Thank you one and all, in advance, for your best wishes on this my milestone day.  I want to extend a special wish to the mighty fine ladies out there who have been waving at me and pinching my cheek. Toner B Smooth loves ya.  But I would be remiss if I didn't thank the most important and mighty finest lady in the world: my Mom.  Mom O' Toner has been hanging with me twenty four seven.  Because ya know when I first came into this mighty fine earth, it was a big freak-out for me.  It was cool and all in the womb.  To go outside, was such a drag to begin with.  Mom has done an excellent job getting me through it.  To Big Blogger Daddy 0h, I will never forget your advice about being on the lookout for charlatans and jive-meisters.  To the mighty fine crown King of Wuxi, I have to ask if the stories Big Blogger tells me about you are true.  You leave half-read books on the bathroom floor?  You stole a large bar of Dairy Milk off Big Daddy Blogger's rucksack in '03?  Still, the stories about you liberating Hans Island from the Evil Denmarkian have to be true.  The saying attributed to you, your majesty, "I love bread" is quite profound.  I hope little Little Prince Tommy can be a brother.  To the environmentalists and greeniacs, I apologize for having been born.  I know what you are saying about there being too many people on the Earth and all, and how the Earth would be better off without more babies, but things is cool with my Ma and Pa.  Life is good and I wish I had a little sibling.  Keep it real!

Thursday marks Boy Toner's 99th day.  We can't have the traditional party for him on Friday because I got to work.  We won't have the party this upcoming weekend because I was slow to decide whom to invite.  So, the party will be held on Sunday, December 9, Tony's 109th day.  Good enough for Government purposes, I say. 

Here is where Tony went on his 99th day.

Here is a photo of Tony on his 98th day.  The ladies won't let him sleep.  He is such a handsome little man.

Tasty!!

Observations

I will try to tell ya all about six things I'd seen the past few days:

• Sitting at the McDonalds near below the European Street Trust Mart Wednesday, I saw a man delicately eat a pie and then spit twice, quite loudly, on the floor.  Disgusting.
• At the intersection of Houxixi and Jie Fang road, Thursday morning, I saw a knocked-over electric bicycle in front of a taxi.  I avoided the accident scene, but someone who did walk by told me about there being blood.  The taxi obviously had tried to turn onto Jie Fang without bothering to stop and look.
• At the corner of Renmin Road and Wu Ai roads, I saw a man knock over two parked electric bicycles while trying to look for a spot to park his bicycle.  One loud thud of a heavy bike hitting the ground followed by another thud a few seconds later made the man look the fool. 
• I saw these women lay out all their ginger on a sidewalk near the Xihui Park bridge.  I asked the wife why they were doing that.  She told me they were trying to sell it.  Here is the photo of it.

• When a Wuxi driver stops to let you cross, it is as sure as there is dog pee on a fire hydrant that the driver behind will try to pass the stopped car on the right or left.  I get no end of satisfaction when I can force these ignoramuses to stop.  Think about others Assholes!!
• The bullet is not an observation but a photo.  I took this photo from a children's clinic to which my wife and I took the Toner.  Just lovely.

I am going to have my son contributing his own thoughts to the blog.  Seriously.  At three months of age, he has already developed some strong views of things.  I would say his politics  now can be classified as Goldwater Republicanism.  His interests are plumbing and being fed.  Expect to read his contributions soon.  An infant's perspective on China is not something the Internet can readily supply till now.  Once again, AKIC goes where no other blog or Internet site dare go!  For now, I will conduct interviews with him.  Expect his own pieces once he has mastered the rudiments of the English language.  The Toner does want you to know that his 100th day party will take place Sunday, December 9, at 1830 at determined place which I will have my wife show me today.

• No Christmas shopping in Wuxi that I can see.  But then I haven't been shopping.
• Wednesday is Saturday in AKIC land.  I will do things but I'm not sure exactly what.
• Riots in France?  What is going on?  This sort of thing happened in America in the '60s.
• Here is a view from our apartment this morning.

