Last Post..

Departing Shanghai...

It has been an interesting journey here in Shanghai. I have to say that it really does feel similar to the Macau trip on my return back. I still remember my first day onsite. It was cold, rainy and miserable. I wasnt sure how things would end up. I remember Mclane showing me around and making me my lunch since there was nothing nearby or onsite. The time flew by. We must have worked an average of 60-70 hour weeks. The people that live in work in Shanghai are so much different than I ever imagined. Personal space isnt an issue, deodorant cannot be found and Im pretty sure the will not change their ways. Dogs run around on the street unleashed but are usually obedient following their master. Cabs are usually crazy and speak little english. The weather is normally rainy and windy. I actually really liked most of the food. We found some really excellent noodle and dumpling places for lunch. I always looked forward to lunch. This one place had these pan fried dumplings that were so good. I wish I had pictures. They would come in a small cardboard box that had a lid, and inside were 12 of these tubular dumplings very similar to blintzes. The flavor was hard to describe but a little garlicky and was filled with a pork mixture. You can easily pick them up with your foodsticks.

I was a little disappointed that I was not able to see more of the expo. I think Terrie actually saw more than I did. I didnt even make it over to the main site of the expo like Terrie did. The site was strangely barren without visitors later Saturday night, which was the opening day. I heard later, that its actually a holiday for the locals. Im really just mostly impressed with the architecture and the lighting on the buildings. There was one I noticed last night that must have had the most powerful spotlights I have ever seen. Of course since there is no regulations on what you do, you can put up anything. Across the bridges that span the river were hundreds of moving lights, big moving lights. I wonder where they all came from. None of them looked familiar, they must have been some chinese brand. Also, interestingly, each light was on its own scaffold, and had its own fire extinguisher right there.

I was not really able to see any of my friends work at all. I did go into the communications pavilion, which my friend Stephan worked on. It reminded me of Epcot about 20 years ago. Nothing spectacular. Two theatres with video projection. One had seat shakers with bubble machines and snow machines. The technology wasnt impressive at all. The pavilion only spoke about how communications has evolved. They gave you a little handheld device that didnt work very well. It would vibrate and flash something up on the screen. You typed in a username and password at first, that was never used for anything. I didnt see a sponsor, so im not sure what this pavilion was even for. I was hoping to see some technology, but I didnt see anything. I did however smell the most rank theatre ever. Its smelled badly of body odor. I almost walked out. I felt dirty after sitting in that seat.

So I am back in the US and happy to be with my wife again. I only hope that the guys that are still in Shanghai are able to make the system work reliably and not have many problems.

Last Day..

So this is my last day in shanghai!. I am packing everything and I know my bags are really heavy. I also have my pelican toolcase which is about 70 lbs. I am excited to get home and see my wife and rico. Thats all the time I have for this morning.

See you all soon.

Jason

-Last Entry- but I will post more pics when I get home.

Expo Open..

So today I went into work at 7am. I knew it would be a long day. Its the first day the expo is open to the public. Everything seemed to go smoothly. The night before was opening ceremonies and they kicked everyone out and cut the power. Strange to do the day before opening. I really think it was becuase the fireworks were closer to our side of the river.

We went out to dinner at the JW steakhouse on the 40th floor of our building. We had somewhat of a view but not great. Everyone came including Sam. Yag paid for dinner. It was expensive.

I knew it was going to be a long day since it was the only day i had to go over things with Nate who just arrived. Also to top things off, we couldnt do anythging but run the show until 1030. And then at 1030 the performers had a rehearsal. I had to sweet talk them into giving me a little time.

I am leaving Shanghai with the bug still present in the system, but i will keep on working on it from vegas. I got back to the hotel at 2am. Not ver practical for getting sleep before my flight. I cant sleep on planes, so I am sure I will be like a zombie when I get home.

Thats it from Shanghai!.. everyone should check out the cool site at www.expo.cn and go to area E. We are the building near the top left. The Chinese Private enterprise pavilion.

Funny video..

This video was taken on Nanjing road when Terrie was here. We were headed for the Bund and we passed this shop that had these crazy dancing dolls.

1 Day ....

So opening ceremonies is tomorrow and the smart chinese have done it again. Apparently they are locking down the entire site DURING the opening ceremonies. I am not sure who is going to be able to see the 100,000 shells that they are firing off.

Anyways, the last couple of days have been a blur to me. I have been going into work in the afternoon and staying until 4 or 5 in the morning. Its kinda spooky getting a cab that late at night. We have this one remaining bug that is haunting us. There is no simple solution for it and everyone is scratching their heads. We do know what the problem is, but fixing it will be tricky.

