Opps…

I forgot one thing with staying in a small town, there might not be any breakfast the next morning.

I climbed 400 meters and cranked out 30 kilometers before getting brunch in Daren. Thank goodness for spending Saturday afternoon loafing around and that evening grazing.

Riding north on highway 9 along the east coast towards Taidong, once again demonstrates to me how deeply I love living in Taiwan. However, another day riding uphill five times into the wind continues to not be one of my favorite things to do.

Hey…

What’s up with multiple map services saying Syuhai to central Taidong is 90 kilometers and reality being 105? I was so looking forward to being done, but I had to keep pedaling and going along.

In the world of no freaking way…

I climbed 2,500 meters and still hit a 17.7 kph moving average. Cool.

Lastly…

I’ve officially decided that riding a recumbent is way more work than an upright. When I’m tired from riding Pig Red, I’m ready for a hot shower, a leg massage, a big meal, a couple of drinks and going to bed as soon as possible. After a hard day on my Speedone race bike, I want the same things, but I’ll also wonder around for a few more hours and eat a second meal.

Finally…

With this trip done, I’ve ridden all the way around Taiwan except for “suicide highway 9″ from Suao to Hualien. Maybe when back later this year, I’ll knock that out as part of an official around Taiwan tour.

Going home…

Despite telling myself this was going to be a cycle-coding trip. I didn’t get to do any of the coding I wanted. Argh, I’m homeward bound.

As my train back to Kaohsiung is Monday 7:40 AM, I’m staying at a cute, country style long-house, love hotel across the street from Taidong Station. Surprisingly, breakfast, towels, shampoo, water and lots of very hot water are all included for 900 NT a night.

My negotiation skills were off this evening, I only earned a 10%, 100 NT discount.

So much for making it to Taidong. Combined with no energy and a low-speed crash, I called it quits at 40 kilometers of riding today.

Status: I’m fine, my legs are beat, I couldn’t keep a 60 – 80 RPM cadence going, and I’ve got a new hole in my $ 60 Assos riding gloves.

Despite the downers, I got to enjoy one of my favorite coastal highways in Taiwan while going so slow. So things evened out. ;)

啊，真正的愛情！ Ah, true love!

Based upon local recommendations I’m staying at My Family Hostel 我家民宿 in Syuhai. You can talk the boss down from 1,000 TWD to 800 TWD without too much effort. However, bring your own towel and shampoo. There’s none here.

The little shop and hostel down the street is the same price, but has no view.

It’s that time of the year, Peichi and I are getting back on the road for an extended period. Tentatively we’ll be in Germany, Italy or Prague, Las Vegas, Seattle, Portland and I’m sure a few other places before returning mid-August.

In times of before leaving Taiwan, I feel the need to stay connected to why I love Taiwan so much with a bike ride and eating local cuisine. However…

Why does the wind blow constantly from the direction I’m going?

After a bit of over 6 hours riding, I hadn’t felt so tired for a long, long time. I was in bed shortly after 8 PM.

When in Jialeshui, I recommend staying and eating at Chris’ Summertime hostel. It’s 500NT a night for the dorm room with large, comfortable beds and plenty of hot water. The cheeseburger and apple juice for dinner #2 made me wonder why I had barbecued snails and soggy vegetables for dinner #1.

The third time is the charm. After two prior attempts to join Michael Turton in cycling Sabah, I made it. I only had to skip a week of snowboarding with fellow TYPO3 geeks in Austria.

Bike Borneo or snowboard the Alps?

What a tough choice, but since I’ve snowboarded the Alps a couple of times now, Borneo it is.

Overall, I had a wonderful time pedaling along the Borneo pathways. However, would the real Malaysians in Sarawak please stand up?

The further south we went, the more Chinese it became

Seriously… I ate more Chinese food and spoke more Chinese on a daily basis than when at home in Kaohsiung Taiwan. English in Southern Taiwan is a like a lost art, but the amount of Chinese’ism in southern Malaysia was totally unexpected.

When we did get to meet real locals, it was amazing. Extremely friendliness all the way.

We also had fantastic opportunities to eat some of the best BBQ wings and skate fish of our lives. Super fresh juice of 5 different fruits and vegetables, just helped it all settle smoothly.

Up in Sabah, that’s northern Malaysia, for those who like me don’t look at a map until in country after a few days; the roads are smooth, reasonably marked and populated by extremely friendly slow driving locals. The small towns were even more so friendly. A truly wonderful, first few days of our biking getaway.

Kota Kinabalu – Lawas Route

Thank goodness for GPS tracking errors. I can’t seem to clean up the data, so it’s 1,200 kilometers out of whack.

