slow connect

My internet connection in Shanghai has always been a bit peculiar. Technically we get DSL speeds, but that's only on paper. When all the planets are aligned properly we do get high speeds and everything is good under the sun. Periodically, and seemingly quite randomly things go off and then my connection is anywhere from pretty OK to crap, actually.

Sometimes it is easy to figure out. During the early evening it is easy to understand why things slow down - 18 million people get home and log on. Other times though, it just happens. Sometimes it will go completely down for a few hours or even a day. This week, it has just stunk.

I am averaging about 1 bar on my wi-fi, but it fluctuates. Sometimes it goes up to a two or a three, and often it will go out completely. There is no rhyme nor reason, nor even a bit of prose for the whys. It just is. It is just driving me crazy.

My first internet was connected on a 8 bit modem. When we finally moved up to 11.1 speed we thought it couldn't get any better. Now I don't know how anyone could use a dial-up modem, and while even at a 1 bar I can still surf everything, download and upload at a reasonable rate, I'm ready to throw my computer across the room.

I would say this is why I have not been posting much lately, but well I hate to lie to my readership (today, at least.) Truth is I've been in a funk for the last week. I'm working on getting it un-funked, but with this lousy connection even an un-funked writer is not one that can post very often.

Who Cares If I'm In China?

The other day while listening to a radio show a friend of mine hosts he made the following statement, "shut up Brewster, nobody gives a @!?# about what time it is in Shanghai." At the time it is true that I was heckling him and it is also true that our friendship is born from hassling each other, but the thing is, this time, it kind of hurt.

When Amy and I lived in Strasbourg I swore to myself that I when we returned I would not spend my days talking about living in France. When we finally did return to the States I found this promise was entirely difficult to not break.

Think about it a moment, how often do you talk about the events of the last year? Over the next couple of days when you are talking to friends or coworkers notice how often you mention something you did or experience over the last year, or any time in your past. We are nothing if we have no past. We are made up of nothing but our memories.

And we like to talk about them.


So it was with France. I constantly said stuff like "When we were in France," or "the French do this..." etc. I wasn't trying to be pompous or cool or anything. I had lived in an exotic (at least to me) place for nearly a year and it had a great effect on my life. In conversations these things naturally came out.

And so it is in China. I am sure that when I go back home I'll talk about Shanghai. I already do talk about it in this blog, in e-mails, on the phone and chatting with my friends elsewhere. Again it is not to say that I am better than anyone, but simply a part of my circumstance. I mean I cannot pretend I am not in China and in general conversation weird tidbits of my time here are going to come out.

Like the difference in time zones. Honestly I think it is really kind of cool that I am 13-14 hours ahead of most of my friends. It is completely fascinating to me. When my friend made his jibe it stung because I know that I have brought up the difference in time several times.

At first this was true because of my fascination with the science behind it, but now I am simply stating facts. The radio show my friend hosts is on blogtalkradio which is an internet radio dealie, and each show has its own chat room. When I listen to his show I hang out in the chat room.

The show runs from 11-noon my time and somewhere in the middle my wife calls me about lunch. We usually do lunch together and I always have to leave the show early. When I leave I generally send a message stating that I'm going to lunch. This isn't because I'm trying to be cool because I'm lunching while everyone else is preparing for bed. It is because I'm going to lunch, period. It seems rude to just disappear, and it is natural form me to let everyone know I'm leaving, and the reason behind my departure.

Wow! That's a pretty big whine in a pretty small box. Sorry if that's nothing but a self pat-on-the-back or something. The comment was harmless enough really, but it kind of got to me and I have only this to explain myself.

Pictures, Focused Thoughts

I have not taken my camera out of my bag. This is shocking, I know. The truth is we have not really gone sight seeing too much so far. The one time we did go somewhere I could have taken good pictures, I didn't know we were going there and didn't take my camera. Soon I'm sure we will plan some trips to picturesque spots and surely I will take good pictures.

As for regular, daily life kind of shots, I've just been lazy. I keep thinking we'll be here for a year or so and those pictures can wait. Now that we have internet I guess I'll actually get around to taking those pictures and posting them.

As a secondary reason I'm also still trying to get a feel for things around here. Even though I am an obvious white guy and thus a tourist, I don't want to be even more blatant as the white guy with the really big camera. Most of Shanghai is pretty safe, they say, but I don't want to push my luck and have my camera stolen so soon.

No worries though, pictures will come sometime soon.

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A number of people have asked about various things - food comes immediately to mind - and I have some good replies in my head. Actually I have some good posts prepared in my mind on a variety of things, but have yet to write them. So far the blog has been mostly daily life kind of things, more of a travel diary than a focused blog. With the internet connections and a more organized schedule I hope to write larger essays on various things such as the food, and the area in which we live and the school and such things.

So keep tuning in kids, there is much more excitement to come.

Connected To The World

We finally have internet in our home. As we have two lap tops we went with the wireless version. Unfortunately we still need to buy a wireless card for our Dell, so it is still stuck to a wire in the extra bedroom. But that is doable until we start getting pay checks.

Actually the Dell is giving me all sort of problems beyond being connected to a cord. I meant to have it fixed before we left and just didn't. It periodically runs super, extra slow and I can't figure out why.

I've ran all the anti-spy, anti-virus stuff to no avail. I jut now tried to do a system restore, but for some reason that little bit of software won't even come up! Curses.

But yes, the Apple works swell and we're all connected. Expect more updates from now on. Also expect some cosmetic changes soon too as I know the blog looks kind of random.

China has killed my wordpress blog. I cannot log into it at all. So it shall remain unchanged until maybe next month when I hope to obtain my own webspace and url. Oh the changes one must make when one lives in China.

Lots Of Updating

Obviously I've just done a lot of updating. Brian, Bethany, and Amy are all at school dealing with orientation and cleaning. It will be a very rough day for Amy as they are cramming tons of information into her skull and making her do all sorts of paperwork.

Me, I'm sitting around kind of bored. So I went to Brian and Bets to update the blog. Some of it may sound odd reading it all at once as it was written over the last week at different times.

China is proving quite difficult with the blogging. I still cannot figure out how to make my own comments. So again, if you have commented don't get mad if I don't reply to them. I simply cannot do that. I'm thinking about doing a weekly blog just to answer the comments, but I'm not sure that will work either, as I'll probably forget what the comments were.

My wordpress blog is even more difficult. It rarely lets me log in at all, and even when it does it is super slow. I had planned on getting my own webspace anyways, so I may get to that even sooner.

Anyways thanks to everyone who has read and commented thus far.