Yag is giving out the Tshirts tomorrow to everyone and the fisher team is prepared to all wear them as well. The image above is the little cards that we are printing out to go with them. Sam our CFO is onsite and he wants to do a video interview with me. He is really impressed with the work that I have done, but I am not satisfied yet. Once we fix this last issue then I will be happy.

Nate also missed his flight becuase he was sent the wrong itinerary. He will be here tomorrow night. He has come out to help with our issue and to help Tom out.

I saw some of the parade float vehicles today that they will be doing at the expo and they are really funny. All plastic and everything shakes around when the vehicles drive around. I will post pics soon.

Thats it, im tired and hungry. Its 5am.

3 Days - Birthday!

As I was getting up to my room after one of the longest days at work, I thought to myself I just dont have the energy to write in the blog. I got into the room and dropped my bag, and started emptying out my pockets. Something caught my eye. I looked at the table, and what to my wondering eyes would appear? I really nice little cake with happy birthday on the top! I was really surprised. I am not sure who was up to this, Terrie? Yag? Someone back east? It had to been someone I know since it was one of my favorites, tiramisu. It was actually excellent. I am saving the rest.

Just thought I would let everyone know my little delight today. I did get home at 430am.

Whoever got this for me, thank you.

jason

4 Days ..

Not much to report today. We had a pretty smooth operating day. We actually had public in the pavilion for the first time. I sat in the control room and didnt even think about listening to the crowd responses. Not many issues with the system. I was working with Taras online to see what he thought and sent him all the log files. We had some good chinese food for lunch. I got fried rice. It was really tasty. Not as good as Terries abolone fried rice, but still pretty good. I actually forced myself to finish the tub of rice. Then for dinner, which I thought I wouldnt even be hungry for I went and got two personal papa johns pizzas. One for me and one for Casey. I took my leftovers home. Tomorrow is my birthday and Yag already knows. It was in her calendar. Maybe we can leave early.

I plan on buying the rest of the lasers for my friends tomorrow morning. I am not going in until 1pm.

Also some recent pics of the BGA in action.

9 Days to 5 Days..

Sorry I havent written lately. I have been spending the last few days with my wonderful wife. I was so happy to have her here. Nothing is better than coming home to her and giving her a kiss. I remembered the feeling from Macau. We had a great time together in Shanghai although the problems I had at work. We went to a couple of nice dinners, and of course she got to see the pavilion and expo site. She actually saw a lot more than me. I havent been able to make it to the other side of the river yet. Thats where all the big pavilions are. On saturday before she left we went to the Bund and then to the WFC. We took the Bund Sightseeing tunnel. Where the say things like "massive magma" and "meteor shower" totally out of context. And not to forget those inflatable people in the middle of the road where the tram cars run. It was interesting. Also the World Financial Center is really cool at 450 meters and its glass floored observation deck. We also ate at the top of the Radisson which has a revolving restaurant. It was cool to see the city at night. Lastly we took the maglev back to the airport. Its amazing how fast it goes at 430 km/hr or 267 mph.

Thats it. We are going into full swing for the Expo and Nate is actually coming back. He is going to pick up where I left off.

Ill find out shortly that my wife made it back safely. Its amazing how time flies, but I was watching her flight. I love you honey.

10 Days - Hmm.. Tuesday

So Im not sure what happened and why my count is off, but I will try to figure it out later.

Terrie is here and we got invited last night to go out with the management team. I thought it was Korean BBQ, but it was infact just japanese food. We all had a good time and Yag was with her husband, Andrew, as well as Casey. Tom and Casey worked a really long day previous, and got home at 430am. So I wasnt surprised that Tom didnt want to go.

I ate octopus. And I got Terrie to as well. It was actually pretty good. Casey has had it before where it is still alive, and trys to crawl out of your mouth, and the suckers get stuck in your mouth. Not an experience I want to have.

Tonight I think we are going to to the supermarket and finding somewhere to eat. I think we are going to plan on Korean BBQ tomorrow night with Yag and Andrew.

Some other info. The problems that we have been having with the BGA, seem to be resolved, but the verdict is still out. I am testing as much as I can to see if the jitter comes back.

We also had soft opening Monday, and everything went really well. I made a small mistake, but we recovered quickly. Casey also helped me find and solve the problem. Lastly, Papa Johns is open!.. Along with the UFF (uncle fast food) in our pavilion. There is also a gift shop in our pavilion. I will try to pick up some stuff.

Thats it for today.

