If you’re stuck at an airport

for eight hours, the best place to be is Seoul!

Harbin Photo Diary

How Cold Is It in Harbin?

It’s so cold that the taxi windows are frozen from the inside.

It’s so cold that the great wall of China has frozen solid. Actually this is the ice fest sculptures build all over the city. This one right at the airport.

It’s so cold that the crime has completely stopped frozen and the cops don’t out of their cars to check out suspicious foreign photographers.

 

Digging a hole through the ice on the inside glass to see outside the minivan on the way back from the plant.

Thermal Cycle

The rains have finally subsided, the skies are blue and the fabled SoCal sun and warmth has returned. It feels like spring fever is in the air. Snapped an iPhone picture on Santa Monica Blvd.

It has been months seen I had a chance to go to the ocean. I took half an hour and drove down to the beach and stared at the blue for a while before heading back to the office. Yes the world outside is still teeming with life. It’s good to know that life is lived, though elsewhere.

Stopped in Michigan on my way to Melbourne, Florida. Santa Monica was gorgeous. Sunny and 73. MI is cold and snowy. FLA will be mild. Nice to roam around through the thermal cycles of life.

Three-Minute Story

A few days ago I was listening to this piece on NPR about a 3-minute story contest. The story has to be so many words or less, I recall 300-400 words, but I am not sure. The rules are that someone in the story must tell a joke and someone must cry. That’s it.

I thought about the possibilities. It’s hard to write a thing like that. I went to bed a couple of nights ago and woke up to the annoying sound of my iPhone’s alarm, with this story almost fully formed in my waking moment’s dream. I repeated it to myself in the shower so not to forget. It took a few days, but on a chilly flight from LA to Detroit I had a few minutes to write it down. So here it is: The great American NoVelLA, which can be read in less than three minutes and is only 228 words long.

Three Suitcases

She sat on the edge of the bench. Three large, ragged suitcases lay by her side on the floor. She looked around nervously. From time to time she careened her neck and looked down the aisle. The wait seemed like hours to her. She grabbed her and hugged herself, bent down and rocked back and forth; rubbing her arms as though she were cold.

He was standing there, when she heard his voice and looked up. “What’s the matter, got gas or tummy ache?” He grinned. “No.” She replied shyly. He looked over at her suitcases in bewilderment. “Is that all yours?” He asked in a puzzled tone. “Yeah.” She replied; her voice breaking and sounding tearful. “For just one night?” He sounded befuddled. She looked down at her feet and fidgeted silently.

His eyes fluttered back and forth between her and the suitcases. She could hear him thinking, rummaging through the folds of his mind, trying to understand, deciding what to say and do. At last he said “well then, let me go get the car” as he turned around and walked away, “be back in a minute.” She did not raise her head to look up. Her eyes saw the back of his blue jeaned legs as he walked away. She leaned forward, hugging herself, rubbing her arms and rocked back and forth more vigorously.