Day 2: Hit the water running

We were up at 7am, and groggily rolled into breakfast by 7:15am.  Chow was buffet style, simple fruits, cereal, bread, and you could request eggs.  We set up and were ready to go onto the boat by 8am.  There were 8 guests with about 3 guides.  The boat was really spacious with plenty of space for divers to get setup without being in each others' way and backroll entry and ladder re-entry.  The distance out to the first site was longer than I expected – about 20 min.  Sarah and I were paired up with local guide Johan, who was a terrific spotter and always cheerful. 

I had high expectations and they were surpassed by the very first dive.  Muck diving is just about the only place in the world where trashing the environment actually has a positive upside.  The area around Lembeh Straits has mostly either a silty or a black sand bottom with some spots of coral reef or coral rubble.  For the most part, however, it's a barren, inhospitable environment that offers little shelter.  As a result, the marine life that survives is tiny, often cleverly camouflaged to blend in, and there's a lot of symbiosis.  Anenomefish living in stinging anenomes is a good example.  So is the gobies that stand guard while their blind partner shrimp ceaselessly dig safety holes and push sand and rocks out of the way.  When there's any sign of danger, the goby communicates this to its partner through the link provided from the shrimp's antenna on its dorsal fin and they retreat to the hole in the blink of an eye.  So how does trash fit into this?  It gives the animals an extra place to hide.  Tires, shoes, coconut shells, all become highlights of a dive because of what you can find in them.  You can't pick up a bottle without finding something peeping out from inside its neck. 

The first site was silt giving way to black sand, and surprises were everywhere.  Cuttlefish of all sizes, two mimic octopuses (by first encounter with them), nudibranchs (but not the huge variety I've seen elsewhere), a bizarre two-foot buried crab that shot out like an arrow when disturbed, many different shrimp, and best of all, warm temperatures (81F/28C), shallow depths, and a 70 min pleasant dive.  I came up thinking, "This is going to be an awesome week!"  The only downside was due to my own fault.  I had a new camera, a CanonS95 point and shoot in an Ikelite housing, but the strobe and macro lens I ordered arrived too late for me to bring it along, rendering the camera virtually unusable for anything but shallow, well-lit subjects.  So frustrating, because you come to this area to hunt bizarre creatures you won't find anywhere else and it's ideal to claim photos as trophies.

We did two dives, the second at a reef and not nearly as nice as the first and then returned around noon.  The crew was awesome, took care of everything and we just took our cameras, lights, etc.  Annoyingly, my Oceanic hoseless dive computer crapped out again on the second dive.  I just had it fixed earlier this year after it died about 100' down on a wreck. 

The resort has dedicated wet and dry camera rooms.  Lunch was served and as soon as you sat, plates were brought out to you.  Delicious and healthy local food.  Basic water, coffee, tea, and Milo are free and sodas/beers/smoothies are pay as you go.  There was a third boat dive after lunch around 2:30pm, but we were on the 2 boat dives a day plan and were pooped anyhow.  We caught a nap and then around 4:30pm, when the boat came back, a group of about 5 of us went for a twilight dive in the house reef.  The "house reef" is a bit misleading, because it's not really a reef, but just the area in front of the resort.  Still, I managed to see two octopus, a stingray, a Harlequin shrimp, leaffish, banded pipefish, sea snake, and a variety of crabs during the 70 min dive.  Came back, took a quick shower, and it was dinner time.

The guests are from all over.  We have Bent, Swedish university ecology professor who takes and sells photographs on the side; Liz, also a university teacher from Newcastle, Australia; Olaf, a single photo enthusiast from Germany, a couple from Germany, and Godfried and Micky, an older but really energetic and fun couple from Denmark.  Everyone is a competent diver, considerate, and pleasant.  We spent the evening just chatting with each other and the owners, Simon and Zee, who bought the resort in 2010 after managing it for two years.  It really is a labor of love and the remarkable thing – the one thing every well-run place has in common that I've stayed at – is that you can tell the staff is happy, empowered, and genuinely happy to be here.  A lot of laughing and smiles, though they clearly work hard in the background so the guests can chill out.