14 Days - Terrie is here!

So this is bittersweet that my wife is here. Just as we are having some major issues with the system. It will be a couple of long days onsite. Tomorrow is soft opening, in the morning too. I wasnt aware that it was in the morning.

Terrie made it fine, she was really tired. We went out for a nice italian dinner. I was craving it for a while. It wasnt exactly maggianos, but it was pretty good.

Ok not as much time to write since so much is going on.

Jason

15 Days- The Beret will be squashed

So we have come up with names for the artistic crew here onsite at the BGA. Which by the way everyone calls them producers. Not exactly what I think of a producer. Usually producers are the money people, that put up the money to put on a show. In this case they are actually the creative directors. Anyways, the couple, which are the ones responsible for "some" of the Beijing olympics, are really not good at coordinating anything. Also everyone is afraid of saying anything to them. Yag calls this the emperor complex. Sometimes I will ask my translator Mike to find out when the next time they want something run. The next thing we know mikes boss is there yelling at him, and asking him why we would ask such a thing. Truthfully I was asking because the motors overheat when they sit there servoing. Anyway the guy we call the Beret, because he always wears one, and the woman I call "the quack" because she always makes these loud bird sounds when she is directing the choreography. The third guy we call BB, for bossy boss. He really likes me, but can be difficult to deal with at times. There is a lighting director as well, but I feel like he knows his stuff. It was interesting to hear what Beret said about timecode. It really gave me the sense that he had no idea what it does, or what its used for.

Terrie will be on a plane in a couple of hours, so I am really excited. I already started stocking up on food and drinks for her.

Tomorrow before she arrives I have to go to the jobsite briefly to make sure everything comes back online after the power is restored, and then possibly pick up the tshirts I designed for the project. Then its out shopping for food and I think more lasers to finish that order.

One last thing that I thought was funny. How much gasoline can you stomach? I was going through security to enter the expo site and I had a half drunken bottle of tea. The officer actually asked me to take a drink of it. So then I thought, if it was explosives, how much could I stand? Im sure there are some incendiary chemicals that are not poisonous. Maybe alchohol?

17,16 Days - nothing new here.

Not much to report here in Shangai. Still utter confusion with programming the show at the BGA. We still havent synced anything with timecode, and the directors wonder why the show looks different each time. There is no one running this operation so things are chaos. We are getting these dinners (chinese bento boxes) which consist of some kind of meat with bones, rice and this nasty egg custard, which is not sweet. It looks like yellow jello milk. Anyways we showed the system to one of the big owners tonight and I think he liked the BGA, but was not to happy with caseys system, specifically the mirrored ball. We think it is going to be cut. I am excited that my wife will be out here soon. I have been working 12 hour days, and its putting a toll on me.

Thats about it. Time for me to go to sleep so I can work another Sunday.

18 Days - Still cold - No passport!

So today we had to go down to the visa immigration building to get my visa extended. Normally we just get a flight out of the country and when you re-enter, your visa period resets to 90 days. The head office at FTSI was insistent that we try to do this the cheaper way. Well it didnt turn out to be cheaper. We ended up wasting 4 peoples time today for about 5 hours. One of them was the general manager of Murayama. He had to be there because the visa people needed an official business declaration letter, which he wouldnt let out of his possession. So he waited with us along with a translator Yag and myself. The visa extension by itself costs around 140 dollars. We now have the take the GM of Murayama out to dinner and I have to go back to get my passport a week later. Yes, they took it from me. I was pretty pissed. A flight to Hong Kong or Macau would have cost around 200 dollars. Plus it would have given me a day off. The whole reason for doing it this way was to prevent me from going anywhere since this weekend will be hell. This weekend will be the third week in a row without a day off. I may have most of monday off, not sure yet, and I have off the Saturday when Terrie is here.

On a good note, Johna-son told me that Terrie will be an invited VIP guest to the soft opening of the pavilion. Its hard to believe we only have a few days until soft opening and the show still isnt complete. We haven't even programmed the system for timecode yet. Audio tuning hasn't taken place. A lot of work yet. If I were the director, I would be crapping in my pants at this point. My new favorite motto: "The people here are stupid and illogical, nothing I say or do will change their idiotic ways of doing things".

19 Days - Wednesday Frigid!

My feet are icicles. It is so cold outside it was hailing and snowing when I took the cab in. Also, its windy. Its that kindof wind that occasionally takes your umbrella, the really annoying wind. Things are not going so well at the site. The client seems to be unhappy with the performance of the system, mainly how often balls will drop from their knot. We always designed the system knowing that no person would be underneath it, and now they have totally changed their plan without letting us know. There would have been several things done differently. Too late now.

