Round the world we go

I am back at Chapel Hill after two short days in Singapore,. I returned via United Airlines by way of Narita (Tokyo) and Dulles (Washington DC). One of the more remarkable things about this trip is the route that I took – I went to Singapore by crossing the Atlantic and returned via the Pacific – making this literally a trip around the world.

Pictured above is an eating place (I believe these are called "hawker stands") at the corner of Circular Road and South Bridge Road where I had a dish of wonton noodle and a dish of fishball for S$3 on Friday. When I visit foreign countries, I often see things that I wish I can bring back. But I am also frequently reminded of how great of a country we have in the United States of America. The one thing I will remember most about Singapore is a random conversation I had with someone on Thursday morning. I was walking in the area around my hotel in Clark Quay when an Indian man asked me for directions. He pulled out an Indian passport with a business card bookmarked within and asked if I knew where a particular address was. I told him I myself had just landed hours ago. He asked if I was from Japan and when I told him I was from the United States he said “you’re a very lucky man.”

Singaporean morning

Singapore Local Time Friday 6:42 am

 

Good morning from the Republic of Singapore. I landed on this island-nation yesterday at around 6am after spending 18 hours on a Singapore Airline A340 that flew over the Atlantic Ocean, France, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and entered India south of Mumbai before landing at Singapore Changi Airport.

 

Below is some footage I took of the MRT (subway) ride from the airport to the hotel. This was during morning rush hour and some of the buildings along the route are the HDB (public housing) buildings that more than 85% of Singaporeans live in.

 

  

 

I read a newspaper article saying that Singapore has the 9th highest rent (as measured by three bedroom apartments) of any city in the world. The article states that a three bedroom apartment the area near Orchard Road where a lot of expatriates live costs around $4460 USD. The survey ranks Hong Kong as having the most expensive rent in the world and New York as third.

Strapping in for the bumpy ride ahead

I apologize for not having blogged but a couple of things have transpired since my last posting that have taken up much of my time and mental energy. I do not wish to share them with you at this time, except that I have accepted the job offer with the insurance company and will start on Monday.

Meanwhile, I am flying out to Singapore for a last minute trip this week. The 18 hour flight with Singapore Airlines is the longest daily scheduled flight in the world and easily surpasses the one I took in November to go to Hong Kong.

Hopefully I will be able to upload some pictures once I get there.

Exclusive: U.S. unemployment rate set to decline

The first item on the radio news yesterday morning was about the latest rise in unemployment statistics. I, however, have inside information that unemployment is about to go down – yesterday I received a job offer for the Senior Business Analyst position with a local insurance company. I have until Thursday to decide but I am leaning toward taking it.

 

I will blog more on this later but if the old economist joke is correct – that a recession is when your neighbor loses his job and a depression is when you lose yours – then the logic follows that since I am no longer unemployed, we must be headed for a recovery.

Buckyhoo joins the cast of 24

April 1 – Hollywood, CA – Fox Broadcasting announced that Chapel Hill celebrity and blogosphere sensation Buckyhoo will join the cast of 24 during Season 7, playing a spy from the People’s Republic of China.

“Over the years, I have enjoyed corresponding with Buckyhoo and reading his blog postings. Since he has a good grasp of how the show works, I decided to capitalize on his current unemployment and bring him on board for cheap,” said show producer Joel Surnow who first met Buckyhoo at the 2004 Republican National Convention.

It is unclear whether Buckyhoo’s character will work with or against Jack Bauer. “At some point I may get to strangle Janeane Garofalo’s character and if her character is anything as annoying as her persona is on Air America radio, that can be the highlight of the entire season,” said Buckyhoo.

This is the latest in a series of stints that have raised Buckyhoo’s public profile over the years, including hosting a short lived show on CNN’s mobile network and running for the Republican presidential nomination. But not everyone has positive things to say about this latest development. One of his former business school professors, Mary Smith, the Franklin Koury Moorehead Professor of ethical strategic entrepreneurial management communications at the Kenan-Flagler Business School commented, “the ultimate test as to how good of an actor he is will be whether his character manages to stay awake for more than two hours.”

Random observations from Wine Bar

I went to the West End Wine Bar tonight to watch the UNC Tar Heels play Louisville in the Elite Eight basketball tournament in Charlotte. There was a very funny moment during the second half with about 2:48 left on the clock when the local CBS television station, WRAL, moved the picture onto a small subset of the screen to make room to display tonight’s Powerball lottery results. The boos and jeers coming from the fans at the Wine Bar must have been loud enough to wake up the guy asleep at the switch at WRAL because almost as quickly as the split screen came on, it disappeared.

 

As I watched Tyler Hansbrough score his 28 points against Louisville, I became convinced that he must know how to fly.

Friend of Bill

The campaign for the Democrat presidential nomination literally took places right in front of my face this morning when I shook hands with former President Bill Clinton at a campaign event. I saw on the news that he’d be campaigning in North Carolina today and drove out to see him with the goal of scoring an autograph.

I arrived at 7:30 at the Bryan Family YMCA Center in Greensboro. The audience was pretty much what I had expected for a 7:45 am event in Greensboro – about 200 people made up mostly of senior citizens and high school and college students. While waiting for Clinton to show up, I struck up a conversation with a black man standing next to me. He is a car salesman who voted for President Bush twice and is considering between Senators Barrack Obama and John McCain. He cited the economy and Iraq as two issues he’s concerned about. He said during the 2001 recession people were not as “afraid” to buy cars as they are today. Earlier this week he attended the Obama town hall event in Greensboro and said the security at that event was “tremendous” compared to that at this event. He also said the audience that came out to see Obama had a much higher percentage of young working professionals.

Clinton finally showed up at around 8:20, took the stage to the tune of Life Is a Highway, and talked for 40 minutes. He complaint about the direction of the country, talked about the great job he allegedly did as President, and praised his wife’s credentials. Multiple times he emphasized a point by pointing out his left index finger in a gesture that I have seen many times in the news throughout the 90s. There were several facts he cited that I wondered about the veracity of. He said his wife was the most “unconventional candidate” in the race because she never served in public office. Later a friend pointed out that Hillary Clinton has been elected twice to the U.S. Senate. I wonder if had misheard. But one other thing he said I knew the moment I heard it was not true and that was that Hillary is currently ahead of McCain in Arkansas, “a state that has voted Democrat for president only three times in the last 44 years.” While Clinton correctly described Arkansas’s voting history in presidential elections, he is wrong that currently Hillary is ahead. I just read last week that Rasmussen Reports has McCain ahead of Hillary by 7 percentage points.





After he got done speaking, he started making his way along the oval shaped boundary that separated the audience from the protective bubble accessible only by campaign staff and Secret Service agents. One of his aides came ahead of collected all the books, pictures, campaign placards, magazine covers, that the spectators were holding out to be signed. Seconds later the former President came by, touched as many hands as he could. I noticed that he has a remarkably weak handshake for a former leader of the free world. After he made his way completely around the oval, he retreated to a room behind the curtains and ten minutes later, his aide came out and redistributed all the memorabilia that have now been autographed.

Updated March 31, 2008 3:38pm: I found a newspaper article about the campaign appearance, with photos and a link to the audio of the entire speech.