Chinese National Day Holidays in Indonesia

It's annual holidays in China (happens twice a year) and this year, we planned early enough that we could have our choice of dive destinations we hadn't yet visited.  The short list included: Fiji, Manado/Lembeh, Sipadan, Palau, and the Philippines (again).  The only criteria was that we needed to be able to use award miles.  Fiji and Palau just didn't have good connections and we were pretty indifferent to Manado/Lembeh or Mabul/Sipadan.  Both are renowned for muck diving, which is finding bizarre, tiny aquatic creatures in silty or black sand. 

I found award tickets  to Jakarta via Singapore and then we purchased domestic tickets to complete the trip to Manado.  There are about 10 resorts in the area, all that essentially package accommodations, full board, and diving (either 2 or 3 boat dives a day).  We settled on NAD, which seemed  like a reasonable  price but with nice bungalows.  Simon, the owner, was very responsive and we got a 7 nt package with upgraded bungalow, full board, and 2 dives per day (and unlimited house reef diving) for around 800 USD total.  Like I said, very reasonable.

We had a midnight flight out of Shanghai.  Sarah and I had both been so busy that we didn't have a good chance to pack and we threw everything together in about half an hour and jetted to the airport at about 9:30pm.  It was 24 hrs later before we finally arrived at our destination.

Our first leg was to Singapore via Singapore Airlines, my favorite airline.  Uneventful 4-5 hrs – I napped a bit.  Then we were in Singapore for about 3 hours waiting for our hop to Jakarta.  Of course Sarah made a beeline for the La Perla shop.  I took care of a few work emails and then did the male La Perla equivalent and hung out at one of the many technology/photo/audio/computer shops in the airport.  Singapore is truly a nation of geeks, but I'm thankful for that.  I picked up a wireless signal repeater that you supposedly can just plug in to increase the strength of the signal.  From experience, wireless signals don't go very far in resorts and I can't count the number of times I've literally dangled my laptop out of a window or been crouched in some courtyard getting bitten by mosquitoes to take that IP call or get that important email out.  It was only $70 too, so if it works, will be money well spent.

We got onto the Jakarta flight, also on SQ, and landed in Jakarta a couple hours later.  First step was getting a visa on arrival (most countries can do this).  This was painless and quick and cost USD 25 per person.  We paid in RMB, which was a bad idea because the exchange rate was much worse.  I always forget that the international arrivals terminal is quite a way from the domestic terminals.  You have to go upstairs and then take a taxi or free yellow shuttle bus (better) to T1 or T2 (starting from T3 Intl).  The transit easily takes about 30 min, so it's good to leave plenty of time.  We were lugging a good amount of dive equipment, but still made it under the weight limit.  For future info, the check-in limit is 20kg per person.  If you're traveling together, the limit can be combined.  We came in at about 34kg.  We had another 3 hrs to kill and first hit the ATM (usually a good idea to do this in Jakarta because a lot of the smaller places don't have ATMs or they are not the right network).  We found ATMs that would take Unionpay and also a Citibank.  Actually, in Manado we also saw several ATMs at the airport, but not sure if they would have worked.  

My experience with flights from Jakarta is that they are usually late and this time was no exception.  We were about an hour late.  One nice thing is that a middle-aged distinguished man stopped us and introduced himself out of the blue at the terminal.  Asked us where we were from and told us that he had lived in the US for a little bit.  Turned out he had been in San Bernadino, which is not a big county, and near LA.  I was surprised to find out that San Bernadino is a sort of community heartland for immigrants to the US from Manado!  Youke works in public health and we exchanged info.  Genuinely nice guy.

The flight was fine though Sarah remarked that the seats were more cramped than any flight she's taken in a long time.  Being a budget airline, food and drinks are not provided but can be purchased.  It was a 3-4 hr flight, and by the time we touched down, we were pretty tired and hungry.  Manado was a small airport, and the thing which stood out the most was that there were touts and taxi drivers everywhere.  Worth getting someone right away to drive the other touts from swarming you.  We found our driver from the resort and were on our way.  The drive from Manado to Bintang was about an hour through tiny roads where we were continuously swerving to dodge roadside traffic.  But the van was really comfy and we just fell asleep.  Arrived at the port, transferred onto a boat and took another 20-30 min to arrive at the resort.  So glad that we did not decide to stay in the town (which you can do for cheap, diving during the days).  It was quiet once we left the port.