Anyways tomorrow morning we are going to some office to try and get my visa period extended. Im not sure how this will go. I know that Mclane tried this and couldnt get it to work so he had to leave the country. Thankfully he was able to go to Macau and help out the team over there.

Saturday I will go shopping for food and supplies for when my wife comes out. I am looking forward to her coming here. It will be fun.

Thats it for today.

20 Days - Tuesday .. its cold again!

I woke up and looked at the weather report and it looks brutal outside. Its very windy and cold. So cold that I might have to switch back to my heavier coat.

When I got onsite they had switched the security screening to yet another location. I felt like a cow walking through the corral. There is a queuing area that has unusually high rails, to make you feel like livestock.

I arrived at the pavilion and things were the same. A lot of people just sitting around. The directors finally showed up at 420pm. I made sure to look at my watch when they walked in, hopefully they noticed me doing so. They requested that I change the content in the three slots we have available so I took care of that.

Not much else going on except Yag got a call on the way back to the hotel that a ball fell and got tangled. I offered to go, but Tom is much more experience with the hardware side of things. Yag called me and explained what happened. Not a big deal. I hope the directors saw what happens when a ball falls, hopefully realizing that dancers on the stage without hardhats is a bad idea.

I worked on a longer video for the shop tonight that has a lot of the timelapse photography. Well see what everyone thinks. I usually dont get a response, but hopefully this time I will.

Thats about it for now. I hope to go shopping tomorrow night and stock up on some food and snacks for my wife. I am excited she is coming. And thank god they are not sending me to vietnam to extend my visa. Somehow they got their information wrong at the shop and almost sent me there. Thankfully Yag got the paperwork completed so I dont need to go anywhere.

21 Days - Monday..

I was excited because this morning I went to pick up the proof of the tshirt design. It came out pretty nice except for the artwork on the sleeves. I think the font is tricky for them to print out. I resubmitted the graphics and they should have them done in a week. Getting the sizes straightened out is tricky. The sample he gave me was a 58cm, which falls under the category of an asian xxl. According to US and UK standards it would be an XL. So when we hand out the shirts, we have to be very careful on the tags to get everyone the size that they need.

I got to the site and of course nothing was happening. The directors showed up and we did two "dog and pony shows". They didnt get very far at all. Our translator finally asked them if they need to change content and they said no. So I left when the rest of the crew left at about 615pm. A short day for me, but Yag thinks that things will get bad here shortly when we add additional systems to show control.

It wasnt very warm today, mostly foggy and dismal. Getting through security was surprisingly easy. I think of it like the TSA, at every airport, you get different screenings, even though its an organization that should work the same everywhere. So here it can be as bad as opening you laptop so they can verify its real, to just waving you in.

Michael brought in kumqwats today. They are interesting. I wish they had no seeds. They would be easier to eat. They are strange, to eat the whole thing. I ate a couple of them. I think the skin is the best part.

I also shot some video of caseys rig. He likes the fisheye lens. I posted a video. There are two balls hanging from three winches each. One is a mirror ball the other is a LED ball. Most of the banging sounds are coming from construction. You can see that its tricky to move the balls around without the lines touching.

22 Days - Sunday, supposedly a day off..

I was actually on call today. I had decided that I wanted to go to the cybermart to pick up the first round of lasers for Keone and Mclane. I didnt want to get all of them in one shot. I was pretty sucessful. I cannot prove the actual power that they are rated for but I got a total of 6 lasers. Keone wants 6 himself and Mclane owes me the one he lost, plus at least one or two for himself. So I will have to go back for 2 or 3 more. It was really nasty outside today, very rainy and windy. I didnt want to go back outside. I was glad I didnt hear from Yag yet,but right as I was thinking that the phone rang. It was Yag. She said that I need to go down to the site. We went over what I was going to do and what they were doing. I felt pretty confident I could take care of things pretty quickly. When I got onsite it was a totally different story. The content guy was playing games, and the lighting guys were fixing another light. I got angry quickly. I called yag and told her what was up. She got things taken care of and I left in a couple of hours. It was raining very hard when I left, but I was thankful I could leave. I would have started punching the wall with my bare fist. I took the subway back home and when I finally got home my jeans were soaked. I relaxed and ate half the papa johns pizza I had left over from the night before. I also got a tea latte from starbucks which helped me calm down.

