused as evidenced in this next video when he believes that the word “off” starts with the letter “F” because of the dominant sound of that letter. This is a long setup to help explain the meaning of the following video and I want you to be the judge of whether this is an attempt at vulgarity or an innocent childhood mistake.

Well .. whaddya think?

Since taking up hockey in China I have become fascinated with the history of the game. My earliest recollections go back to some late 70’s Canadiens games but my first solid following was the NY Islanders during their 4 year run as Stanley Cup Champions. I have become more intrigued however with the earlier times - the heydays of old time hockey as some would say.

In reading up on the history one character that stands out for me was that of Lorne “Gump” Worsley. He had the distinctions of being a Vezina winner, winning the Stanley Cup and also having the NHL record for losses. During most of his career he played with an awful NY Rangers team where he routinely faced 40+ shots a night. While playing for the Rangers a reporter once asked him what team gave him the most trouble on the ice and he replied “The New York Rangers”.

Some more examples of his wit. A Rangers coach once told him he shouldn’t be in the league having such a large beer belly … the Gumper shot back “I don’t drink beer I am strictly a rye man.” And wry as well. Another great quote of his was “The only thing worse than being an NHL goaltender would be a javelin catcher at a track meet.”

Unfortunately the reason for this posting is to pass on the sad news that the Gumper has passed away today at the age of 77. Here’s to the Gumper in all of us.

This is a follow up post to The Problem.
I am happy to say that after countless hours I have the problem solv - ed (think Inspector Clouseau). Just to be sure I checked with Jeff’s post and it is verifi - ed. Of course when you get it you know you have it. After checking and rechecking that is.

I no longer hate Doug at Just Be for posing the problem but at the same time I cannot forgive him for what he has done! This is what I have been seeing in my nightmares

So now what do I do to occupy my time? Oh yeah that’s right .. I have a family.

*Update - With the internet being so slow (and seemingly getting slower) I only posted one pic of the boys in the tub but have added another*

The boys having fun in the bath. Nathan has taken lately to standing in the tub - a habit which I am sure is going to get him in trouble soon. He is fairly fearless though and even though he has cracked his noggin on various items around the house he still is always willing to have another go.

Dougie Sumo over at Just Be posed a problem the other day which goes like this. Draw a star (with the inner lines) like this one

and then you can draw any 2 straight lines and you must create 10 INDIVIDUAL triangles.
Here is my first attempt that looked so promising but unfortunately it only creates 9.

I can tell you that getting 9 is no closer than the 5 you start with. I have wracked my brains for too many hours trying to do this one and am now stuck in a rut and keep doing the same things over and over again.

The second in the Nathan crawling series. He has learned a lot in one day. This was the 3rd take and you can see on his face he is getting a bit cranky at being filmed. Just another pampered star.

Before going on with this post let me just say for those of you in North America with super fast Internet … appreciate what you have. The internet in China is frustrating at the best of times but this is now bordering on ludicrous. It can take up to several minutes (not an exaggeration .. actual real time) to load a basic text page like Yahoo! This video below is the culmination of hours spent finding the right proxy server and waiting patiently for the video to upload to YouTube. I agree with Craig at the Engleson Files .. it’s time for a hiatus.

Now that I have that off my chest … tonight Nathan crawled (with some coaxing from Mom) and we have the video evidence to prove it.

For those that do live outside of China and are able to watch this .. enjoy!

January 9th, 2007 marked Nathan’s 7th month but was largely an uneventful day. In fact .. he didn’t even seem to know it was happening. Some pics of the day

Nathan doing his best to be excited.

Carter also was happy for Nathan on his ’special’ day

Well … that’s all the news that is fit to print.

This post may be a day late and a dollar short but here is my tribute to the recent win by Canada at the 2007 World Junior Hockey Championships. I was only able to download the first 2 periods of the game but from what I saw the Canadian team was as dominant as it has ever been. It is clear that the level of junior hockey in Canada is unsurpassed by any nation. Check out this patriotic clip of the boys singing O Canada! There is a reason they get paid to play hockey and NOT as professional singers.

I need to take this space and time to pay homage to THE man who got me going on this blogging thing - Grant Potter. For those not in the know Grant was a teacher at our school for 4 years and a computer guru with a minimum of 8 cool tech things going on at once. Last year he and family (Carole, Gabriel and Lydia) pulled up stakes and moved back to Canada and we miss their presence here.

I recently found out that sad news that he has now ended his blog
Potting Along and I want to honour the great work he did in getting me and others going on this blog thing. We’ll miss ya!

Happy New Year from the Ma-Brown clan. As you may have noticed from my previous post we are having trouble with our internet in China and it may be a few weeks more before service is restored back to the crappy old level we once enjoyed - not. This is my way of explaining why my New Year’s post has been delayed until January 4th. Anyhooo …

For our New Year’s celebrations we rang in the New Year skiing with the Helgasons

Brad and Natalie

Maya

Olina

It was skiing but let’s be serious .. the hill was no Whistler nor even Powder King in Prince George nor even Troll Mountain in Quesnel but you take what you can get. The place was called the Ming Hu ski area.

We took the kids tubing down a small bunny run with a conveyor belt to get you up the slope which was maybe 100 m long.

In the evening after putting the kids to bed Brad and I pretended to be snowboarders at the special night ski (5:30 to 8:30 pm) because it was New Year’s Eve. To minimize the pain of falling we took along a couple of Thermos fulls of Rum and Coke. As thirsty as we were I have to say I went down faster than the drink. Luckily no photos of this particular part of the evening exist. While we were turning back the clock 10 years Alice, Nat and the kids were wreaking havoc in the hotel and there was even some kisses exchanged between Carter and Maya.

On day 2 Alice and Natalie took to the slopes while Brad and I took our turn at watching the kids. I am not sure if I am worse at snowboarding or at watching the boys but I can tell you that Alice is better at child minding and skiing.

Some miscellaneous shots of the family and the area.