Recreation
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Consumer confidence is up. Spending is up. Cards, chocolate and crocodile (over beer). I thought it must be Christmas or Tet all over again. Hunting down a ticket for A House in the Alley took me to two theaters, with the only available seats at 11:20PM. Way pass my bedtime. Oh well, I tried. Supporting Vietnamese…
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Years ago, I took a course in Wilderness Survival. One of the classmates was a blind Korean guy. The others all white males. We were to spend the entire five days in the White Mountain of New Hampshire, with one solo day. Our “final” was rock repelling. I kept looking in my teammate’s eyes and…
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It’s known urban legend here in Vietnam that you do not take a photo with three people. Someone will need to stand in to defy the odds (of bad luck). It is also bad luck that a person in the photo but was cut out. I once saw a family picture which had a missing member.…
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Next week, we welcome Earth’s 7 Billionth baby into our human family. When I was born, relatives came to the hospital to visit (as commonly observed even today, in Vietnam). B/W photos were taken and sent up North for our extended families to “take notes”. The more the merrier. Nobody cared who Malthus was. If you…
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If you haven’t discovered it by now, then let me remind you that children are the joy of the season. Each day is a gift, and it is gift-wrapped with giggles and songs. I felt rejuvenated because of teenage tunes that I would otherwise have not known (Firework, Teen- age dream, The only one in…
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Skyline of West VA presents quite a scene and makes a case for Fall foliage. We used to play King of the Hill on top of a heap of dead leaves. Reminds me of the Last Leaf, a story about a terminally ill patient looking out the window and said “when those leaves all fell…
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In 2000, I was sitting at Cadillac, a semi-enclosed bar, whose band played Hotel California and I Will Survive. In 2010, I found myself at Rolls Royce, which also played Hotel California and I Will Survive. 2013, at Van’s Cafe, its band plays Bon Jovi’s number lacing with Santana’s classics. Nouveaux riches, yetl good oldies. The expats…
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Given everything that has been going on, recent news that Ford turned the corner on North American market was quite remarkable. Ford, as American as Coca Cola and apple pie, has done a number of things right: – it cross-pollinated ideas and markets (Smart in US vs Fiesta in Europe) – it stuck out while…
Thang Nguyen 555 