Yag wanted me to go with her to the tea market, but I told her I was too worked up to go out, plus I was starving and wet. She bought me a very cool tea maker. It has two fluid compartments. The top one has a strainer and a button to release the water into the bottom chamber. You put your tea leaves in the top chamber and fill it with hot water, then you let it steep, then dispense the tea into the bottom chamber. The best part about it is that you can keep on brewing tea using the same leaves. They say that more flavor comes out after a couple of brewings, plus you can run cold water over the leaves the clean them the first time. I think its pretty cool. Also at the tea market they have thousands of teas, and they almost force you to taste them all. The hard part is finding what you like. Most of the time chinese tea is made in a cup and they just put the bare leaves into the bottom of the mug and add hot water. Yag says this is very different than Japanese tea, where you dont ever have the leaves in your mug.

Thats about it for today. I am excited about tomorrow, I get to pick up the proof tshirt I designed.

23 Days - Saturday..

Today was a pretty quiet day. I got a call in the morning from Yag explaining to me that the gate we normally use to get in is now closed. So she told me where the new gate is and that there are long lines. It took them an hour to get into the expo site. When I got there I saw the lines and it took me about 45 minutes to get through. They were very slow. The actual expo security is now running things and they are just getting ramped up.

Onsite things were very quiet in terms of programming. They were doing work on the ceiling so lighting covered all their expensive lights. That meant that the directors couldnt do much. Michael overheard them saying that they think they should call it a night if they cant work. We found out that they were not making any content changes so I was able to leave. I stayed for a bit and video'ed caseys system.

I find it really strange that the owners want me to teach them how to re-program the system. We repeatedly tell them that this isnt a teachable thing. There isnt enough time. Im pretty sure that the years of many peoples experience made everything work. They also expect to take down the system and reinstall it somewhere else as long as we provide them with a list of tools. They are totally forgetting about skill and technique. The really funny part is they keep asking the same question and we always give them the same answer. The people here are stubborn and resilient. Another example was one of the content girls monitor was having a problem. It continuously displayed the onscreen menu. They just worked around it. How annoying would it be to have this little menu keep popping up while you are working in the middle of your screen? It was simply that something was pressing the up button on the front of her monitor. But "they" just keep plugging away. Another guy was trying to hang a speaker nearby. He needed to get up to an area of the overhang near the ceiling. So he starts by stealing one of our chairs. Standing on it, he realized it wasnt high enough. He then proceeded to steal one of our tables and put the chair on top of it. So now hes working standing on a chair thats on top of a table. "They" scrounge for anything to get their job done. There is no organization and no thought. Their only solution is to keep throwing more people at any problem. Sometimes I wonder about the integrity of the building. I wonder what kinds of corners they cut in the steelwork.

Another good note is I got my flight back home. I am glad, but at the same point pissed at my company. They do not have me flying back business.

Jason

25-24 Days , long programming..

So when this weekend rolls around I will not have had a day off in about 3 weeks. They are trying to get me some time off, but we are working long days of just sitting around running the show for lighting. We have not even started show control yet.

A picture of the swarovsky crystal wall that is behind the BGA area. They say there are 30,000 pieces of crystal there.

They started running fireworks tonight when we were in the building. It was pretty darn loud. I attached a pic of them as well.

Not much else to say.

Jason

27-26 Days - more programming

Today was an extremely boring day. So boring that my butt was hurting just from sitting in the chair so long. I got the kindle reader for my computer and bought a book. I was pretty close to halfway through it. They lighting guys were having lots of problems, although it just seemed like a brightness issue on one or two of the fixtures, which shouldnt have stopped the programming. We sat for 6 hours while they swapped fixtures back and forth. Assembled the scaffold and took it down several times.

Mikes cousin came and sat with us. He didnt speak much english but he did bring us dinner. Yes, dumplings again. They are pretty good. But we didnt really have enough to fill us all up. Later on I got hungry again. There is this assistant to the director. We are calling him BB, for bossy boss. Michael realized that he likes us since we are doing everything we can to help out. So he asked him for some food and he brought over a whole bunch of snacks. We got some oreos, and these chinese version of a WHOOPIE PIE!, yes, really. They were pretty good and I stashed a couple in my bag for emergencies. I will take a picture of one when I eat it.

Thats about it. The proof of the tshirt is done and I am excited to see it.

28 Days - The producers like me..

Another boring day spent on site sitting at my table waiting for the producers to ask me to run the balls. They really respect what I say. They said I was very professional and they like my style. They know that I understand what the system can do and they appreciate my input. They are extremely spontaneous on what they are programming. They jump around to any of the 5 sections of the show and we constantly have to remind them that only 3 slots available at one given time and if they want one swapped out for a different part it takes time. Its funny how they keep on asking for the same thing and we say no every time, except they just get more angry each time they ask.

