Great in '08

Hello everyone! My apologies again for lack of new blogs. Hopefully this one can hold you over until some more adventures coming up in February like Chinese New Year and business trips to the Philippines & Vietnam. Oh, yeah, there are still exciting things to come.

January flew by I have to say. It seems like my parents just left as the memories are still fresh in my mind, we had such a great time. The first week of the month, I was off on a five day trip back to Thailand. God, that place is just amazing. I stayed in Bangkok for the week and enjoyed every minute of it. The food is to die for and of course I took advantage of the cheap massages once again. This time, I got a one hour foot massage for $8 USD, and then next day I got a 1 hour foot massage and facial for $20 USD. My favorite part is at the end when they stop with the feet for a minute and rub my arms...aghhhhh. The facial was actually really good too!

I now have a new boss. My industry segment merged with the Food & Beverage group so now we are called 'Consumer Packaged Goods'. Nothing much has changed for me except I now get one big customer to focus on in addition to the others I am trying to build up, so that is exciting. So my old boss is headed back to India where he will be a sales manager, and the guy who was running the Food & Beverage industry has taken over. This has meant a lot of transitioning and getting him up to speed with who our customers are and what we sell them since he is not at all familiar with our industry segment. So needless to say, I have been busy, lots of late night calls with the US account team, doing introductions, planning, etc. But it is all good. He is a very nice guy, and relatively new to Rockwell (less than 6 months) so I am happy to have him. Here is a very cute picture of my old boss's goodbye lunch - old boss is the tall India guy in the back, new boss is the short India guy in the front. Glasses, mustaches, Indians... No big whoop!

We had two quick visitors this month as well. The first was Greg Modlinski, our sister-in-law Lauren's (Tony's brothers wife) father came in for a business trip! He just had a quick turn around, one night stay in Hong Kong before continuing on to his operations in China, but it was great to see him and catch up. We got to hear all about our little niece at Christmas and how she always is making everyone laugh.
And on the weekends, as usual, we have been hiking. Out biggest hike thus far was a 16 mile journey on the Maclehose Trail - we completed stages 1 and 2 of the 12 stage hike. It was great. Beautiful and scenic, wrapping us around to the beach, and only a few tortuous hills to boot up. There were even cows on the beach, a funny site indeed, except for the time I almost stepped into a steaming pile of cow poop. It was a near miss by millimeters, that would have ruined everything!
We also have some new expats coming out here so we have been entertaining them as well. Cathy and her husband Chuck are relocating here from Florida, and they both work for Rockwell so we have something in common right off the bat. She is here first and he will follow later on. We have all been helping her to get settled in and orientated something which HR should do but basically just lets the expats fend for themselves. It is like passing the torch, the expats took care of us when we arrived, and you just pass it on to the next set of newbies. And so it goes...

For the end of the month, we had a quick visit from Jolene, my BFF Jamie's BFF / crazy college roommate, well I guess after 13 years she is my friend too. Jolene owns several bead stores and had come to China to purchase some beautiful things for her business. On the way back, she stopped into Hong Kong and in one very amazing day, completely single handedly turned around the Hong Kong economy...we shopped from 10:30 AM until 1:30 AM the next day! In fact, she shopped so much that between the things she bought in China and a few beads she wanted to hand carry back to the US, she had to purchase 2 (two) giant suitcases in Stanley Market! She got very nice stuff and if you are a lucky friend of hers, be sure to know that you have some great gifts coming your way. It was a marathon. I needed cocktails. But we had a great time, laughing and carrying on as usual...making best friends with the store owners who sold us our goods. On the way I bought some very cute clothes and Chinese Fortune Sticks which are just so much fun. Next time I see you I will read you your fortune...it really works.

Tony had been on a two week journey doing industry training, traveling from India to Shanghai and finally got in after a much delayed flight on Friday night at 2:30 AM! Two weeks is too long! Not to mention the snow they have gotten in China this week! Don't worry, I was still up waiting for him, helping Jolene to cram all her stuff into the suitcases....I wonder if she got stopped at customs!?!?! Hope your not in jail girlfriend! If you are holla at me and I'll send bail money.

Till next time, I LOVE YOU & MISS YOU!