• I was shown a Portuguese language novel last night.  I could pick out words and say that must be blah-blah in English.  I wish I could do that with Chinese.
• I have finished watching eight episodes of the Wire.  I spotted a mistake in the 8th episode.  The star cop of the show follows one of the baddies to a community college.  There the baddie is attending an Economics class.  The lecturer was talking about price elasticity and inelasticity.  That is, Demand for inelastic goods will not change much if the price changes.  But demand for elastic goods will change a great deal if the price changes.  This was all proper.  You had to be observant and cultured to notice the mistake.  Outside the classroom there was sign saying Introduction to Macroeconomics.  It should have said Microeconomics.  It is is Micro courses that they talk about basic price theory, not Macro.  Thanks to AKIC, you won't be missiled on this very crucial point.
• People can gain weight in China?  How can this be?  I have lost weight.  So has Ape Unit.  Some expats must eat at McDonalds more than once a day.
• It was Peter Nordlund's birthday yesterday.  He is now 50 or so years ago.  I am not really sure how old he is now.  But I know saying that hurts him.  He he.

The Toner:

My 100th day party will be held Sunday, December 9 after 1800 somewhere.  My father forgot about the big WuxiLife affair that will be taking place December at the Kempenski.  Ah!  Fathers!  In life, you don't get to choose them.  Back to you Dad!

Wuxi Andis:

• Ah.  Thanks son...  I guess.
• Workers here sign ridiculous contracts with companies.  I heard about a girl who signed a five year contract with a company that stipulated she could not have a boyfriend, get married, and that she had to give three months notice before leaving otherwise she had to pay a 18,000 rmb fine.
• Thing that surprised me most about China.  They blatantly ignore rules especially in traffic.

• It is Saskatchewan against The King of Wuxi's hometown in the 95th Grey Cup Game being played Monday morning, Wuxi time.  I am listening to the game on Winnipeg's CJOB radio.  The score is Saskatchewan 10, Winnipeg 7 at halftime as I type.
• Snow in Winnipeg, Fog in Wuxi.
• Sunday night, the Kaulins Family had dinner with the Royal Family.  We had pizza at Romanos.  While we were there, we were witness to a quarrel about a counterfeit 100 rmb note.  The customer claimed that when the server took the payment, the restaurant itself switched the notes.  But that was just a lie.  The customer had been caught.  But in China, you will find that when you make a payment, the storekeeper will walk away from you, go to the back as it were, and then return with the change.  When this was first done to me, four years ago, I thought they were walking away with my money.  But that's just how they do it here.  But as the above incident shows, the practice may well have to change.
• Toronto has been said to have done a good job hosting the Grey Cup by the Winnipeg radio crew.  There: I have said something good about Toronto.
• The game resumes as the second half starts.  Saskatchewan 13, Winnipeg 7.
• Winnipeg 14, Saskatchewan 13.
• We will have an oven in our kitchen!
• Meanwhile, the Patriots are beating the Eagles 7-0.
• Darn!  I have to take a shower.
• Saskatchewan 23, Winnipeg 14.
• Saskatchewan 23, Winnipeg 19.
• 1:19 to go.  Winnipeg has the ball.  Interception!  Congratulations to the Saskatchewan Rough Riders who win their third Grey Cup ever.
• A Reminder from the Toner:

His 100th Day Party is coming soon!

I took this lovely photo, Saturday, on my way to work.  It was taken from the footbridge near our apartment complex.

A few moments later I took this video of what I saw as I walked down Houxixi.

• I told my wife about the 17 people dying in the Wuxi elevator accident and last month's Wuxi suicide bomber.  She told me that life is cheap in China.
• I would have to say that Tony's first quarter has been very successful.  Tony 2Q should be much more fun.
• Our 100th day birthday  and first anniversary party will be held during the first weekend of December.  Maybe you will get an invite!

They have been married sixty years.  Wow!

