We have also finally met Alton!!

We had been planning to get together with the Walkers at some point this week for a gift exchange and, more importantly, to also get to meet young Alton for the first time. What we had not counted on was a call from Jared asking if we were available and (upon confirmation) finding out that they were only 10 minutes away...

After 15 minutes of frenzied gift-wrapping, we were finally ready.

For those of you that have known Jared a while, you will recall that he has always been a big boy. Alton Gregory Walker certainly takes after his father in this regard. He is precocious and quite even tempered, but the most obvious thing about him is his size. In particular, after living in Taiwan for the past 14 months and seeing the relatively smaller babies out there, Alton looked more like a 4-year old than a 17-month old.

Alton is a sweet kid, likes to go give high-fives, and absolutely adores Clovis (our little parrotlet). I felt as though I had met him before after seeing all the pictures, but it was definitely much better to finally get to meet him in person.

We finally met Milo!

We met Milo today for the first time, and he really is a fantastically cute little boy. It is fascinating because he looks more like mommy from most angles, but more like daddy at some others.

We got to see a few baby pictures of Christy from when she was about the same age - had we not known that it was Christy, we would have both sworn it was Milo.

Milo is a boy of a thousand faces (most of them are happy, all of them are cute) so the only real answer is to actually meet him in person.

Buses in Taipei

I'm not 100% sure about this, but I have the sneaking suspicion that either the bus drivers in Taipei are out to maim their passengers, or they just spend a little too much time playing video games.

With the recent move to the new office in Neihu, I have had the opportunity to ride the bus to the office with increasing frequency. While there are occasionally a few friendly bus drivers that conscientiously operate their piece of heavy machinery in such a way as to minimize the amount of jostling that their passengers undergo, the other 99% seem to really hate the people that keep getting on and off their bus.

I have seen cases where the bus drivers accelerate/decelerate suddenly for no obvious reason, take turns at breakneck speeds, and even start driving off before their passengers have fully boarded/alighted. This is exacerbated by the fact that the drivers have large comfortable seats that have independent shocks to smooth their rides.

The funny thing is that while this would probably never be considered even remotely acceptable in the US (at least on those few occasions when I've had the opportunity to ride the bus), for the most part, this seems to be the norm here in Taipei. Old people literally being thrown into other people's laps doesn't even so much as solicit a dirty look or a sigh.

I'm still trying to figure out if the problem is really with the drivers, or if I've just become too soft after living in the West for most of my life.

One cool thing that I have seen time and time again is a profound respect for the elderly. Every time somebody that looks even somewhat frail gets on the bus, at least one young person - usually the one sitting closest to the entrance - will immediately stand up and offer their seat to them. In the year that we have been living in Taiwan, there has not been a single exception to this phenomenon, which just gives me a warm fuzzy. I have always tried to be courteous and polite, but seeing this sort of behavior makes it seem like it's less of a choice and more of a moral imperative.

Keep it up, Taiwan!
(The courtesy part - not necessarily the crazy bus driver thing)

Achewood comic

I received this from a friend recently, and it just spoke to me...

Dig it:

Famous People

I bumped into Jane Goodall at the Grand Hyatt - Taipei earlier this evening. She was in town to promote her Jane Goodall Institute on Sunday, and just happened to be in the executive lounge, where I was waiting for a couple customers for a meeting.

At first, I didn't recognize her - my colleagues in the Taiwan office told me her Chinese name, but it was meaningless to me until I clued into the fact that it was some elderly white woman holding a chimp doll (replete with fake banana) while still managing to look dignified.

My colleague (Glenn) all but dared me to go ask her for an autograph, so I went for it after she finished what appeared to be an interview and headed for the cookies. I introduced myself and was somewhat taken aback when she turned out to be friendly, even to the point of being slightly chatty. She asked me for a card, recruited me for the local branch of her Institute, and then agreed to snap the above photo with me (it's just a camera phone picture, so cut it a little slack).

I have to say that she was quite a nice lady. Having read about her quite a bit back in my Academic Decathlon days (we read "Woman in the Mists" - a book about Diane Fossey, written by Farley Mowat), I felt that I knew something about her, and got a real kick out of the fact that I was actually fortunate enough to bump into her on the 23rd floor of a hotel in Taipei of all places.

Now, if I can just figure out how I can get away with giving interviews holding a stuffed primate...