Long,

I believe you are right, you and I might have quite a bit in common. I in my teens considered joining the Airforce but was informed that even at that age I would not conform to the size requirements.

You being ex navy I take it might be familiar with Sun Tzu the art of war. If not you might wish to read it or just go over his more famous quotes. I beleive that Sun's insights while invaluable in the context of war, many of them can be employed in everyday life and business situations.

A couple of my favourite qoutes are "the supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting"

"There has never been a protracted war from which a country has benefited" I think the US administrations with all the wars they have been involved in over the years and the cost the country has incurred because of them should pay close attention to this one.

My favourite and perhaps the most important qoute of all with regards to anyone is "you have to believe in yourself."

Sun lived about 2500 years ago and was brilliant and like I side in my last post, there is very little under the Sun that has not been thought about before hahahahahahahaha.

I have great respect for the chinese and there culture.

I see you are a well traveled man. I too have been to Hong Kong a number of times though I just stayed in around the air port. The city looked impressive from the air but I do not like large crowds of people so I never ventured into it. I always enjoyed landing at the old airport, coming in over the harbour with the wind shear and landing on that little strip hahahahahahahha. The new airport, flying inbetween the mountains with the wind shear can be fun too.

Singapore I have also been to and you are right it is very squeeky clean, you could almost eat off the streets. I travel there a couple of times with an associate or two who tried to show me the sites. This one associate who was an older silver tongued devil, hahahahahahaha, while walking down the street in the Orchid district pointed out a beautiful young woman and bet me he could pick her up. Well I knew he was smooth but I did not beleive he could pull that off and so I bet him $20 that he did not have a chance and thought I would get a good laugh when he got slapped in the face hahahahahaha. Well this beautiful woman in her beatiful flower print dress and caring her shopping bags agreed to go have a drink and I lost $20 bucks plus had to pick my jaw up off the ground hahahahahahahaha.

Well after getting to the music bar we were going to and noticing all the girls and very few well dressed expats I realized where I had been taken too. You see in my tramp miner days I would make some of my former aquantences nervous that I new what they were up to and they could not say the same about me, so they liked to try and throw temptation in my way hahahahahahahahahaha.

Now at this bar the girls who could not understand my behaviour seeing that to them it was common place would giggle and say to my aquantences that I was probably not interested in girls,they would use that and try to place peir pressure on me hahahahaha.

It never worked and eventually they stopped trying after they realized that I really did not care about what they did other then getting amusement out of watching there antics. I minded my own business and only got involved when there business became my business or somehow effect the job adversly.

Aaaaaaaaahhhhhh this brings back some good memories. It also reminds me of saying there once was an old owl who lived in a tree, the more he saw the less he said, the less he said the more he heard, why can we not all be like that wise old bird hahahahahahaha.

Long, I plan at the moment not to go anywhere, you see my feet which on occasion for no appearent reason that I can figure get all split and very sore. I think it must have had to do with all the years of me standing and running around with heavy sweaty boots on. The problem with having size 13 feet is that when they are sore you have size 13 feet hahahahahahahahahaha. Not to mention that my hay fever starts to kick inabout now and at the moment I am writing instead of gardening because I have a sinus headach.

I would be very interested in meeting with you however and swapping some stories. If you are ever in the Ottawa area which can be very beautiful around this time of the year give me a call. If you are into old architecture, large river views with fine eating over a very nice bottle of wine then I suggest coming here and saying at the Chateau Laurier.

Cheers and Regards,

F.F.