• Any thoughts expressed today will probably be short on insight.
• Big news:  John Howard was defeated in the Oz election.  I don't know who won.  That Howard lost is all I think about.  Being around for as long as he was, he must have worn out his welcome.
• Walking to work I saw a van with UNICEF signage on it.  Interesting.
• We will employ a babysitter for the first time to look after Tony.  I am working.  The wife has an event to go to.
• The big weakness of our students: their listening.
• The King of Wuxi was still ill last night.  He didn't join me and the wives on a trip to B & Q.  I am thinking of starting a charity.
• The Italian Sports network, I can access on the TVU player, shows soft porn.  The Fox Soccer Channel is showing a replay of the Croatia - England match.  I was curious to see it the first time like someone would want to watch video of a car accident.
• I have been watching the DVD copy I have of Seasons 1-4 of the Wire.  It is an excellent show.
• Tony seemed to be interested in watching television.  As I have been saying, his awareness of his surroundings is increasing quickly.
• This is not good.  I  can't access the contacts on my phone.  So, I can't phone anyone because I don't know their numbers.

• Or should that be Blogings?  Nah!  Bloggings looks right.
• One of my students has a mother-in-law who works at a bank in Wuxi.  The bank informed the woman that if she did not sell or sign-up 12 customers for credit cards,  her salary would be cut.
• I am able to watch wrestling with the TVU player.
• I can easily access blocked sites using a program called Hotspot Shield.  You can download it here.
• Now, I am watching C-SPAN on the TVU player.  Cool.
• I am strong to the finish 'cause I eat my spinach!  I'm Popeye the Sailor Man!
• I will teach classes about cultural differences and pre-nuptial agreements.
• B & Q gave us our credit cards.  Our wives will go shopping for apartment decorations.
• Check out weird asia news.
• Can I have a thought that can be three lines long?  Not yet.  Unless of course I change the font size.
• I hope my American friends had a Happy Thanksgiving!
• I asked students why Wuxi was better than Suzhou.  To be honest, they had more reasons to give why Suzhou was better than vice versa.  The best they could say for Wuxi was that it was more dynamic.

• The King of Wuxi is under the weather due to a flu.  But, there is no need for his subjects to panic.   Everything is under control! he tells AKIC.
• I can't access my tumblr blog this morning.  So this is the only blog my rare Chinese readers can read.
• David Warren has some interesting things to say about the accumulation of skyscrapers in Shanghai among other things. 
• I was playing with the Toner last night.  I was helping him practice to grasp at things with his hands.  Being a parent has its priveleges and its joys.  The play will become more fun and sophisticated.  I can hardly wait.
• England blew it against Croatia.
• 17 people were killed and six were injured in an elevator accident on a construction site in Wuxi.  It didn't make the papers.
• Here is the view from my kitchen window this morning:

• Here is the view from my front window.

• Talking to the other trainers at school, I see was stricken with a bug that had come to our school and was making its rounds.  Other trainers complained of feeling lethargic, feeling sore in the bones, experiencing hot and cold flashes, and having no appetite.  I slept about 14 hours yesterday.  I feel much better today.  It was just my luck (or was it?), to be stricken on my day off.  I most surely would have called in sick yesterday otherwise.
• The wife says she will take Tony to the doctor today.  The Toner has a cold but I don't know what the doctor can do.  All we can do is keep him warm.
• Tony gave me a big smile this morning.  But then he cried when I was holding him.  In his mother's arms, he calmed down.  I just don't understand.  I have my role.  But when I don't serve any purpose, he discards me.
• I have lost the battle over the wallpaper.  My wife is adamant about putting up wallpaper that has wedding photos on it. 
• Here is Tony three months ago today:

The above video has been watched over 4,000 times.  It is my second most viewed video.  And it was something I did as an afterthought.

• It isn't easy trying to methaporize my teaching.
• I watched the first half of the movie Patton last night.  The actual battle scenes look dated.  You can see soldiers dropping their guns and raising their arms in the air before an explosion.  The movie is worth watching for George C. Scott's performance.  Patton was an interesting character.  I found scenes from the movie where he recited poetry and talked about the ages to be quite affecting.

