Family Vitamins

So it is very fine thing to be traveling all over the place and suddenly realize that you are just traveling. And in the back of your mind you hear the echo of take a break you’re working too much! Very ironic but just when you thought you were taking a break your mind says "no your working" and the only thing left to do is climb a hill with a great Hindu temple on the top and watch the sun set! The fact of the matter is each of us has a breaking point. Well let me be more specific...we all have a point at which we can say “I'm not doing what I thought I was doing.” You see, this is all very fine and dandy until the dandy wilts and dies. Then you’re left with just the fine and no dandy. That would not be so bad if the fine you had to pay was no more than the original cost of the dandy but it of course never is? It all comes down to proper vitamins. I am talking about the vitamins of life...you know the kind that we all need and if we don't get them we are sad and deprived. You are all smart kids and can relate when I speak metaphorically so get off your butts and take some vitamins today! I love you all McKay

Hawaii

Oh the joy of the sun setting beneath my tired eyes, the clouds caressing the fibers of my vision, the sand spinning silk on my chest, the waves cresting on my brow, the horizon easing my dreams, the palms waving through my hair, and the fish swimming through my legs. This is a place of wonder, of passion, of reality. The usualness of life becomes transfixed through a brief moment of splendor...her name...Hawai'i.

Love

McKay

A Time and a Place

There is a time and a place for almost everything I am convinced. A time to be here, a time to be there, and a time to stare. A time to give and to get and a time to forget. A time see and to feel and a time to be real. A time to think and to wonder and a time to make a blunder. A time to time to pee and to poo and a time to just be you. A time to find and to make and a time to break. A time to like and to love and a time to receive from above. A time to learn and to teach and a time to preach. A time to cry and to yearn and a time to earn. A time to hug and to kiss and a time to miss. Through all of these times there come with them certain places. They are understandably places in time. Or perhaps time in places. I am a wanderer. Wandering across lands and worlds. Seeing, feeling, touching, being. I am man. I have been perplexed by the lives of many to only at some distant time find their lives in myself. How far must I need to go. How long do I need to sow? At this moment I am trivial in my thinking of life. The times and places consume and presume themselves in a thought of good fortune. As for this time I will lose myself in the reality of China as I embark on the journey of TIME in a PLACE of dreams.

McKay

Inspired by Ecclesiastes 1:1-11

3 Strikes

Fri, 27 Jul 2001 So as it happens to be I am on the fate of 2 with the probability of getting 3 strikes and being put out of the ball game. I am optimistic however with my waves of good fortune and understanding the movement of life. Yes, it happened finally my second major scooter accident in the heart of Taiwan. Let me play a bit on the first strike that happened nearly 3 months ago. I was at the third intersection that we can see from our building. Incidentally if you stand outside on our balcony (the 11th floor) for a time you will most probably see an accident! So I was turning the corner and a hot rider came whipping around me at some higher top speed. Well unfortunately he caught the side of my bike and both our bikes went spinning into oblivion. I am sure he felt like Alice in Wonderland when she was in her spin cycle. I received a bruised hip a broken mirror and some other minor cuts. I was scared with shock for a while after and wow I was pumping adrenalin. The great thing about these teenage cruisers is the stereotype. They all are skinny, rich, brown dyed hair, the hockey style helmet with their 100cc Suzuki Dream scooters that could blow bye my slightly older 125cc. Occasionally their high school girlfriend is riding on the back almost always young and gorgeous. So my run in with this kid was less than favorable and he must have got the worst of it. However despite his spinning bike and body he got up in a hurry boarded once again his bat cycle and cruised on to victory, that I am sure. My cousin Mike promptly yelled “get your can over here”. A good effort but had no effect on the 100% Taiwanese roadster boy wonder. Now the second accident was in (my eyes full of compassion) concern of who’s fault it was. I was cautiously going through the next intersection and what before my eyes should appear but an old ladies scooter and her eyes full of fear. Yes she just jumped out in front of me not looking and I bulldozed her. I almost drove right over her. Quite the speedy dream I was having. I got up picked up my bike and she had slid from out under her scooter and she had a boo boo on her knee. Yip she was just a little hurt and I was once again a shocked man. I picked up all of her things that got scattered and sent her on her way. One guy even drove his scooter over and said that it was nice of me to help her. He obviously did not see the whole picture and assumed that this old lady could barley drive a scooter let alone see where she was going. There you have it folks the talented driving of the Taiwanese. I am amazed almost everyday I see drivers whipping past and through and in between and inside and beside, wow amazing. It has put me over the edge for the competition in the North American market. When I return I will be rearing to go. I will just need to consider something a little bigger than the maximum 150cc that is restricted by law! The third strike I am sure will come at the most crucial part of the game and I will be ready! Love McKay

