I’m currently travelling on my way to visit my friend Damon who is living in Guangdong, China with his lovely wife Wenhui and their awesome baby Jackson. I’ll be returning home on April 18th.

Things we’ll probably be doing:

• Hanging out in Guangzhou
• Doing art
• Nerding
• Working on our super-duper top secret game idea
• Visiting Macau
• Taking a train ride to the famous mountains (the ones you see in the background of many Chinese paintings)
• Getting rained on (probably)
• Trying to get by in a place where everyone speaks Cantonese, not Americanese
• Taking lots of pictures
• Making new friends
• Filling Moleskines
• Playing with the baby
• Cooking
• Goofing around

Should be a fun time. I plan on being available via email as often as possible (gserafini [at] gmail.com) and via the usual IM channels also whenever possible. If you have an emergency, please send me an email and I will see if I can help. I will probably not be available via phone, although if I am probably the best bet would be to call my friend Damon’s cell # 159 8643 6868 (country code 86 I think..?) Calling China would probably be ridiculously expensive, so I wouldn’t recommend it. Email would be best.

I will be hopefully doing regular updates of my Flickr stream and posting into my China Trip 2007 set, so check back there every couple of days to see what I’ve been up to. If I can’t post easily from China then I may have to wait until I’m back stateside to post all the pics.

I also may be updating my Twitter page (kind of like small little micro blog updates) with what I’m doing at any given time so you can keep up with the adventures that way too maybe.

See you when I get back!

P.S. - Posted this using my Palm Treo 700p using USB modem from the airport in Chicago. Yay for mobile Internet!

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Turning into the old fogey, trying to keep up with all these new-fangled social networks…

I like Facebook so far a lot better than MySpace. Better designed, better organized.

My Facebook profile

And my Twitter page, although I’m not sure how much I’ll really end up using it. Most of the people who care about what I’m doing have my cell number and can call me if they really need to know…

My Twitter page

And of course, here is my sweet, not-pimped-out-in-any-way MySpace page.

So there you go. Social social social.

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We were happy to get our new camera from UPS today, a Canon SD800-IS. So far I’m really pleased with this. It has image stabilization (which lets you take mostly vibration-free pictures) and a 28mm wide-angle lens on it which means that you can take a picture of an entire room with it. It’s nice to have a real camera again instead of always using the one on my cameraphone (Treo 700p). I’m looking forward to doing more interesting and high-quality photography with this 7.1 megapixel tiny wizard of a camera.

We were also glad today when Eric brought the sample of granite and glass back from the water jet cutters. It looks awesome. And also looks like it will be an extremely difficult job to do right, but one that will be really really striking once it is all finished and installed.

See more pictures from the kitchen project: Kitchen Remodel Project - a photoset on Flickr

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I just took this test: http://www.eggheadcafe.com/articles/mb/default.asp

And these were my results:

• E=8 Extraversion
• I=3 Introversion
• S=5 Sensing
• N=15 iNtuition
• T=12 Thinking
• F=7 Feeling
• J=6 Judging
• P=13 Perceiving

You are an ENTP

…

ENTP - Entrepeneurs, lawyers, psychologists, photographers, consultants, sales represenatives, actors, engineers, scientists, inventors, marketers, computer programmers, comedians, computer analysts, credit investigators, journalists, psychiatrists, public relations, designers, writers, artists, musicians, politicians. Very freedom-oriented, they need a career which allows them to act independent and express their creativity and insight.

The Wikipedia entry on ENTP seems to describe me almost exactly. It’s almost embarrassing when you find your way of thinking and being on the Internet.

Myers-Briggs Personality Type Test

Of course, I’m also a fire dragon.

Kristin is an INFJ.

Interesting, interesting… What are you?

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TSA: Republican Fear Machine

I am not making this shit up. This is not a post from the The Onion. This is an actual, U.S. taxpayer funded policy, implemented by the Republicans to “protect” us from… our fresh breath?

You can now bring toothpaste on board an airplane, in the United States, AS LONG AS YOU PUT IT IN A SMALL PLASTIC BAG before you go through the TSA screening checkpoint. If it is NOT in a baggie, then they will confiscate your toothpaste.

Quoting from the TSA’s site:

Travelers may now carry through security checkpoints travel-size toiletries (3 ounces or less) that fit comfortably in ONE, QUART-SIZE, clear plastic, zip-top bag.

This is insanity. Vote Republican if you want more of your expensive cosmetics confiscated because it’s not in a FUCKING BAGGIE.

I asked the screener lady if she thought, personally, that this policy makes sense. She told me, “We get briefed daily by Washington. We know things, and there’s a good reason for this.” I’m sure they do get briefed daily. The TSA is part of the developing fascist police state that is America now.

TSA ’s official page about their absurd baggie rule

What’s next? Proper papers to pass? Only certain, party-approved and loyal passengers allowed to fly or travel? We’re quickly getting there.

This is madness. Total madness.

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In exactly 2 hours we’ll be getting up from our short nap to leave for Connecticut for my brother Andy and his fiancee Val’s wedding on Saturday.

In other news, the entire downstairs of our house is getting the oak floors refinished (mostly due to the patched new kitchen floor and the flooring guy’s desire to do it now instead of later). This means, among other things, that _everything_ that was downstairs is now either upstairs, in the basement, or in the garage. Everything. It also means that Kuma and the cats will be staying with Ben and Ammo while we’re gone. The fish are in the garage.

It’s been a long couple of days leading up to now.

Now to charge the iPod and the Treo for our flights to CT. Adios.

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I may qualify as the biggest dork ever. Inspired by the #1 Matt on Google, I set out on a single-handed campaign to break into the top 10 results for my name.

As of today, out of 107,000,000 total results, I’m currently #9. Nerd points galore for me huh. w00t.

Check for yourself: Google Search for “Gabriel”

And if / when I drop back down to the depths of search engine obscurity, you can say “I knew him when he was the #9 result on Google…” Looking at the remainder of the other important Gabriels, it seems that I may be able to climb a couple places higher. It will probably be tough to get higher than the #1 Gabriel - Gabriel shocks though. They do own Gabriel.com and whatnot. But, here’s to trying anyways…

If you feel like helping out for whatever reason, use this code on your website to link to my site:

<a href="http://www.gabrielserafini.com/" title="Gabriel">Gabriel</a>

P.S. The kid in the picture is Jackson Wade Wallace, my good friend Damon’s awesome little boy from when I was visiting them in California this summer. He’s gonna be famous someday.

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St. Louis Cardinals : Schedule : 2006 Cardinals Schedule

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Congratulations to Ben and Rachel on getting married today! Looking forward to more adventures with both of you soon!

:) :)

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Just used these guys to electronically file a 1099-MISC for one of our Niner Niner writers. Costs $3.79 per form.

Filetaxes.com - Online W-2, 1099 and 941 filing

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