Biz trip

I'm headed off to London for a short business trip thru Tuesday. In total, I will spend 26 hours on a plane and 16 hours in the office....urghh.

Diet Website

www.thisiswhyyourefat.com

I've spent a good 30 minutes clicking through the pages of this website and being thoroughly grossed out by the fattening foods on display. Deep fried pepperoni pizza, hot dogs with twinkies as buns and a picture of a 30,000 calorie salad. Each picture makes me inhale deeply to recover from a slightly increased heart rate and shortness of breath. But this website will have me eating nothing but celery stick and mineral water, so its a good thing.

All Aboard the Pain Train

Bob here. The diet starts now. I've committed myself to losing 1 pound for each that Ingrid currently weighs for a total loss of approx 25 pounds. I'm going to lose one full Ingrid and I'm coming out with this on the blog so I can be publicly shamed if I do not follow through with the promise. I will post pictures along the way to show my progress....consider the picture above of me laying on the ground watching TV as my 'Before' picture.

Doppleganger part 3....

Ingrid loves looking through the children's classic 'Runaway Bunny' and I love to reading it to her each night because it was a favorite of mine as a little boy. But Ingrid's favorite page, hands down, is the circus trapeze page. "Da!" she yells as she points to the circus spectator in the lower left hand corner of the page. I think all can agree that it bears a resemblance to Grandpa Dan....Ingrid sure thinks so.

Sawadee Ka - Thailand with the Grandparents

The 'wai' is a traditional Thai greeting, a prayer-like gesture accompanied with a slight head nod. As a traveler in Thailand you can't go far without being greeted in this delightful way and Ingrid was happy to reciprocate whenever she could.

Chao Phraya

While in Bangkok we spent most of our time exploring the neighborhoods near the Chao Praya river which runs through the city. It is one of Bangkok's oldest settlements so many of the grand temples, or 'wats', are built right on the river and many of the houses are on stilts above the water. I took a few photos of the buildings that sit along the banks while we were on an evening boat ride.

It's Finally the Weekend!

Kitchenette

Dad deserves a Purple Heart for successfully assembling Ingrid's KidKraft Vintage Kitchen....

Typhoon Season on Way

Hong Kong's typhoon season is just around the corner and the local weather czars have unveiled a new storm classification system. Typhoons will now be labeled as "typhoon", "severe typhoon" or "super typhoon" according to the sustained wind speed at their centre. Last year we had a couple of biggies, the former Level 8 typhoons which close down schools and offices, but HK has not seen a 'Super Typhoon' since Wanda hit the city in 1962. I certainly hope no one is hurt, but I'm hoping we're Super-sized this year!

Growing Up Fast

I know its schmaltzy to say, but Ingrid is just growing up so fast it's scary! She's 18 months and is so incredibly perceptive of all things going on around her. She's on the cusp of talking, where we can't understand her but she knows exactly what she's saying. Her vocab recognition outpaces her pronunciation....we say 'window' 'moon' 'hammer' 'umbrella' 'boat' and she's quick to point them out. I've no frame of reference for how things should progress, it just seems to me that its all going so quickly.

Family in HK

Having Grandma and Grandpa in Hong Kong was a blast. This being their third visit since we moved out here, we now have a routine that couples the things they like to do with Ingrid and my everyday life of parks and playtime. The main difference is that when Grandma and Grandpa are in town we eat a lot better and sing way more songs. Ingrid basically laughs and eats the whole time. My parents also use the first couple of days in HK to recuperate from the mega-long haul flight and adjust to the new time zone before they head onward on their Asia travels. And what better way to do this than visiting our favorite restaurants, parks and shops?!

Lazy Sunday at the Mall

Wyatt B.B.

Happy First Week Birthday Wyatt!

Doppelganger -- Deux -- Little Man

It's early, and I've seen very few photos of Little Man, but I'm going to take a stab at early likenesses. And in doing so I'm going to revive and earlier post from our blog (below) where we projected Ingrid's likenesses, which all have ended up to be totally baseless, but quite fun.

So at the risk of scratching Barr and Katherine's sensitivity, I do feel it pertinent to mention that their new son has a black belt in judo, has a soul that is transparent to GWB, and who vehemently disagrees with a missile defense system in Eastern Europe.


Original Post:
We've received fair a bit of input from family and strangers alike on which of her parents she takes after. We're still reserving judgement, but we have found some other likenesses we thought we'd post.

While she doesn't normally look like James Bond, we thought in this picture she could pass for the new 007...



Lizzie and I have been absorbed in the TV series 'Lost' over the past couple of weeks and thought Ing bears a likeness to the character John Locke....



In the very early days of Ingrid's life (Day 1) we feared that her look was a little too similar to Nien Nunb, Lando Calrissian's co-pilot in Return of the Jedi....


But just this past weekend on a day trip to Stanley on the other side of the island we met cute little Grace, the closest thing to a lookalike Ingrid has in Hong Kong......

Biz Class Is Hurting

Beijing Blech!!!

This picture was taken out of my hotel window in Beijing using my Blackberry camera so the pixelation is not so good. Nonetheless, you can see how thick, soupy and disgusting the pollution is. Worst I've ever seen it. You could not see more than a half mile in any direction.....they may have cleaned up the city before the Olympics but now it seems they are back to their same old ways. Shameful, really. I practically needed a machete to cut thru the pollution on the way to my meetings.

The building on this picture is actually part of the new CCTV building complex and recently went up in flames, destroying the entire project -- the new Beijing Mandarin Oriental hotel. You can't see the damage in this photo, but the building was charred and gutted from top to bottom. On the final night of Chinese New Year, revelers accidentally set it alight with errant fireworks. It made world news because it was designed by a reknowned international architect and is next door to the funky CCTV cantilevered building. Anyway, my hotel room would have been a prime spot to watch the firefighting action!

Congratulations Katherine and Barr!

Congratulations on the birth of Wyatt Benjamin Barr Haworth, a bouncing 6lb 11oz baby boy. Mother and son are healthy and happy as can be! Congrats!

Bulian Schoolchildren

A very special part of our trip to Bulian village was our visit to the local elementary school to meet the schoolchildren. It was made doubly special because the little children we met were the first generation not to be living under the Bulian Curse!

Komang’s wife is a teacher at the school and she led her fifth grader class through a list of classic children’s songs in English. It was very sweet and a very memorable experience. Jack, Lou and Owen were a bit bashful which was understandable. The schoolkids were so cute, we wanted to fill up our car with them and take them home, and I think they wanted to keep Ingrid and the boys!