Tony is three months old today.  It is hard to believe that I had a life where he wasn't around.  Tony is the best thing I have ever done!

Here he is, this morning, on this milestone day:

100 day party to take place soon.  I have to get off my ass and do some inviting.

No blogging today or tonight.  I am feeling under the weather.  But I was able to put this together.  Enjoy!!

• Calling this bulleted list of blog entries, Impromptus is a rip off of Jay Nordlinger's columns on National Review Online.  Oh well.  I won't call it that every time.  It is just something to do today.
• Toner Development Update.  He is becoming more and more aware of his surroundings.  He is grasping his hands together and is making attempts to grasp at things placed in front of his face.  I can get a smile out of him by saying A Goo!  And not only will he smile, he will say Ah Goo! back. 
•  Here is proof of my assertion that the Toner will talk back to me:

• Here is my blog banner ad that will be seen in a Wuxi relocation guide:                                           
• I acted in a commercial this afternoon.  I pretended to be a cabinet designer for a Jiangying kitchen furniture company.  I was filmed considering, designing and questioning in an office atmosphere.  My name was Number 1.  I was also filmed referring to drawings and manuals before making etchings on a wall plan.  All very exciting.  The camera crew went out to the factory floor and I saw a CNC machine in action craving designs on pieces of wood.  I felt sorry for the workers there because they were breathing in sawdust and chemical vapors.  Thank you  Fred!
• Here is another interesting looking site I have found on the Internet:  The People's Cube.  It bills itself as the Stalinist version of the Onion.
• A sight I love to see:  a little boy at a crowded Rush Hour Bus Stop wearing his pants around his ankles taking a piss.  I couldn't believe it.
• Across the street from the bus stop and down the street from Ronnie's Australian Bar, I saw a bonfire on a street corner.  I have seen fireworks before but a bonfire?  I have no idea what the occasion was.  I will ask my wife.... 
• The Wife tells me that a ceremony was being conducted for a rich person who died a long, long time ago.
• I have to write a metaphor for what a teacher is.  My first notion was to say a teacher is like a character in a Hitchcock movie going after a McGuffin.  The idea of this metaphor being that there is a goal we have to keep in mind as we go through the plot or a class.  But the metaphor I really believe in is a teacher is like General Patton.  I think of two quotes attributed to Patton.  He may have said: "I don't want my soldiers to love me, I want them to fight for me!" and "Don't tell your followers how to do something.  Tell them what to do and they will suprise you with their initiative."  Now, I think both positive and negative things about human nature and so  I believe in both quotes.  Also, I believe teaching has to involve carrots and sticks.  And of course Patton was a great guy.
• You should listen to AKIC radio.  The King of Wuxi is.
• China is storing water from the Yellow River for use in next year's Olympic games.
• I am always proud to show my wife's video work.  Here, she has taken video of a UFO that was hovering outside our building.
• Every once in a while, rude comments are made on my Youtube videos site.  The modus operandi, of the people or person doing this, is to one day (probably after having drunk a few or smoked a few) look at my videos and enter the vilest of comments on many of them as possible.  They are often of a racist nature directed toward my wife.  I have had to block the user and remove the comments.  This morning I was thankfully able to block the user as he started to make vile comments.  So I only had to delete three comments...  But this person will be back a month or so and I will have to do it again.  And my name on the Internet is Andis, not Anonymous.
• 40,000 page views of this site.  Thank you to all my rare readers from everywhere in the world.  I also must especially thank www.wuxilife.com for kindly posting my link on their site.  And I would be remiss if I didn't mention The American Fez who has my site listed under Pepys's People.

November 21, 2007.  Sunrise in Wuxi, 745 AM.

The tall building on the left is the Moresky360.

AKIC radio is on tumblr now but I have to use Youtube so you can hear it.

