My First Movember

Well, there are firsts for everything.  

This past November (which has been renamed Movember by many men), I embarked on a journey of self discovery, joy, anguish, woe, heartbreak and most of all, swag. 

I let my natural overly-manly tendancies have their sway over my face and proceeded to produce a fine luminous coat of silky man-fur.

Basically, I grew an itchy caterpillar on my upper lip and let it have free reign as it pupated into a ....no, it did not turn into a butterfly unfortunately.

But, ok, enough teasing.  I grew a 'Mo' as they say in Australia to benefit a good cause: to help increase men's awareness about their health, especially men's cancer related items. 

Men are notorious at trying to act cool and not see a doctor ('real' men, that is...) but perhaps that is why there are so few 'real' men these days; maybe they died out when the original moustaches died out in the early 80's.

As shown in the talk below (which I highly encourage you to watch), Adam Garone helped bring this tradition to life based on a much healthier attitude towards charity: have fun while doing it.

Movember

Thus, I will try to participate each year in this manly ritual of caterpillar harvesting to help promote better health, better awareness and better facial hair.
 

 This is what I suppose would happen if i go full beard....

 Go ahead, tease away!

It comes off in a few days!

A few more pics

We have indeed relaxed a bit on our camera trigger finger, yet we find ourselves taking more movies now than pics.  To see more movies, head over to Dropshots. I updated them and erased the old ones (to maintain space).

Anyway, things are normal here and progressing as they should. If you watch the movies you should hear Sage talk a lot more (for real, instead of just me saying he is talking more).  

So take a peek and enjoy.

Happy almost Thanksgiving!

Race cars and cups calls for speed destruction

 A little balance practice

 In his element

A bit of reading

A pre-xmas gift that he loves (heck, I love it too) that we have since put away to open again on Xmas.

Speaking of Xmas, we 'upped' the tree last week.  Early, but it looks nice and we don't really celebrate Thanksgiving here, so yeah! Early Xmas!  Sage thought some of his 'baby balls' would look nice under the tree.

Some nice pics by mom

Dad prefers more 'action' shots

Yeah! Good!

Jo's New Job

 Well, Fall is here and that means a brief respite from the heat of summer.  

Sage is not in school yet so I can not talk about that (which will happen next year - maybe), but I can talk about a recent development that has changed for the better - Jo's employed again!

For the past 4 years Jo has been on a hiatus of sorts, becoming a mother and a housewife (which she never thought would happen) and while at first she hated it, she did get into a groove that she liked, being at home with Sage and pretty much relaxing (since Sage has been pretty easy to raise).  

There were still nagging thoughts that she should head out when the time was right and find another job, but she vacillated between maintaining the status quo (I actually like being a housewife!) to the boredom of it (I need to be with people! You and Sage don't count!).  Thus for the past 6 months we have been discussing the potentiality of her going back to work.  

Course we had a lot of hurtles to overcome:

1) she had to find a job that was flexible for time (since we did not want to get a full time nanny to offset any income she did make - if her salary was X and the nanny was a little under X for the month, it made no sense to work and not be at home!)

2) she had to find something that she was interested in (which was difficult anyway since she gets bored easily)

3) she had to find a job that paid well since while minimum wage jobs are available, who wants to do that when they are 40? And unfortunately, the average salary has gone down(!) over the years here, too!

 4) she wanted to find a job that was 'easy' as well but 'challenging' at the same time

Thus we prepared to earnestly start to look from August and we gave ourselves a year or so when Sage starts school next year.

Basically, after 2 random interviews with not very appealing jobs, she saw an ad for a sales rep basically 500 feet from our house.  On a lark, she went to inquire and ended up having an interview.  Then after discussing it for a few days, she basically decided "why not?" and said ok.  

So basically, she landed a job that she is at now only after 2 weeks of looking.  We never thought it would be so fast.  She says luck, I say she is skilled and people know that, but anyway, she just finished her first week of work and is off for week 2 tomorrow!

Miraculously, it meets all of the criteria she wanted, the main point being free.  Since she is a sales rep, she was told, as long as she makes her quota for the month, she does not need to be in the office too much.

Ok, selling what?

Basically, she is working for a high tech company that helps create marketing videos and other advertising systems that other companies can use to help them expand their markets.  As I understand it, she will basically talk directly to the boss of a company to explain why that boss should create a video to help them sell more of their stuff. 

The cheapest product they sell is about $10,000 US and for a big company, supposedly that is chump change to get good marketing up and running.  Thus, if Jo does get her quota, her commission should be pretty good.

Also, did I mention that the main markets are overseas? Did I also mention that they even asked her if I could be an actor/promoter in some of their videos when she said she was married to a Westerner?

Anyway, all this is moving pretty fast, but Jo prefers that and we are off and running.  I am happy since she can use her energy for something more constructive than housework (which her hapless husband can take care of - sort of...) and now the financial pressure is not only on me.

So, we are adjusting to the new routine and the new circumstances and I am sure I will have more posts in the future about the goings on in Jo's new job.  When we know more, I will try to explain. 

Besides that, Sage is Sage and I am me.  Same.  Good.  Happy.

Here are some recent pics.

 This is Sage's oldest cousin Pei-Ying.  She comes to visit us occasionally and this time she stayed for a few days with us and then Jo and Sage zipped up to Taipei with her to see the family.

Hanging out with Ah-Ma

Now it is Auntie's turn

Back home and smiling (course there has been a clear increase in frowns and yells recently...)

Come on, admit it!

Some say he is looking more like Jo now (note: big mouth)

For work Jo needed to get an ipad (to show their videos to clients) so Sage and I are reaping the bennies from that!  (it really is a great learning tool!)

Another fort

Sage seems to be as anal as Daddy at times......(he lined up each one, then proceeded to take off all their stickers and realign them).

Oh, I am not sure what sparked it, but we are now the owners of a little mouse, Mimi.  Jo says it is for Sage, but we know the truth.....

Anyway, have a good start of Fall!

Summer Winding Down

This summer is coming to a close and we are looking forward to the fall and cooling weather.

I have been lucky to have less classes this summer (since I am a tutor, I can actually be busier in the summer) and thus I have started making all sorts of plans again.

Jo has been training a lot by doing Tai Chi in the mornings and now that she just got a new bike, is primed for more morning exercise as well.  I shudder at the thought, but as long as she is happy!  She is also getting antsy in terms of finding a 'real' job other than a housewife (the pay is terrible) so she has been scouting around a bit.  If anything comes up will be partly luck and partly connections since she is trying to bypass the normal 'basic' job type scenario.  Wish her luck (I will be happy to see her get out of the house!)

Sage is growing up quick and cute as ever.  His terrible two-ness never was but he is showing signs of 'throttle-em threes' as my sister likes to point out.  However, those are rare occasions and mostly he is a great kid.

He is speaking more now and with more words per utterance, yet still prefers to use his own pronunciation and words: "Shu Shu" is still Sage (I think from my common calling him 'Super'), "Paco" is now Gramma and Grampa combined I guess and we have no idea where that came about, and a whole host of other words that we would have to translate for others.  It is fun to watch this unfold.  I graduated as a linguist (as well as Chinese major) and learning how he absorbs this is really fascinating.

Anyway, let's get to the pics!

 Just some smiles

 Bubba' Time!

 In the Science Museum (we will be going here a lot more!)

 Super Bubble!

 Their dino exhibit is actually really cool.  The video is quite nice.

 This one left Sage scared since every so often, they would move and hiss loudly

 This is Jo's new toy.  It will be awhile before I join her....

 More smiles

Gotta have a 'thinking' one - after all he is Sage....

Hope all is well!