Zee and Surge met us and greeted us by name as we stepped off the boat, which was a nice gracious touch.  We dropped our bags and were invited to have dinner and a welcome drink right away which was great.  The first impression of NAD, our home for the next week, was a quiet haven, well-kept, with most activities centered around a homey, but open eating and community lodge area.  There are little housing units on the ground floor, steps from the eating area, and then three bungalows about 50m away.  Our bungalow was really nice.  Not glamorous or mint-on-the-pillows luxurious, but clean, dry, attractive, big firm bed, working & quiet A/C, and a bathroom that didn't stink and had actual working hot water instead of the cold water in a basin ("mandi") that I was used to in Indonesia.  Really the perfect type of place that Sarah and I like.

I was ready to crash, but had a bunch of work stuff like payments, customers, and a paid webinar, etc I had to take care of, and with the poor wireless Internet coverage (we're on the edge), it took about 5 hrs before I could sleep and got about 3 hrs before I was up for our first full day.

My first Chinese radio interview

Last week (well, the week before I was sick), I did one of those things I would have never thought possible a year ago.  I gave an hour-long radio interview entirely in Chinese.

Maybe it was that adage, "No publicity is bad publicity."  Or, that we're on a ghetto guerrilla PR & marketing budget and this was free.  But, when an acquaintance in the LOHAS (lifestyles of health and sustainability) asked me if I'd be willing to talk about  air & water on the on the daily radio program "LOHAS Everyday," I thought, "why not"?  After all, I do it all the time with clients.  

I started worrying the night before.  I was supposed to show up at the station in 12 hrs and still didn't know where it was, hadn't seen any questions, didn't even know how long the show was, and suddenly started doubting my ability to speak in complete sentences in Mandarin.  Finally, my liaison called me with some info and a read-ahead on the questions.  They were actually the sort of questions I normally field, so I jotted down some notes in English and then got some rest.  The next day, I got to the station.  There was a surprising amount of security to get in.  I met Lisa, my intermediary, and then she brought me into the studio.  I met the two hosts, two nice, young Chinese radio DJs.  Wu Bing was an upbeat, energetic guy in his mid-twenties from Beijing.  Ruan Jing was a little older and more thoughtful -- a nice counterpart to Wu Bing.  Kind of the way Jackie was for Howard Stern.  They were both very nice and went over the process with me.  We'd go through the entire show, complete with fade in's and outs, and then they would make edits later to piece the show together.  If I made any huge mistakes, they could edit out later.  

We started -- I thought it was pretty funny that their intro music was Ludakris.  They must have kept their questions especially basic, because I didn't have any problems understanding and not a whole lot of problems speaking, though I'm sure my Chinese teacher would have had a few choice words for me for some of the mistakes I made.  But all in all, it was really like just having a chat with interested friends.  Lot of fun.

Afterwards, we took a few photos, I got a little tour of the station and their offices.  The show played a couple days later and Lisa was nice enough to send me a CD of the audio.  I'm not sure how to leverage this interview, but just wanted to share with y'all.

My body is a mystery

Some (and I believe the smartest) Christians use the mystery of life to prove the existence of a higher power. I definitely believe that. After a topsy turvy week of health ups and downs, I know that the body is so incredibly complex that either God or aliens had to have put us together.

So, a couple months ago, I blogged about coming down with Scarlet Fever. 5 days ago, on Monday, I woke up fine. Went to the new office, participated in Monday morning show and tell, and got through a long day. As i do every Mon, I went to brazilian jiujitsu. Once there, I started feeling a little out of it. I didn't grapple very well, felt tired and hot, but kept going. Afterwards, when I rode back, I felt so exhausted and almost lightheaded that I was afraid I wouldn't make it back. My temp was about 102, and I was still feeling chilled. I tossed and turned for most of the night and then worked from home, mostly laying in bed. For most of that day and night, I continued to have a fever and a steady, heavy headache.

