i checked back through the archive and realized it’s been four months since my last post. alicia has been great at keeping everyone updated, but i think i need to do my part to contribute.

i love the ocean, and waves in particular. i’m not really sure when this started, but i remember playing in the pacific as a young kid with grandma child and aunty carole, walking along the beach in carmel with the family, and boogie boarding in hawaii with my friend rafael dunn. there is something about the sound – repetitive and booming, then shattering into applause after each crash. to watch beautifully formed waves peel off one after another, their faces held up by an offshore breeze and the sun reflecting off the smooth curve as it folds over…. anyway i usually can’t get enough of hanging out at the beach and in the water.

kai means the ocean or sea in hawaiian and we took him out to cheung sha beach last weekend. he really enjoyed scrunching his toes in the sand, and was fascinated by watching the water move back and forth under his feet. i got in a bit of bodysurfing on the larger of the miniature waves before the lefler girls came out and used beau and i as their boogie boards. will need to make it out there to surf sometime when a swell comes in.

we ate at a south african restaurant called the stoep which serves up some great grill and bread. the last time we went here was two years ago when we took a junk out with the lews and gammons. the food was still good and we had fun with the kids.

i tend to analogize a lot and recently i’ve felt life has been like my bodysurfing time on cheung sha. the waves keep coming and i keep swimming through to ride them. sometimes i lose track of time – i recently turned 30 and kai is almost six months old already. alicia had a birthday too which we postponed for celebration in korea two weeks ago. i’m coming up on 18 months at my current job and have already outlasted two other people on my team who arrived after me. two great friends have moved out to hong kong to work in similar jobs, both my brother and sister got married this year, and alicia resigned from her job. lots of changes all of the time, but i’m still starting the week with sunday and before i know it we’re on friday again.

hong kong is starting to cool down weather-wise – it’s my favorite time of year with days still warm but nights that cool off. apparently some people outside are south african because we’ve been hearing hoots, chants, hollers and general drunken celebration all night from the rugby world cup. you hear a lot about sub-prime these days, which has cooled off some 3Q results but has not impacted the markets much here over the last few months. in fact after the dip in august there’s been a strong bull run which is causing concern in some places. india last week proposed taking some draconian measures which dropped the sensex 10% on open and closed the exchange for an hour. you can only imagine what effect similar moves would have in china. it seems overall that the expectation is that volatility will remain high but the trend will continue upward for the next year or so. i find it interesting to sit on the trading floor and feel the pulse of market activity. it reminds me of the rodeos i’ve been to where the bull keeps jumping but some guys hit 8 seconds seemingly without trying. others get bucked off within 1-2 seconds, and then trampled and kicked on the way out. if you don’t mind the smell of cows and want to have a fun night, you should hit the rodeo sometime. small town or grand nationals – they’re all fun.

and with that random paragraph, i think i’ll sign out and take kai for a walk. here’s a shot of him in korea with his mom, grandma, great grandma, great aunt and second cousin.