Lawas – Tedungan Route

Our first foray in Brunei was simply, cool. A long, new, beautiful highway into the jungle across the landscape. Wow! Jungle and rice fields, gorgeous. The second foray into Brunei wasn’t so much fun after a bad night’s stay in Tedungan.

It only got worse as the roads are marked in such a manner to keep outsiders to the main highways, even to the tune of adding easily 60 kilometers of riding between points. I admit that 24 kilometers of excess riding was my own fault for not backing the GPS out to see that we were making a circle to within 15 kilometers of our starting point.

Pffpt…

Flat goes Michael’s rear tire and all spares. Whoomp, momentum sloweth. He limped into Kuala Belait with help from real locals and on Sunday, we pricey taxied to Miri.

Tedbugan – Kuala Belait Route

I really did check out several shops in Miri to find tubes. Alas, during Chinese New Year, you truly find out how many businesses are Chinese owned. I think we spent 4-5 nights in Miri.

Miri Bike Inner Tube Hunting

There was a nice jungle trek to Batu Niah caves. I’m so glad we did it, but darn that trail was slippery. I wouldn’t be surprised that several people break a leg or arm every each year.

Cycling from Miri to Batu Niah was my favorite ride of Sarawak. We actually got to ride along the ocean and see it. Only a few times up near Sipitang did we get to see the water. Otherwise, the rolling hills were tolerable and road conditions fair with easy going drivers.

Miri – Batu Niah Route

Michael said these were roller coaster hills. I didn’t think much, just concentrated on up, down, cycle harder, numb, brain, dead.

Since the inland road was even rougher and drivers a bit more racing, we tossed the bikes on a bus and rode the last part.

Bintulu – Tatau Route

In Tatau, we once again tossed the bikes on a bus into Sibu. Rolling hills and racing drivers make the longer distance cycling in the heat, not so much fun.

We spent 3-4 nights in Sibu gobbling down mangosteens and rambutans when possible. On Sunday, we toasted our bodies while taking an express river boat to Kapit.

Ah, isn’t in the middle of the jungle with no cars supposed to be barren like? It was more of a frontier town just an easy drive away instead. Crazy… but cool. Oh yeah, one of the best ABC ice’s yet.

Outside of a little going the wrong way, Sibu to the airport was a nice finish to our Borneo cycling adventure. The Sibu airport folks are very friendly and helpful in getting our bikes checked in. However, I would recommend bringing sandwiches or other food from town if you plan on eating at the airport. The departure level food stand isn’t too bad, but ground floor was wasn’t appetizing. Of course, I could just be tired of seeing and eating the same thing, day-in, day-out.

Sibu Airport Roll Route

Once back in Kota Kinabalu we crashed for a couple of nights and wondered out every few hours to eat, take photos and people watch. About time we could watch others instead of them watching us sweat riding our bikes in Borneo.

Return?

Yes, I would. However, I’d stick to Sabah, northern Brunei, and down to Limbang next time. There’s plenty to see and do there to keep me happy for a couple of weeks cycling, boating, and whatever else comes to mind.

In January, I flew over to New Delhi and Hyderabad India for a couple of weeks to visit friends and join Axelerant as their Chief People Officer.

As Axelerant’s Chief People Officer, I’m responsible for talent, capability, culture. This means, keeping people motivated, encouraged, smiling and fulfilling their lives. It’s not an easy thing to do, but it’s an amazing challenge that’s definitely not boring or repetitive.

Thank you Axelerant for helping me change careers, expand myself as a person, and help others reach their own goals. I’m finding myself stretching to learn basics while having already mastered much of the advanced stuff over the past 25 years of tech work.  ;)

I’m siting in Hyderbad for a January 2013 company meeting and found this. Figured to make some minor updates as surprisingly, 3 years years later it’s still holding true.

–

The past few years have involved quite a bit of change in Peichi’s and my life. We’re not always sure where things are headed or how the bills will get paid. However, we’re into life together and by living simply, we make the best of it.

Here’s a letter to Peichi that I had written very late one night in February 2008. Despite in some ways of having had it all, it only meant I had less of what truly counted.

In reading the letter again, two years later, I’m finding the core of what I want remains. Love, peace and happiness in Peichi’s and my life, together. All of the other bits, even the material aspects remain modest and attainable.

I wonder how you’d write a letter like this to one you loved, when feeling lost a time and then reading it again years later. For me, I’m finding myself ever closer to what I want.

The Letter

I should be sleeping with my beautiful wife right now. But, nope, I’m sitting in front of the computer with my eyes closed and typing away with a green milk tea at hand trying to figure out just what the fuck I want to do with my life.