On day 3, I finally went to the doc, when i realized i had a large patch of itchy raised welts on my chest. This doctor diagnosed what I had as non-bacterial, viral infection. I was given Tylenol and sent home.

Day 4 was fine -- I had less appetite, my throat was raw and I wasn't drinking much - but I could still function. The patch of raised welts that had been just in patch areas were now covering 70% of my body, less my face, thank goodness. Nights were bad, as body temp goes up and your body becomes more sensitive to itches.

On Day 5, I went into the office to organize some things, and spent half the day there. Sadly, I wasn't even thinking so straight anymore. I was hardly eating or drinking, and my nights were hours of tossing and turning. I was still doing okay. Until about 3pm, when I realized I was sort of wheezing fluid into my lungs and my lips were so puffy they looked like Angelina Jolie's. I had one more important planning meeting and actually had to have my marketing person talk to me while I typed to her in a chat window. It was strange, but it worked. I went to the hospital and actually was sort of pissed at the doctor who let me leave the hospital with Tylenol only and didn't warn me about any of this. She said it was very unusual for adults to get the same type of virus twice so close together. Then she wanted to admit me overnight. I ended up not doing that, but agreed to walk through a battery of blood samples at a different location.

The doc was great and said:

1. I have a viral infection

2. My liver bloodwork is way off, about 6x

3. He recommended steroid injections to reduce the swelling. Apparently, my body is fighting the virus so hard that my immune system haywire and is super sensitive. Everything is now a threat so my body reacts by getting inflamed, itchy, wheezing, swollen. And that makes me miserable not talking, eating, or drinking.

I took the steroid through an IV drip. I was very worried because the very next day, we were due to host a BBQ and pool party that might draw between 10-40 people. The day rolled around and I woke up and could swallow, talk, and my face was mostly back to normal.

Day went by great, my chest returned totally back to normal. but I have to say that I have never swung between such highs and lows. The worst was feeling like you have a mouth full of ulcers and not being even able to talk without feeling all cut up.

Takeaways?

* Next time you get sick, main thing you can get tested is if you have a viral or bacterial infection. Antibiotics work only for bacterial. Nothing (western) is known to solve viral infections so all you can do is reduce the symptoms and ride it out

* Normal cycle is 5-7 days. After 4 days, get on steroids (last about 24 hrs)

* You are contagious through droplets of moisture you release, but after the first night, i didn't have time to put on the mask

* I feel so sympathetic now for people who have bad allergies. Right now my back is so itchy that if i rub up against sometihing a few seconds later I was to sleep on top of it.

You know you've been married too long when...

So what's the only case in which you can live down forgetting your wedding anniversary?

... when your spouse also forgets!

Sad, but true.  I came back from jiujitsu practice as usual, pretty late, and Sarah greeted me with a smile and a "Happy Anniversary, Dear".  My mouth dropped open, a few choice words came to mind, and since I can keep no secrets from her after over 15 years together, I admitted that I had totally forgotten.  Normally, this would have sent me to matrimonial purgatory, but she cheerfully admitted that she only remembered that afternoon when her mother emailed her to wish her well.  That's how I know I married the right woman -- who else would have let me off that easily??

These days, I put everything in my calendar.  If it's not there, I forget it.  It's a modern day crutch that helps me to function by letting me only remember what I have to (hence the Far Side cartoon).  Anyone else do this?

When it rains it pours

I think you're supposed to say that when bad things are happening.  Is there a saying for when good things happen?

Last week was a good week.  A very good week.  The amount we brought in last week (no cash yet, but deal value) was nearly 50% of our total revenue to date.  True, much of this was from one project alone (a big deal with a bank covering nearly 6000m2), but this was actually 6 different projects.  On average, we've been doing maybe 2 projects a week.  The best part?  They were all commercial projects -- the direction I've been wanting us to go.  Doing homes is fun, satisfying, tangible, but in no way scalable.