The picture above is without any video running. There are a total of 18 moving video projectors. You can see two of the large beasts on the right side of the pic. Some of the content is amazing while most of it is easily distinguishable as computer generated.

I am very excited for my wife to come out. I have been adding things to the list.

Congrats to my wife for getting the new job.

29 Days - confusion times 10

Yes, I didnt believe it could get any worse but it has. It seems that the designers are purposely not telling our client what they are doing because they want them out of here. I dont know exactly why. So I end up sitting at our table ready to run shows without knowing how long I will be sitting here. The company they are trying to sweep under, ADK, are working hard, and I think they do a good job.

I heard that I will be staying to the 24th, and I am going to be taking two days off so I can be with my wife when she comes out.

There is still a chance that I will leave on May 2.

Jason

30 Days - even more confusion

I sat around for hours today waiting for the "directors" to show up. They were supposed to be in at 8pm and were just a little late. We had no other tasks. I worked on getting the panelforms finished up and tested some new content. Yag was able to get us dinner just as the directors walked in. So we couldnt eat just yet. I got the panelform feature that I wanted to work, but its got some more things to get it perfect. Not much else going on excep utter confusion. I hear the chinese client doesnt want ADK (chinese contractor) in the picture anymore. So we work for Murayama, who works for ADK, and ADK works for chinese client (16 companies). So one of the 16 companies is "tellhow" and they want to work with us directly, putting ADK out of the picture. All very confusing.

We are working tomorrow again late. They setup 6 computers with 6 artists to start working on content for the video on this show. I was impressed about that. Tom was eating his dried plums.

Thats it for today.

31 Days - confusion..

Wow these people have never orchestrated a show like this. They have no idea what they are doing. There is no lead on anything so its always a fight. The owners have the most pull but dont understand what is needed to make everything work and their priorities are all weird. We found out that the creative directors are showing up tomorrow night at 8pm to start rehearsals. Nothing is programmed yet, so I dont understand what they are going to look at. The only thing that is partially done is the content for the BGA. So far Yag is saying that I am leaving no earlier than the 24 of April, but my ticket has not been changed yet. Meanwhile the audio and lighting system is in shambles. I just dont know how they are going to pull it together before opening. We also heard that 1/3 of the pavilions will not be ready for the grand opening. Very embarrassing.

Every day we walk into the unknown.

32 Days - Warm

I looked at the weather when I got up and saw it was supposed to be about 70 today. I wore short sleeves. Everyone onsite was commenting that I wore it. Probably because I always wear my two flannel long sleeve shirts. I just dont want to ruin any of my good shirts.

So this morning I went with our translator Michael to the tshirt printing company. He had to go with me so I could get there and translate. It was a small office in the middle of the city. He spoke good english. I went there to pay him to get the proof made. We should have it in a few days. Now we have to decide how many to get of each size. Its a little tricky since we have both asian sizes and european sizes, and on top of that, the labels on the shirts (the size label) will not be an equivalent to something we know. The shirts that say "M" are actually an asian small which for some reason is a US XL. So yeah really confusing.

At work we got the touchscreen installed and I updated the graphics for the new characters which I posted above. These are the characters for our pavilion. I think they call them mascots. Im sure the owners will like it.

We also had this event at our hotel which I got an invitation to. It was described as "a traditional chinese culinary journey". It was located on the fifth floor and had good views of peoples square. They had little stations with food like dumplings, jellyfish, peking duck, noodles and some other stuff. Casey, Tom, Yag and myself went. They also had wine and beer. We all ate a lot. It was pretty good, and free. The hotel staff knows us and were very nice.

After that we went to the Big Bamboo expat bar and had drinks to celebrate the ATP and Nates departure from Shanghai. Its a long night and I am tired. Also two other pics from the site. Giant yarnballs and the second one was just funny.

33 Days

So 33 days left. We did some more testing of the system today and we are still having minor problems. We did not notice them because of the issue previous. It was sort of covering it up. Not much else happened today except for a good lunch. Michael and I walked to this restaurant he heard about. Its hard now since they closed the gate easiest to get out. So the place we went to, is known for their noodles and dumplings. I think all places in china are known for their dumplings or noodles. It was really good. I really enjoyed it. I want to go back but Michael (our translator) has to go back home to get his IDs and things. He got his wallet stolen a while back.

Tomorrow morning I am going to tshirt place to get the proof made.