Recently, I’m going through yet another screwed up website project. It’s a case of I delivered the project back in August of 2008 and the client is finally moving forward on it, early 2009. However, since they’ve missed a couple of invoice payments, I’m not moving forward till there’s a a payment or equivalent guarantee that there will be.

Simply put, trust has been lost and it’s hard to get back from both sides. The client feels they’ve paid enough for the site and should just have it handled over to them. Michael feels client got what they wanted and it’s beyond reasonable time to perform more work unless compensation has been made. Hopefully though, some middle ground will be found when the client finds another developer and I can turn the site over to them for at least some compensation and get them out of my hair.

This reminds me of reading another article a few days back. The Tech Crunch guy got spat in his face by someone at a conference recently. This unsettled the Tech Crunch guy enough that he’s pulled out of his writing for a while to sort out if what’s he’s doing is what he wants to be doing.

In dealing with people there’s going to be some you can deal with and others that you just cant.

In the failed projects, it seems that at the root are people you just can’t get along with with.

In a side note, within a week of starting the above project, I had the feeling that I need to cancel the project and return the deposit despite the effort put in already and needing the money. I just had a bad feeling that the project was doomed from the start. Even getting to a signed proposal was extremely painful. I never have dealt with such a harsh client before.

Hopefully, with my lessons learned there will never be another like that one. If so though, I’ll be doing what I can to get out of the relationship as soon as possible.

Drink, sip, read, sip, squirt, sip, read, think…

Given I started this as Michael’s What I Want, I guess I should get on with with it.

• I want a peaceful life
• I want to be happy
• I want to share my happiness with others
• I want to share my life with my wife Peichi
• There’s truly no where else I’d rather be than at my wife’s side
• Together we can achieve our dreams with so much more relish, it’s amazing.
• I want to be able to support my wife as much as she supports me.

I guess, there’s some materials and other stuff I should toss into here.

• Reliable transportation
• One week escapes every 2-3 months to recuperate
• Annual 1-2 month travels and working abroad
• Mountainside home with ocean views
• A home with room to garden, natural hot spring, hostel, conference center, retreat
• A place where Peichi and I can have some business and family together successfully, profitably and in ever increasing love for each other and others.
• Yeah, that’s sappy, but it’s what’s coming out of my mind and into my fingers and onto this document. Thpppt… to the naysayers. Go find a real relationship.

When you’re with the true person that you love and loves in return, there’s really no way to be stopped from being your true self.

Peichi are like  a couple of love bird like kids, ready to laugh easily and love long and help others and listen with concern and share the burdens of life. Even when the work is hard, we’ll smile and plow through to get the job done.

It might stink even, but we’ll help finish it.

I like this phrase, mean people suck. That’s true. They suck the good energy right out of you.

Nice guys finish last because we’re so giving of our selves even to the point of our own detriment. I like being a nice guy, but only to those who reciprocate. To others, I’ll be just as you are, but nicer in return.

I don’t like to lose, but I’ll lose gracefully if possible.

There’s no where I’m really afraid to go. Just scared of what might happen is true, but I’ll go. There’s life to be experienced.

I want to not feel the pressures of financial stress. Having to pay bills stink.

I want to do my best to live a cash base existence. Sure it might a while longer to get what I want, but I’ve earned it and by the time I get something it’s truly what I want and it’s all mine.

I prefer to look to the long term in most things. Short term pain and losses are okay with me if the long-term benefits outweigh the short term issues.

Thinking ahead is great, but don’t forget to do what’s needed.

Getting found is easy. Getting lost is hard, as you always know where you are.
The trail is that way.

Hmm, the mind is calmer. I think I can sleep gain. I miss my wife, I long to be by her side again.

For you, Peichi I push harder so that we might live a fuller life. Thank you for all that you’ve done for me.

In our heart and mind is mine.

a little bit more than before.

–
11/12/2011 – Climbing Brünnsteingipfel with Stefan and family, in response to having a fear of heights

Finding love and looking for it are parallel. Only by being open to love and giving it, do they cross.
–
4/14/2012 – How to find love…

Staring into the night,
thinking about moving amongst them.
Thoughts lost to those in mind,
than brought by words.
Imagination limitless,
when not self constrained.
–
4/14/2012 – Possibilities endless

Standing alone in a world without you, brings misery.
Lying alone in the moonlight, leaves me restless.
Without you, the world turns forward, but I turn back.
Sadness is all I feel when we’re apart.
I’m not myself without you.
–
4/14/2012 – Thoughts of life without Peichi