• It is still interesting to walk to work everyday.  I see things I would never see in Canada and I slap myself sometimes as I walk through the crowds of Chinese saying to myself "how the hell did you end up here."
• I love playing with the Toner.  He is now trying to grasp at things that I put in front of his face.
• A site that I must visit everyday now is called Small Dead Animals.  It has to be the best Canadian blog.  Two recent postings about the late Prime Minister Trudeau and the RCMP generated a lot of comments that I found worthwhile scrolling through.
• The better the students and  the more enthusiastic they are, the better it is to teach.
• We will be having a 100 Days of the Toner party at the end of this month.  I am shirking the decisions of who to invite.
• In the new apartment, The wife wants to put wallpaper, behind the sofa in the living room, that will have a large wedding portrait on it.  Apparently, this is now the thing to do for couples in China when decorating their new apartments.  I am horrified at the idea, but I am having a hard time talking the wife out of it.  She assures me that the wallpaper can be taken off when we move out of it.  I am not planning to spend the rest of my life in that apartment.  It is against my Gypsy, Latvian Diaspora nature.
• How to describe Tofu?  It is like cardboard pulled from a lake but without the flavor.
• The lunatic who hangs around the School as well as the next door Church has been singing hymns.  As I type, I can hear him doing his usual "whoop whoop" scream.  I sometimes envy the fact that the crazy can ignore the laws of decorum without remorse.
• All the good restaurants in Wuxi have been going downhill lately or so the talk I have heard seems to indicate.  Among the restaurants cited, I have heard all the buffet places, all the Muslim restaurants and the Sichuan Girls restaurant have gone to pot. 
• The Wuxi bureau of Foreign Trade puts out a bilingual magazine called Map that is sleek and glossy, and a must-read for all Wuxi Expats.  Visit www.maiqiu.cn for details.  The Wuxi editions of Map magazine are in second printings.
• I am trying to think of things to do and talk about in my next two English Corners.
• Luis (www.ponquenet.spaces.live.com) has become an uncle.  Congratulations to his brother Marcos, and his wife Pamela on the birth of Sofia.
• America is celebrating its Thanksgiving this week.  So happy Thanksgiving to all my American friends.  Marc Steyn tells Americans why they should be thankful and non-Americans should be thankful too.
• For lunch, left-over pizza from Romanos (which has not gone down hill) and a egg and ham sandwich from Careme. 
• Now that I have my Saskatchewan Winnipeg Grey Cup, who do I want to win?  I don't know.  This is one of those games where I hope the better team wins, as opposed to the team I am cheering for which, may or may not be the better team.
• The egg and ham sandwich is making my stomach feel funny.  Oh Oh!
• This is complete bullshit.  Everything in this article is wrong, wrong, wrong.  Governments ordering industries to do anything (for example,  directing Detroit to double all vehicle fuel efficiency) makes about as much economic sense as governments ordering prices for everything to be reduced 50 percent.  This columnist has forgotten the biggest lesson of the 20th century: "Command economies, that seek to rid the world of the profit motive, don't work.  They create poverty, environmental degradation and perverse results that are the exact opposite of what was intended."  There is a motive for creating affordable fuel-efficient cars.  That there are none on the market is because the technology is very hard to develop and government orders aren't going to change that fact.  Come on!  It is time to put central planning into the trash heap of history.
• Chavez and the King.  The King of Spain saying to  Hugo Chavez "Why don't you shut up!" was an interesting incident.  The Left would say the  unelected monarch was being out-of-line by telling an elected leader of another country what to do.  But the right would say that this monarch is of a democratic pedigree citing his role in the transition of Spain from a Franco dictatorship to a full-fledged democracy.  The right would also say that Chavez is being a democrat in the manner of a Hitler who was able transform a fledging German democracy into a dictatorship. 
• There are many unsightly piles of garbage in Wuxi which it seems are no one's responsibility to clean  up.  On my way to school this morning, I saw a pile of rubble removed from a shut down store front.  In the store front next to the pile of rubble, I saw a cigarette vendor and wondered how he could put up with having the pile so close to his business.