Thats about it for today. Oh a video of casey running the one mirror ball with the lights tracking it realtime. In case you dont know whats going on there, the mirror ball is hanging from 3 lines that are attached to winches. The navigator system calculates where the ball needs to move and adjusts all three winches to make it move there in 3d space. It is also calculating where to move the lights to follow the ball. Its all done realtime.

34 Days - Monday

Today as soon as we got in there were a lot of people scurrying about. A couple of the big barco projectors were turned on and they were running content on part of the stage. We found out that a dignitary was coming onsite to see the pavilion. We ran the show for them and they walked out before it was even finished. We spent the rest of the day cleaning up some items on the touchscreen and taught Tom how to use it. Also Casey made some progress in his area and got both his lights working. I also setup some cues for the lighting and sound guys to test timecode with their hardware. I think they are a little over their heads.

I also sent in the artwork to get the tshirts going. I am excited about it. Lastly I think Nate is going to leave this weekend. There is not much more for him to do.

I think tomorrow night I might see if we can finally do the team dinner to celebrate our progress. I am getting a little bored here and I miss my wife so much. I am excited about the landscaping that we are getting done to the backyard. It will be nice.

Thats it for today. I plan on doing some more videography tomorrow of the system running.

35 Days - To Bund or not to Bund...

Today was our day off - Sunday. I felt like I should go to the Bund. I read online that it just opened today or yesterday. I finally got the motivation to go down there. What a bad idea. I would say that there were a million people there, but there were really 10 million. I couldnt even get onto the Bund which is an area near the water that follows the river. Its quite picturesque with the Pudong in the background.

I stopped at the temple supermarket on the way home using the subway and got some sushi for dinner.

36 Days - Saturday..

Today was a strange day. The entire ADK team and Murayama team are now moved into the control room. Its about 12 to 15 people in there with desks and lockers. They filled up the entire room and are just about to take over our small area. Nate and I worked on the new low limits for all the balls. The stage is now raked (sloped) and the owners want the balls to be able to match the angle of the stage. This is an interesting problem since the video content that controls the height of the balls can no longer go flat at the lowest point. So now that the motors have their limits set to match the stage I have to convey to the content guys how to make content to get this angle and not trip the limits of the motors. I attached a video of one of the arrays running into its limits. You can hear the brakes clicking as they go into their limit. I also loaded some new content from the content guys that looked really interesting. I filmed the new piece with my new tripod which I like a lot.

There is a restaurant in our pavilion which is called uncle fast food. There is a picture of it. Casey said its not like the colonel is your uncle (referring to KFC). Which reminds me, we had KFC for lunch so I wasnt very happy. Yag did bring dunkin donuts so I had a chocolate mochi which was chewy and good. The uncles fast food also is called UFF. They are known for having really good dumplings.

Tonight I went to dinner with Yag and Casey. Yag wanted Indonesian food. Casey and Yag had tried to go to this place the night before but they needed reservations, so tonight we were set. It was hidden off the street and had a nice sized pond with lots of plant life and outside tables. It was a really nice place. The food was good too. I had some shrimp with noodles and some rice. Yag had shrimp too and Casey had some fish with bones in it. The shrimp all had their heads still on but the meat was prepared and easy to pull out of the shell. It was a really nice setting with the plants lit up. It was "Earth Hour" and I forgot to turn on the oven and leave the fridge door open, but I noticed the blue LED lighting under the highways here turned off to observe this event.

The top picture was our space today. If you can see on the left hanging from the truss are 6 very large moving lights. These are the newer barco moving projector lights. They are about 40k each. I think there are about 18 total in our building. They should make some spectacular imagery. Too bad it will partially make it harder to see our system run.

Tomorrow I have off and dont have much planned. Mclane lost my laser so I might get another. He said he would pay for it. Other than that I am going to sleep in and watch some TV. I will get sushi and maybe a pizza.

37 Days - Half day off..

Today all of the team except for myself and Yag had a day off. We had to go to the first show control meeting. There was a little bit of confusion, but Odawara-son knows whats going on. They also started hanging the projectors, shall I say moving light, combination projectors. These units are about 40k dollars each. They have about 8 of them for the main showroom area. I am quite impressed. I also got some more non-definite information about upcoming programming. It seems that there is enough work for me until april 25th. They are deciding April 2 if I am going to be staying until May 2nd. If they cannot make up their mind I will be staying until April 25th. Seems kind of a strange way to do it. I just feel like if they change my ticket to the 25th, I will end up changing it again since we wont be ready.

I also went to the camera store today and bought a travel tripod. I just needed something that I could use to video the BGA running.

