July 16 – comfortable, overcast and poured rain almost the entire day
Breakfast and lunch at the cafeteria – nothing special.
I gave a presentation to the Blend team about the automation stack. I was able to get a few questions and some interaction out of them but for the most part they just listened. When they had walked over it was not raining but by the time we were done it was pouring. Ephraim and I hung out with them in the lobby of the MS building while we waited for David to bring all the umbrellas over from the BeyondSoft building.
Julie stayed at the apartment today because I was supposed to attend a dinner with the .Net team and with possibility of KTV (Karaoke) after with the Blend team – which she is not fond of. Well the dinner was cancelled because Matt was not feeling well so that meant it was gonna be KTV night! I love Karaoke. We ended up having a big crowd for KTV – Lingling, Melody, Melody’s sister (can’t remember her name), David (Blend team), David (Design team), Aaron, Steve, Harrison, Shane and another person from the design team whose name I can’t remember at the moment. I probably forgot someone also. We all made our way over to KTV Freeport and grabbed a bite to eat at the KFC. On the way from where we were dropped off by the illegal cab to the KFC we got stuck in the middle of the cross walk and a very big bus honked its horn at us to make sure we got out of the way. I pointed out that I really did not want to die in China! Melody and Lingling had gotten a number of discount coupons so everyone went through them try to figure out what they wanted. Steve does not like KFC – it’s not healthy. I agree but it does taste good. Melody was very helpful in making sure I got the right meal ordered. I had a chicken sandwich with a lemonade which tasted as I would have expected in the US – it was very good actually. We headed over to the KTV through an alley that smelled – well not so good. KTV Freeport is a very big place and we got our room and settled in for a night of fun. A short while after we arrived David and Aaron showed up carrying a ton of snacks. At one point one of the KTV people stopped by with some dice, I asked what they were for and Melody explained it was for playing games. After a short description I realized she was talking about liars dice. Which we played and I beat Melody.
No one on the team is shy about singing – which makes Karaoke a lot of fun. We weren’t even drinking either. They actually had a pretty descent selection of western songs and I ended up singing ‘Blvd of Broken Dreams’ from Green Day and ‘What you won’t do for love’ from Go West. Melody’s sister was there and the two of them sang a few songs together – they are very good together. There were a couple of Chinese songs I really like one was called “Killers” and the other was “Changyue” which Melody explained was from a Chinese t.v. series . Shane is a very good singer and he and I sang “Yesterday” from the Beatles. Lingling is also very good. Steve really enjoys singing and he was picking songs from his favorite artist which he claims he knows all of his songs. I ended up taking off at 9pm much to the disappointment to the team but I explained I was missing Julie and needed to get back. That made it ok. Another illegal cab ride to the subway where the train conductor was very proud to tell me in English which train to get on and to make sure that I was taken care of. It was nice. 45mins later I was at home with my baby. I had a great time with the team. They are a lot of fun and the energy they have is infectious.