Nicole Grant,  who is an expectant mother and the wife of  HyLite Trainer  Simon, who is also known as the Duke of Wuxi  et cetera (I will have to minimize all of Simon's honorifics so as to not foul up, as much as I already have, the grammar of this sentence), is celebrating a birthday today.  Today being Tuesday. 

I hope Nicole enjoys her birthday because it will be the last she will be able to celebrate.  Once, the little gal or little fella arrives, a parent's birthday won't matter so much.

Here is a photo of The Duke and I with our wives.

From Left to right:  AKIC, The Wife, Birthday Girl, and the Duke of Wuxi

I have asked the students if they know about the Olympics that were held in 1976 in Montreal.  They've always responded that they don't.  It seems that the organizers of the 2008 Beijing Olympic games haven't heard of what happened in Montreal for  the 1976 Olympcs either. 

Seablogger makes this comment about this article about a building in Beijing being constructed for CCTV to coincide with the 2008 Olympics.  This project that seeks to be "against the verticality of the needle ... and the principle of hierarchy" is meant to be a radical social statement. "  The building is to be

a "loop folded in space" -- two towers sloped together and joined by a gravity-defying canopy equivalent to 80 storeys in height.

Talk of canopy and towers reminds me of the retractable canopy roof on Montreal's Olympic Stadium that never worked as planned. 

The Saskatchewan Roughriders and the Winnipeg Blue Bombers have both gotten upset wins on the road to earn berths in the 2007 Grey Cup!  The Grey Cup is the championship game of the Canadian Football League that plays a 3 down version of the NFL game.  It is the first time that the long time Prairie province rivals will meet in the Grey Cup.  But the game will be played in Toronto which raises the question of how well attended it will be.  Two small city teams playing in the big city makes for poor ratings.

Rare readers may know that I have been wishing and praying for this outcome the past week and I can tell you I am very pleased to see it come true.  The only other thing I want now is a good life for the Toner.

And speaking of the Toner, I was able to carry him about the streets of Wuxi with the Snuggler, a baby pouch that you strap to your body.  The Snuggler is comfortable for me; and Tony is docile and able to look around.  He will often fall asleep in it after 20 minutes.  Last night, we took him to Romanos from Wu Ai Lu, and he was asleep by the time we got to Zhongshan Lu.  At Romanos, all I had to do was unstrap him and lay him down as you can see in the photo below.....

On the way to and from Romanos, we walked through the Wuxi New World Department Store. On the main floor there was a bargain bin full of Ralph Lauren Polo products: fifty percent off is still 700 RMB for a shirt.  I also carried the Toner past a make-up counter and tried to explain to him why it was so pleasant to have the ladies wave at him.

The King of Wuxi went to a party in Venice Gardens on Saturday night.  He learned that there are a whole bunch of foreigners living there who never come downtown.  He meet, for the first time, a man who has lived in long in Wuxi as he has.  Till Saturday night, they had never crossed paths. 

At Tianyi Middle School, a school that many of the trainers of our school have been to, a 14 year old grade 8 student  committed suicide by jumping out a window.  Tianyi is one of the top  schools in Wuxi.  The student who told me the news of the death said that  the school has a reputation for excellence that can make its lesser students feel depressed.  Middle and High School students go to classes six days a week here in China.  Primary School students, I have been told, write entrance exams to go to Middle School.  That is how competitive it is here.

Soon, you will be able to China Moments MP3s on the Internet.  Maybe at Tumblr, may elsewhere.

Ziggy from the German Pub (Gruener Baum) downtown gave me a Jagermeister last night.  I feel it this morning.  Ow!!!

At Romanos, they were playing Phil Collins (not Phil Kaulins); and at the Gruener Baum, they were playing German pop and om pah music. 

This is what is going on at the construction site next door:

They have brought some wire or cable in.