Writes of Passage

I’ve been HD customer practically since I arrived in New York, started from painting my rental room with a roommate. In the 1980s, it was pleasant and a great place to be. It started in 1978 by five founders, one of them is Ken Langone (1935-) who wrote I Love Capitalism!: An American Story, in 2018.

Then Jack Welch’s underline Robert Nardelli (1948-) took it over in 2000, till 2007. During this period, it was no fun shopping at HD because he cut back on experienced staff, using part timers who careless or not knowledgeable enough to help. He was left go in early 2007, with $240m severance package. The stock price under Nardelli remained same while Lowe’s doubled.

I’ve two books on Jack Welch (1935-2020), both published in 2022, Home Depot is a topic in the book, especially Gelles’, who was more critical toward Welch.

• The Man Who Broke Capitalism by David Gelles
• Power Failure by William Cohan

I begin to visit HD often since 2022, and find it to be decent again, although not yet 1980s level. At the same time, I feel Lowe’s isn’t as good as HD.

Flooring, they care LifeProof.

Chaotianmen Docks
ChongQing, China

According to CNN, the $3.8 billion mega project began in 2013. It was opened in September 2019.

The mall is huge – calling it ‘city’ is not exaggerating. Supermarket Ol

Raffles City 8 Jiesheng St.,
ChongQing, China

The supermarket is pretty up scale on Chaotianmen Docks. I bought green cheese and frozen durian (300g

世纪荣耀 Century Glory @ ChongQing.

Waling around the boat, wandered into this sneaker shop. They look like Skechers to me, but with different logo.

My friend sees one pair and would like to try. The sales girl is polite and finds her size.
“Oh, it’s so comfortable.” My friend says.
“Yes, they’re,” sales girl says.
“Where are they made?”
“Oh, we’ve many places to produce them.”
“So, not centralized in one location?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because so many are trying to copy us, we’ve to be careful, spread out our production, so it’s hard for them to copy.”

LOL … are you kidding me? You’re the copycat, and now you don’t like to be copied? Guess the counterfeit dislike counterfeit … how does that work?

My second cruise trip.

On board the ship: 2 star out of 5. Grossly over priced.

It claims to be the best river cruise in China and the price reflects it. They say the Yangzi River cruise is to be taken again and again (18 times is the current record). If I were to retake the journey (most likely not), definitely will NOT be this shitty boat.

• Cost for 3 night: the 3rd level double with a balcony is
  

^{There is plenty space ahead but she parks with the tail on the single lane road}

On this trip, I get to know a few more friends and relatives and even travelled with a few of them. Two of them drove the rental car – later I found out that this was new to them. By no mean to put anyone down but the way they drive and park are less than ideal, once was downright dangerous: parking on the middle of a highway, looking for which way to go. For reason I didn’t quite understand that the GPS wasn’t working and my Google map was useless in China. “Please just take the exit and we can figure it out once we’re off the road.”

I don’t think they’re meant or rude people, just have less common sense or courtesy to others. This is how they park. The drivers are about 60 years old and were educated by the top universities in China.

This video shows an old man with a big bag on a busy 4 lanes street (two on each side) trying to stop a car. After a prolonged moment, a black sedan stopped. First the passenger came out then the driver. Both are women. She opened the truck for the big bag. (After putting in the bag, the man gets into the truck too … ). The video is praising the driver for helping. But I see more: she puts herself and many fellow motorist in danger by stopping, and parts rather far from the curb, which means her car is very close to the dotted line.

Common sense and courtesy … is that too difficult to have?!?