The other interesting thing is that our business is growing into a relationship role.  In many of these projects, we were the general contractor, bringing subcontractor(s) to do some work that we billed for, coordinated, managed, and took responsibility for (and a sizeable cut).  In one project, however, we were contacted by a HK services provider to be their subcontractor.  They took almost the same size cut but did very little value add besides landing the deal.  But, it's worth doing because we aren't at that point where we can find business like that and we are learning about how to be a general contractor by being on the other side of the fence.  Pretty fascinating and really learning on the job.

Keeping fingers crossed, last week was really the first week where I felt like there was really promise beyond just feeling like we were doing a good thing, being professional, and meeting a market need.  I felt excited that this could actually make some money and be a real business venture.  Maybe not a coincidence that I averaged about 3-4 hrs of sleep too...

Oh, forgot to mention that at the end of the previous week, I gave a talk to a community of builders, architects, designers, and property managers on how indoor air quality is important to green building.  Way more  people showed up than we expected.  Normally, 50-80 people have gone to the events I've attended.  The organizer estimated about 130-150 at this one.  After some scares with the audio not working and then a challenge of all the pictures in my presentation not being displayed, I still went ahead and gave it.  Got some decent questions and then chatted with about a dozen people after the talk.  I'm pretty sure I should follow up with the opportunities and business cards a little better, but I'd like to think that this week's amazing uptick might have something to do with that talk.

Thanks for letting me share my bit of happiness!

Inc magazine...mmm good

For my birthday, my big bro L got me a subscription to Inc. Magazine.  He probably saw me browsing his back issues when during a visit.  Like probably most entrepreneurs or small business owners, there's so much we don't know and learning from other people or reading real case studies is immensely important.  I started receiving the issues a couple months back and I really enjoy the magazine and wanted to give a shout out of appreciate to my bro.  The best gifts are the ones you wouldn't go out of your way to buy yourself, but can use and appreciate.  

And, I hate reading online, so the added expense of print magazines was so much nicer.  It's weird.  I like and do all my research online.  But, reading newspapers and magazines online totally ruin the experience for me.  It may be generational.  Sitting back on a lazy Sunday morning with a Wall St Journal is really a relaxing time.  

Inc does a great job being relevant to the brand new one-person startup baking cupcakes out of their apartment kitchen to the $50M tech company with 30 employees.  I suspect larger companies probably find it less interesting, but that's the nature of the beast.  There's probably a graduate-level Inc. out there somewhere.

But for the moment, I really enjoy reading stories and different approaches, whether how someone dealt with trademark infringement, libelous claims by competitors, decisions on whether to expand into franchises, etc.  The best part is that reading these things, even how someone dealt with failure (always the best lessons) fire me up.

In other news....

Next week, I've been invited to give a talk ambitiously titled: "Managing Indoor Environmental Quality for Green Building Success" to a group of mostly builders, architects, interior designers, facilities managers, and people in the green and sustainable industries.  It'll draw on a few real project case studies we've done to highlight why indoor air testing and paying attention to indoor environmental quality can impact green building, from marketability to cost savings to productivity to health and safety to minimizing legal liability.  This is going to be big in helping us strengthen recognition as thought leaders in this space.   If you have any ideas (other than an email to a bunch of acquaintances inviting them to attend) on how we can market this or use it to increase our SEO or credibility, please post your comments!

Who got fever? I got fever. Scarlet Fever

This Saturday I woke up with a bad sore throat. It happens in China. I didn't think much of it, but then was chilled, and when I took my temp it was over 102F. Sarah suggested helpfully that I had the flu.

No biggie, but thought it was weird because I just had a flu shot (I always think those things are useless).

That night and the next day, my temperature hovered around 102-103 F and I got to enjoy a cold bath and other fun home remedies.

Then on Sun, the fever broke. But instead, I started feeling tingles in one foot -- how it feels when your foot falls asleep. My feet are pretty beat up, cracked, and always itching from being on the jiujitsu mats, so I didn't think too much of it. But during the night, the itching got intense -- I actually dreamed about it. And, the spots and itching spread to both feet.

On Monday, after a quick websearch suggested I might have anything from strep throat to foot and mouth disease, I decided I'd just get down to the doc's and get antibiotics started.