The King of Kong

So it happened that I had my visa cancelled and was illegal here in the Oh so everything legal country of Taiwan (that was a joke for those who are unfamiliar with my sarcasm). Apparently 3 weeks or so had lapsed since the cancellation and a big fine could have been the result. My wonderful Taiwanese friend Thomas took me right down to the police station with my travel itinerary to Honk Kong. Not only did the people let me off the hook they were actually quite pleasant. I hopped on the Air China jet ready to partake from what I understood as a boring/amazing/historic/too busy/too polluted three day trip. I find it very interesting that there are so many different opinions from so many different types of people. Granted when I have an opinion I am the first to tell whether or not something suites me. I am starting to realize the power of positive thinking and the "think and be rich" idiom. It has been a part of my life for a few years now and now that I have tasted the greatness of the power of thought becoming reality I plead yea to all those who are unlucky or experiencing sadness due to environmental occurrences. Write me and I will recapitulate fleeting thoughts of depth to the suppleness of this logic! I had one phone number arriving and this proved to be the start of something great there. This Hilda, a person that my friend Alex has never met and only been with her son in an English training camp in Canada. Well I told her that I was planning on staying at a place (that the Lonely Planet guide book devoted a whole page of warning) called Chungking mansion. She abruptly told me that that was absurd and that she would make a few calls for me. I gave here my ridiculous $30 CDN budget (that I almost wasn't really will to do) and said goodbye. In reality I thought that the beach sounded more appealing than anything else at the time. So after napping in a city park and being woken up by an aging female security guard (wow she secured that park well), I called her back. To my freakiness she booked me into a top notch place and told me a price that my memory has chose to forget. I pleaded that I did not even bring that much money and after some major deliberation and calls to try and cancel the deal she managed to convince to me to go check into the Hotel. Well it was called The Empire Hotel and at $300CND/night I am sure location was a bit of that cost. Located in the heart of the living city...Hong Kong. I some how was able to subside the fear I had of paying for this place and not even knowing the person that had put me there. I took a jot out on the street had some talks with people and it was decided that (in my own little trivial consciousness) I would take a trip to Kowloon to visit a couple of the highly rated markets. No sooner was I staring at my subway map trying to sort out the transfer I was too take when Good Fortune struck...yes it hit me very hard. This nice women looked at me with the map in my hands and must have read my lost puppy dog look cause she came to my rescue and perchance that was almost the same place where she was heading. Her name was Wendy. In her mid to late 30's her smile was all about kindness. She turned out to be a very successful insurance rep. that had her own team of sales people. She pulls in about $80,000usd a year and had her own little house #2 over the Hong Kong border into China. Well if kindness never ceased we got chatting and she was so kind she ended up inviting me to a KTV birthday party of one of her sellers. So I hung the night away me and my OJ and a bunch of pissed KTV singers. She was however on the somewhat sober side and told me that for the next two days she was going to be my tour guide and I was going to be like her little brother...she would take care of me and all I had to do was speak English to her. This lady was amazing and not enough can be said about her kindness. We ate out went to markets and she even bought me an imitation Swiss Army watch. Thanks a ton! One high light how ever was this dance club that we went to one of the nights. The music was good but the laser show in the dance floor was worth the ticket just to get in. This place was paced with people and there were lots of rooms. The other side of this phenomenal laser show was live music being played while sipping our water. Apparently in Hong Kong there are 5 big families that control most of what goes on in that city. Their pull in politics and in power is of the major influences. One pissed chap even mentioned that when China took over Hong Kong from the British in 1997 Mao Zedong sat down with these families and said "now how can we make this work for us?" This club was owned by one of the big 5 (sound like accounting don't it!). Another fun time was in my last few hours before my plane left Wendy took me with some of her friends into the mountains for a Barbeque. It was the perfect portrait of the tons of Chinese people crowded into a small area in this beautiful scenic mountain with tons of Fire pits cookin lots-o-funky Chinese meat stuffs. I guess from experience that Chinese and Taiwanese people alike love to be around each other. The more the better. It was great company with a nice family along with Wendy and me. So the time cam to say goodbye and I gave her a hug, thanked her and she gave me enough money to get from the taxi to the express train to the airport. Well this lady was just what the doctor ordered and I will always be grateful for the "Good Fortune" that brought us together. During the second day there I was just relaxin in my cozy little hotel room waiting for Hilda (who got me the room in the first place) and her family to come pick me up for a day in Hong Kong. So this sweet little Chinese family that spoke decent English took me to a few cool places. This Restaurant on a peninsula jetting out to the ocean was quite the treat. I just picked out the live swimming seafood I wanted, and they caught it in their big tanks and cooked it up. In all the time I have been in this part of the world I have come to really enjoy seafood. The more eat it the better acquainted I am with the exquisiteness of it all. We then went to a beach and another joyful scenic spot. Their hospitality was unique. I often feel kinship to many of those whom I meet on my travels. An almost instantaneous friendship emerges and I am stuck feeling drawn closer to God through my contact of others. When they finally dropped me off at the hotel, Hilda told me not to worry about the hotel even through my insisting I pay her some money. So my thoughts on Hong Kong are very interesting indeed. This place gave me a slight feeling of London with all the amenities and cars even on the wrong side of the road. The English spoken usually had an English accent and the city was always lively and bustling with people. There were yet many garden and park areas that tickled my fancy. Through all this European fanfare there came with this place a feeling of mystery. Lurking deep in many alleys and small streets I peered through barley see through able windows to only catch glimpses of the exotic China I thought of as a boy. The mix of cultures and races came of every walk of life The rich and poor were abundant posing their defiant and undesirable look as they passed my on the walkways. I shall once again imagine the cities lights hitting the ocean as the sun just disappeared. The sparkles glint off my tiresome eyes. A lone boat from an era long past raises it's picturesque sail as the plot of the night wind claims it's decent. This is the ancient and the modern weaving their destiny into one accord. Much lays still undiscovered and only time permits the result. Hong Kong will always hold that lust and appeal until at one finally not to distant day I live there and mix my life with the life of that city, thus becoming part of the dream. Love McKay

