TheNHBushman.com

Photos by MJ Klein

Lately I’ve been looking to expand my horizons.  I’m getting bored with the same thing, musically speaking.  Since my 1958 Epiphone has been unavailable, all I have been using for the past few years is a Fender Stratocaster that’s been highly modified.  I don’t really like the Strat and I’ve grown tired of it.

I wanted to get a guitar that wasn’t just the same old stuff made pretty.  There are a ton of absolutely gorgeous guitars that are basically all the same as far as capability goes.  They are mostly based on Fender or Gibson designs, and rather limited.  So, the choice was clear for me.  I had to get a Red Special.

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Food Photos by MJ Klein

Hui-chen and I are off in China and Hong Kong on business for a few days.  We’ll be back soon with some great photos and stories to tell!  In the meantime we’d like to show you some dishes that Hui-chen’s mother cooked during Chinese New Year.

By now, everyone knows that these are the family specialty.   Hui-chen makes her own version too, and they are great.

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Photos by MJ Klein

It was just after 3:00 am when I heard a crash and what sounded like breaking glass. I was asleep of course so I couldn’t be sure what happened, exactly. I distinctly remember the sound of something on the roof maybe? Definitely that sound of something hitting concrete and I swear, sheet metal. I leaped out of bed, flashlight in hand and did a floor-by-floor inspection of our house. I found nothing. I looked outside and I saw a familiar person walking around, smoking (that guy is always smoking). This guy is out and about in his parking lot office at all hours of the morning. He has friends joining him in his office (with blacked-out windows) very late at night. I guess the business of running a parking lot with 7 or 8 customers is so demanding that he has to work late at night to keep up with all that paperwork. I saw another person hurriedly exiting the tall building across the street, carrying a bucket. Mind you, this building is unoccupied and there were no lights on. I’m telling you, there is some kind of funny business going on in my neighborhood.

The following morning I went into our second-floor office and I got a big surprise:

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Photos by MJ Klein, and others where noted.

It was almost a throwdown in some respects, but the party at the Blue Sky was more or less successful in that people had a relatively good time, and nobody got hurt, although the event was not up to my personal standards. First, let me thank everyone who ventured out on that cold windy evening to join us. Your company is what makes things like this worthwhile. Second, please allow me to apologize (more on that later).

Why I like Nikon cameras, reason #57: IR remote control. This shot was taken on a tripod from my seat at the table at the far end of the shot.

Many of Taiwan’s famous people were on hand at the surreal Blue Sky.

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My friend Mr. Chen and I used to like to go to Fayetteville on the weekends. It was a short drive from Raleigh, NC, down highway 401. Normally, we’d head down to Fayetteville on Sunday evenings after the restaurant closed at 10:00pm, and we didn’t have to worry about being back early because Mr. Chen had Mondays off work.

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Another year has come and gone.  Hui-chen and I are in south Taiwan visiting the family here.  We won’t be back in our office until Monday so we’re going to take the weekend off.  There fore there will be no Bushman’s Picks this week.  We apologize for any inconvenience this might cause.

When we return, we will have an exclusive report on the new Kaohsiung Rapid Transit system.  So if you are a fan of the Taiwan rails and transit systems, you will not want to miss this!

We’re also looking forward to seeing everyone at the Blue Sky in Taipei county on 2/16!

Take care everyone and we’ll see you in a couple more days.

At one time or another, everyone gets interrupted while speaking.  This is an annoyance that we must put up with in a free society.  Sometimes, people cannot hear you and they mistakenly start to speak over you because they didn’t hear you.  This, I can understand.  But, there is another type of interruption that I simply cannot tolerate.

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My very first Taiwanese friend was Mr. Chen Shao Yeou. Mr. Chen worked in a Chinese restaurant in the town where I lived at the time. I met him while working in the restaurant as one of the food preparation chefs.

We lived together in a big house for the workers. This is where I first began to learn Chinese, by associating with speakers of the language in close quarters. Over time I helped quite a few restaurant workers improve their English vocabulary too. One fellow asked me to read the entire contents of his English study book into a boom box cassette recorder so he would have a native speaker reference to listen to. It was nothing more than simply reading columns of words and it took about 30 minutes. Well worth it.

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My father was known at “Mr. Fixit” because he could fix just about anything. When my family first moved into our new Florida home in 1959, my father went about building things. First he boxed in the ugly heating oil tank that was hung from the ceiling in the garage. He then made a storage area below it. That wasn’t enough so he built a full length counter in the garage, and provided us with a lot of storage space. Then he walled off the garage about ¼ way from the entrance and built himself an electronics workshop. Building things came naturally to my father and I’m happy to say that I have inherited his ability. So when I brought home the discarded remains of a wooden go-kart from down the street, my father went to work on a plan to rebuild it.

My father and I together in 2006 (age 83)

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Yes, that time of year is upon us again - the season of colds and flu. These maladies are causes by viruses and therefore cannot be successfully treated with antibiotics. But, there are things you can to to reduce the symptoms and feel better while your body rages the war on foreign invaders. Normally I try to avoid using medications as much as possible.

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