Good thing I did. The French doc diagnosed the strep throat immediately when she looked into my throat, but then when she saw my feet, she said, "Hmm....very interesting". That is not something you want a examining medical professional to say. She believes I have come down with either scarlet fever or hand and mouth disease. (Actually I just looked it up and I my symptoms match the classic symptoms of foot and hand disease 100%, but I'm just an amateur doctor) Doesn't really matter because both are related to streptococcus bacteria and both are treated with penicillin. It's often transmitted by children and according to PubMed, "Coxsackie virus is transmitted by contamination with feces". WHAT? Coxsackie? Feces? Now that I think about it, I went to a Chinese hospital on Friday and probably encountered about 500 people in two hours or so. Next time I'm wearing a mask and gloves.

Although I didn't even know scarlet fever still existed, apparently I have it and should be better after a week or so. In the meanwhile, it really sucks because I'm hungry all the time but can't eat much because I have these big white ulcers in the back of my throat and it hurts like heck to swallow. If you're trying to lose weight, I highly recommend this.

If you're in Shanghai, look me up and I can pass it on to you personally :)

Hope everyone had a more fun Fourth of July wherever you are...

Blogger's block?

I have been stricken by a weird sort of writer's block over the past several months.  Growing up, I kept a journal (dozens of these stashed in my parents' homes).  I write trip reports whenever I travel.  I blogged every few days when I was deployed on Line of D.  And up until recently, I regularly blogged on my company's website.  But strangely, I have been unable to blog lately.  I think it's that the idea of catching up seems overwhelming, so I don't know where to start and then I don't want to.

So, even though it's midnight and I'm jetlagged, I'm going to quit putting it off (at least on my personal blog) and update with what's gone on in the past couple months.  Forgive me for being so mechanical and bullet-like, but this is after all, also a personal record of eventful moments, so I'd rather be cryptic than forget to record something down at all.

1. I became an uncle again!  CEC or "He Who Is Powerful In Battle" was born a big baby on May  to my big bro.  He actually was born unnamed and L asked us to weigh in on the options.  The shortlist was: Callan, Cory, Toby, and Milo.  It was an easy choice for me, especially when I found out it was a Gaellic name with some serious badass meaning.  This was made more fun when my dad declared in an enthusiastic email that his grandson was "well endowed". Anyhow, his sister loves him and I got to see this on Skype recently when I called in for her birthday and got to see her holding him.  

2. I went to Germany to do my annual military duty.  My reserve unit has been on Schofield Barracks in Hawaii.  But before I went to Iraq, my slot was eliminated and I had to find a new one.  I put off finding a new unit because the Iraq tour covered me for 2 years, but eventually I had to look and I ended up finding a unit in Germany.  It had been 10 years since I had been back to continental Europe and I really enjoyed being in Southern Germany.  On the other hand, my job sucked because no one really knew I was coming, so I had to make work for myself and it was tough to get people to just give me stuff to do.  On the positive note, the light workload meant that I could actually continue to keep the business chugging along back in China.  A special treat was meeting up with and hanging out with my buddy Sven, whom I knew (and lived with for a short while) when I lived here 10 years ago.  I visited him and his girlfriend Meike in Munich and they really took me out to see this beautiful city.  The downside of Germany was getting 6, yes, count 'em, 6 speeding tickets in 3 weeks.

3. Came back to Shanghai for 2 days and then went to the US for my 15th yr college reunion and good friend's bachelor party.  The reunion was nice -- like last time's (the 10th), but with fewer classmates and lots of rugrats running around.  People still cool.  I got to see Candice and catch up.  Also found out that our year is still famous as the year of the murder-suicide at Dunster.  Then after the reunion weekend, old college pals Jaime and Joe and I went for our annual road trip.  This was pretend to be a bachelor party, but actually was a mellow guy's weekend out.  We went up to NH, where Joe charmed my in-laws and we made a blood donation to the mosquito gods, hiked around, and then went back to Boston.  There we took in a Sox game (they lost).  It was good fun.

4. My business issue of the week is dealing with a trademark claim.  Rather, someone has "my" trademark and is now trying to take over my website legally.  Fortunately, my stepbro is a lawyer in Beijing and is guiding me through the response.  Still, now we have to file defensively and it's still a pain in the ass to jump through all the hoops.