Life's Little Ironies
A couple of weeks ago I decided that after 25 years it was time to have my Rolex cleaned and restored to new condition. The venerable old jewelry store downtown where I bought it was acquired some years ago by Bailey Banks & Biddle. I decided to check the internet to see which stores in town are authorized Rolex stores and printed the website pages of the store that I decided to use.
Last week in an unbelievable coincidence I received a call from the man who owns the jewelry store I had selected. He had been referred to me by a friend of his who owns what is probably the leading venture capital firm of its size in Houston. They grew up together and have maintained their friendship for more than 50 years. I represented a company recently that was funded by the venture capital firm, and that is how I met its owner. By yet another coincidence he had funded a different company a few years ago and sat on its board of directors. That company hired me a few months ago to represent it to help steer it through some bad times. This required me to participate in a series of conference calls with all the members of its board of directors, including the man who owns the venture capital firm.
I guess this exposure left a good impression because the venture capitalist referred his long time friend to me so I can represent him in connection with the sale of part of his company. The jewelry store owner came to meet with me early this morning and I showed him the pages from his website and told him the story about intending to take my Rolex in for cleaning and restoration. He took it with him and said it will look and and run like new when he returns it to me. I am amazed that it lasted this long because I wore it even when doing manual labor on the ranch, such as driving metal stakes for fences. The shock it had to absorb each time I brought that stake driver down on top of those stakes should have killed it but it kept right on running without protest.
Yes, this is what I do while counting down the hours before my girls will be back home. We are down under 60 hours now but I can't watch the seconds go by on my watch. We are just two and a half hours away from Cici's birthday (China time, which I guess is the right time to watch since that is where she was born) so I hope the girls come on line before they go to bed. I started wishing her happy birthday each time we talked for the past three days just in case there are communications problems on her actual birthday.
On the way home last night I stopped at H-Mart and they still had fresh cherries so I bought another six pounds of them for the girls. I bought just one 2 liter bottle of sprite for Cici because I know Ping doesn't want her to drink a lot of it but I know Cici will want some when she gets home. They also had the best purple (inside) sweet potatoes I have ever seen so I bought some of them for the three of us to eat. Also some fresh ginger and some chicken wings because I know Cici will want some chicken curry when they get home.
I sure feel strange without that watch on my wrist.
Last week in an unbelievable coincidence I received a call from the man who owns the jewelry store I had selected. He had been referred to me by a friend of his who owns what is probably the leading venture capital firm of its size in Houston. They grew up together and have maintained their friendship for more than 50 years. I represented a company recently that was funded by the venture capital firm, and that is how I met its owner. By yet another coincidence he had funded a different company a few years ago and sat on its board of directors. That company hired me a few months ago to represent it to help steer it through some bad times. This required me to participate in a series of conference calls with all the members of its board of directors, including the man who owns the venture capital firm.
I guess this exposure left a good impression because the venture capitalist referred his long time friend to me so I can represent him in connection with the sale of part of his company. The jewelry store owner came to meet with me early this morning and I showed him the pages from his website and told him the story about intending to take my Rolex in for cleaning and restoration. He took it with him and said it will look and and run like new when he returns it to me. I am amazed that it lasted this long because I wore it even when doing manual labor on the ranch, such as driving metal stakes for fences. The shock it had to absorb each time I brought that stake driver down on top of those stakes should have killed it but it kept right on running without protest.
Yes, this is what I do while counting down the hours before my girls will be back home. We are down under 60 hours now but I can't watch the seconds go by on my watch. We are just two and a half hours away from Cici's birthday (China time, which I guess is the right time to watch since that is where she was born) so I hope the girls come on line before they go to bed. I started wishing her happy birthday each time we talked for the past three days just in case there are communications problems on her actual birthday.
On the way home last night I stopped at H-Mart and they still had fresh cherries so I bought another six pounds of them for the girls. I bought just one 2 liter bottle of sprite for Cici because I know Ping doesn't want her to drink a lot of it but I know Cici will want some when she gets home. They also had the best purple (inside) sweet potatoes I have ever seen so I bought some of them for the three of us to eat. Also some fresh ginger and some chicken wings because I know Cici will want some chicken curry when they get home.
I sure feel strange without that watch on my wrist.
We are very lucky to have a fairly large H-Mart not too far from us. Our first visit left Mingjun unimpressed, but they seem to have improved things and now tend to beat even the local supermarkets for fresh vegetables and fruits (at least when they are on sale). However, you have to be shrewd, because they are high on some things (there is a local brand of tofu that we like for hot pot and other uses, and H-mart is literally twice the price of another Chinese market we go to, $1.99 versus $0.99). They also tend to have more Korean items and a smaller selection of Chinese items.
Speaking of shopping, I asked an employee at Costco the best time to avoid crowds, and they said Tuesday and Thursday evenings (of course, during the day weekdays is pretty good as well).
Our fruit seems to run in different cycles. We are just starting to see local cherries, and there are plenty of blueberries available. And even better, we are getting our world famous Hermiston watermelons in volume. Nothing like a surplus to give you low prices.
I expect not to see an entry for a few days during your homecoming celebration
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We have found Friday late afternoon/early evening to be a good time to shop at Costco here, so we have adopted that time frame as our usual weekly stop on the way home. We have lots of watermelons here but they are grown in Texas.
The H-Mart here also caters heavily to Koreans. All the people who work there appear to be Koreans. Maybe speaking Korean is a job requirement. We see a fair number of Chinese people shopping there, however, as well as some Japanese people. We rarely see other lao wei's like me there. The Korean cashiers are always surprised to see me with a cart full of fresh vegetables. They can't understand how I know which ones to purchase.
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