Thats about it for today. I think we are having our celebratory dinner tomorrow night on the fix for the motors and completing the ATP (acceptance test procedure).

38 Days - Firmware works..

We tested the new motor firmware today and everything seems to be working well. We are working on some improvements to the operator screen and for the first time in navigator history, a help screen that shows how everything works. Its all looking very nice and appley. I dug my own hole here, its all graphics created on an apple, but I think I can do the same things in photoshop on a pc. My goal is to create some very cool template packages that has a style or theme, and it will come with all the buttons and indicators to build your user panel. Maybe Amanda could help me out on some design ideas.

They closed the entrance gate that we use to get in and out of the site today. So now we have to walk all the way north on the site to get to another gate. On the way we passed a lot of interesting buildings. Im sorry for not being able to get the whole building, but they are certainly neat. There are some pictures of them. I have no idea which pavilions they are.

39 Days- Firmware complete

Today we finished loading the firmware into the motors. Yes it took three days to do 1008 motors. Lunch today was mildly disgusting. I decided to try something else instead of my usual fried rice. I decided to get the noodles which this place is known for. They actually make them right in the front of the store. I got the beef and noodles. When I first tried it, I was surprised how soft they were. Just about too soft. Then I realized the taste. They put that cumin spice in everything. I dont like that spice to begin with, or most any other curries. Then it seemed like it was a bowl of oil. I couldnt tell if the soup was oily flavored or if it really was oil. Yag showed up a little late to lunch, and brought dunkin donuts. I have never seen such a poor variety. Mostly round cruller types with different toppings. I remember in high school writing that program in computer science that tracked bakery goods, and I also remember not knowing was a cruller was at the time. Mclane wanted his boston cream, which there werent any. He picked up another but it was filled with blueberry, so he threw it out. I guess I was just mostly disappointed with lunch. Oh, we also got the dumplings which I like. Those are also soaked in oil. They say all the food here is sweet and oily. Great, not really.

Tomorrow we will start testing the new firmware. We had 2 motors which didnt take the upgrade so we have to look at those. Also, I will be helping Casey with the graphics for his touch screens.

Thats about it. I miss my wife.

40 Days - Sick..

Im not going write much today. I am sick. My stomach has some issues. Im not sure if its what I ate last night or maybe I drank some water that wasnt good. They say not to drink any water out of the tap, and I try really hard not to. I even brush my teeth with the bottled water. So I am just going to rest and hopefully this bug will pass.

41 Days - TK is here..

Today is Tom Kong's first day onsite. He was surprised how far behind everything is. We spent the day uploading firmware into the motors to fix the issue. I had previously only tested the new firmware on 144 out of 1008 motors. So we now have to do the rest. I think it will take us 2-3 days to finish it up. Tom is a really good guy to have here. He doesnt know that much about Navigator, but he can fix anything electronic. He has this toolcase, which I call the mary poppins toolcase thats filled up with parts. Somehow he manages to bring everything you would possibly need, even to build circuits on wirewrap or breadboard something. I had previously worked with him on the Stratosphere lighting upgrade. He contracts his engineering services out to this company called Lightning Strikes. They make those huge strobe lights that we used there. So he designed the entire electrical system for those very high amperage strobes.

I had a lot of trouble with my laptop today and I spent 4 hours trying to get the motor software to work. I was ready to throw the laptop off the grid and go home. Everyone there kept me calm which helped a lot.

42 Days - Sunday Off..

World Financial Center - the third tallest building in the world. I paid 150RMB to get to the highest floor, which has a glass floor. There is a large cutout at the top of the building and the highest observation deck is at the top of that cutout. You can walk along the glass floor. Most people paid to go up there, but were afraid of the floor. Even by the windows there was glass areas, so most people were afraid. There are a lot of pics. I will try to explain them. The one of the expo site you can see the chinese pavilion the upside down pyramid, well look across the river, you will see a white bubble looking thing (not the flying saucer). Well further right you will see the wooden conical building and right above that one is our building. The pictures with the white observation deck, some of them you can look up and see the higher glass walkway observation deck.

The pictures near the top show the Oriental Pearl TV tower. I have a shot of the bottom and one of the baubles (yes thats how they spell it). Pretty gaudy looking thing.

There is also a video of the elevator ride. Pretty trippy lighting. Notice the height display. Pretty cool. You should be able to enlarge all pictures and maybe the video. If you cant see the numbers in the video it got up to 435 meters.

So since it was nice out I decided to do something touristy. It wasnt nearly as fun by myself. I hope I will get to go back with Terrie. It will be so much better with her. I miss her dearly. I love you Terrie!