I just got off the phone with my brother in law, John. My sister Mary gave birth to a beautiful and healthy 5 pounds…9 ounce baby boy at  11:30 last night.   This is really wonderful news….   

 

I’d heard about the birth about 3 minutes before when Diane sent me an email.. At that moment  I happened to be lying on the floor of my hotel room watching one of the slide shows  that Sam’s friends had made for his memorial service. 

 Welcome little baby Liddicoat.  Mary just called me and I was able to hear your voice .

 Life is beautiful and strange..

 
I’ll write more about China tomorrow

 -jc

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 Well… scratch that.. I just had  a good talk with Diane and feel more centered..
I’ll write a little more about China now..

 It’s cold and wet here in Shanghai. I started the day at around 7:30 . I was feeling lonely last night and  got very little sleep. I woke up just in time to get driven 45 min  cross town by my friend Ju  to one of the local IBM sites.  The people here are great. I spent a few hours talking to them about what it was like working for IBM here in China. I am so impressed with everyone I met.. everyone is incredibly bright, funny and speaks perfect English.. It’s hard to imagine the reverse: one of them coming to the US and feeling as welcome speaking Mandarin..   Around 11 we had to jump back in the car and drive 45 min back downtown in order to meet  my friend Jane.

 

We then drove about 45 min  to Tong Ji  University’s new campus on the outskirts of Shanghai. Tong Ji means ‘all in the same boat’ a pretty apt title for such a wet and soggy day. , Jane and I met with the Com Sci faculty then gave a talk to about 100 of their undergrad and grad students. Everyone f them spoke perfect English.. they even laughed at the dumb jokes in my presentation.. There is no language gap in high tech over here.. No surprise.. the PA system freaked out and had to be turned off as soon as I began to speak. (Sam !) One thing I learned after my talk on video game technology is that most  folks over here don’t  own video game consoles. .they’re too expensive. Instead they have software that allows them to play hacked version of Xbox360 and Playstation II games on their laptops.. pretty cool in a kinda not-so-legal  sort of way..  Here are some pictures from the trip to Tong Ji U.

 

 We left Tong Ji and drove about an hour back to the hotel in time to meet the rest of our friends for dinner. Jane had arranged a great meal in a restaurant just down the street. Jane had ordered food from Southern China.. She’d gone easy with us in that none of the food had eyes, beaks or dangerously long tentacles or antennae.  It was delicious. It was  great seeing  my friends there .. I saw old friends from Beijing as well as my close friends in our Academy group who are from England, Switzerland, Canada, the US, Japan and of course China.   We walked back through the rain to our hotel . 

 After that.. I started watching a slide show of Sam.. and that’s where I started this story

Goodnight Diane, Max, Gabe and Sam…

Welcome baby Liddicoat !

-jc