The Wicked Witch of the East

This is the glorious tale of the wicked witch of the East. Being that I have been reading the Harry Potter series I have accumulated much more knowledge on the subjects of witches than I previously had. They are an interesting bunch of people that are not only talented in many areas but also very elusive. So this will be a quick illustrative of a long drawn out encounter with one from the broomstick area. I first arrived here in the first week in January 2001. By the second week I had had a contemplative and rigorous negotiation period with my future boss and was already teaching at her cram school. The situation seemed reasonable for both my cousin and I. We lived on the one side of the school paid not so much for rent and I was to have a contract for 8 months. Now let me tell you a little bit about this witch. Her name was Jenny but for those of you who are called Jenny do not worry because her real name is in Chinese giving no evil or abominable qualities the great name of Jenny so you are safe. This lady was quite the interesting person when it came down to business. There was always the concern Alex, Mike, and I would bring was to the cheapness and frugal manner in which she conducted her affairs. Yes, the epidimy of cheapness. She had uncertain eyes and a way about her that told me who was in charge. With medium black strait hair, glasses usually worn and less slender figure it amazes me how she could have ever got on that broomstick? I was certain that despite all of the problems she seemed to be having I was destined to stay there the certain amount of time. So one week before I was to leave I was called in with Alex to resolve some problems she had with not paying commission to CRA (the company Alex worked for) who placed me there at her school. She had some concerns like I had picked my nose in class and this was not good and she wanted to charge me more for rent and the elementary school was not happy and this and that. Basically she was blowing steam. I told her that I was moving out because I felt that the rent was too high and the small classroom where Mike and I lived was not working for us. Well it was a usual discussion and I also had many concerns that I will not bore you with. Well Ok maybe I will. For over three months she had not got me a working visa and every week upon insisting for one she would always tell me oh the first of next week don't worry. She never paid me on time and sub-contracted me out to other schools to make money off me? This made me quite uneasy. So that day there she told me in one week she was done with me and tried to make me promise to tell no one I was leaving. Well I could see right through that and as soon as I left she would kindly say that I had quite and found another job and save her face. Well that is exactly what she did to some others but I of course could not say goodbye to the many people in which had befriended me. So after she heard that I had said goodbye to one particular school she raised her protest and threatened not to pay me for the month of March. Yip a killer moment in the history of McKay. She ended up still owing me over $1000cnd, a chunk of change. She told these other schools that I quite and there was nothing that she could do and that she paid me every week or once every two weeks. She paid me every month if I was lucky. She also started making up other stories that mad me look really bad. That best of which is that I was molesting little children? It's a very weird thing that in one breath she could say that I was the best teacher that she ever had and in the next I was the cause of all her sorrow. So the epic saga continues and some very interesting news that I just received is that she is now fired that she was not the boss? She was never married to Mark as friend of ours as well and she was fired for stealing money from the real bosses. Wow that really puts the icing on the cake. When I eventually did get my visa one week before I was fired the name on it was not her school it was another school that I worked one hour per week at my last month there? Very confusing!? So hopes of ever retrieving my money is very slim and further more burning her at the steak like her ancestors just could not be tolerated in this country. So I will take all of the frustration and thoughts that I have had and put them at ease. I will try to take this experience with an open mind and a contrite spirit so that my heart can forgive and relax. All in all this was so good for me. I now live in a 4 bedroom place with Alex ad Mike and I have new work that pays me more for similar hours worked and I am free with no more vice to way me down. I feel free to now consume the life that I lead and chalk this experience up as a great learning device that has made me a much better person. Special thanks go out to all of those who helped make this all possible and for their undying support throughout the making of this movie. Long live the witches of the East. May their memory last forever and may they receive their undue reward. The End Opps...hold everything I just got wind of the incredible happening of this most amazing witch. Apparently from my inside sources she has been embezzling a lot of money. The former accountant who is still the accountant and secretary there speculates that she has took over 20,000,000 NT dollars which is equivalent to about 1 million Canadian dollars. WOW. It just keeps getting better folks so stay tuned for our next update of this improbable event. The (not so certain) End Love McKay