KFC - Shenzhen

A couple weeks ago, I was travelling in China with my boss, who is not the most adventurous eater. In particular, he doesn't like food to be served that still looks like the animal that it once was. In Asia, this is a problem with seafood because fish, crabs, and shrimp are typically served with head, claws, body, shell, and tail still intact.

So on our most recent trip, I asked our supplier to keep it simple and just order some rice and chicken, which seemed like a safe bet. No such luck...

What's A Widget

In business school, professor's often use an imaginary product called a Widget when posing questions to the class. For example, Company A makes widgets for the the US market. If they're strategy is to expand 15% over the next year should they borrow from the bank at a rate of 7% or issue additional shares...

In these cases, a widget can be anything, and were left to the student's imagination as to there shape, size, value, and use. That was until I had a can of John Smith's Extra Smooth.

Upon finishing a 16 oz tall boy, I was startled when I felt and heard something rolling around inside the empty can. At first, I thought it was the finger of some unfortunate line worker, and felt a wave of nausea. Then, I imagined a massive law suit and early retirement.

Upon closer inspection, I noticed it was a round plastic ball, and thought perhaps it was some kind of ball-bearing from a conveyor belt - not as traumatic as a severed finger, but it still had lawsuit potential.

After a little research, I was disappointed to discover that the little ball was purposely placed inside the can by the brewers to maintain a keg-like taste in a canned beer, and to also give it a little head when it was opened.

Finally, I learned that it's official name (and topic of many a MBA course), is a Widget.

Be's Celebrity Wedding

Last week Nuch's friend, Be, from Thai Air got married at the Plaza Athenee. It was a bit of an event because Be is a semi-celebrity in Thailand.

Although she has recently resigned from Thai Air, when Be wasn't serving G & T's at 30,000 ft, she was on earth modeling for Olay, recording albums and making music videos.

Here she is with the bridesmaids.

Here's Nuch with the bride and groom. I think he is a record producer of some sort, so there were some famous singers from years past that Nuch pointed out, but I did not recognize.

and Nuch with the life-size cut-outs of the bride and groom.


Here's Be with her dad. I didn't get a picture of it, but she was puffing on a Marlborough throughout the dance.


Proof that I was there.

Here are some pictures of Nuch and her Thai Air friends.

The guy on the right was Be's boyfriend when they first started working together at Thai Air. He broke up with her a while back because it turns out he's gay. I still don't know what to think about that... I mean, there's nothing wrong with being gay, but that's just tragic.

Here's Be's Olay ad.

and a Music Video

Walk Along The Thames

I'm getting behind on my blog entries, so here's a quick photo blog of our short trip to London.

I had to visit a furniture show in Birmingham and Nuch had a trip to London, so it worked out that I could join her flight and we could spend a day and a half together seeing the sights.

Which consisted of an English pub, where I had a traditional Steak and Ale pie.

A walk through Westminster Abbey, which was the only cultural thing we did.

Big Ben

Parliament

Parliament from the river.

and the London Eye

Here are some other pictures from our walk along the Thames.

On The Road - Birmingham

I spent a couple days in Birmingham at the international furniture show that is held there each year.

My hotel was downtown and I had to walk through the stone-cold city center to catch a train to the convention center.


Not to be outdone by London, Birmingham had it's own eye.

This is the only picture I took at the furniture show. It's Jack Kerouac's book On The Road that our design director had set out as part of the decor for our stand. It made me smile because this is the book I read 20 years ago that inspired me to not just travel, but live around the world. I hadn't thought about it for a long time, and here it was again, waiting for me in Birmingham, which I hope is far from the end of the road.