Jonathan's blog

Yesterday I received my first real promotion since joining Dow Chemical in Corporate R&D in 1999. There were several mini-promotions in the first few years on the "development curve", but those are automatic as long as you're still breathing and still with the company. This was the first real promotion. It was a pleasant surprise though not completely unanticipated (since it was about time considering how long I've been with the company). The relatively flat organizational structure means that realistically I can only expect at most one more promotion during my career (since I'm not a high-flyer, rapidly climbing the corporate ladder...to mix metaphors). And maybe not even that. Obviously, promotions are not what I'll be working for/towards.

Last Saturday we celebrated a belated Chinese new year with folks from church. A Chinese couple from our church arranged for the preparation of a ton of Chinese food, made a presentation about Chinese new year traditions, and arranged for a beginner Chinese orchestra to perform. It was a lot of fun. Here are a few pics:

While running on the treadmill this afternoon, I finished watching Three Seasons (1999,PG-13) (ScreenIt! Review). From the Wikipedia entry:

Three Seasons is an American Vietnamese language movie filmed in Vietnam about the past, present, and future of Ho Chi Minh City in the early days of New Vietnam. It is a poetic film that tries to paint a picture of the urban culture undergoing westernization. The movie takes place in Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon. As the characters try to come to terms with the invasion of capitalism, neon signs, grand 5-star hotels, and Coca-Cola signs, their paths begin to merge.

It has a plodding pace, but I don't mind. I give it 4 out of 5.

A couple weeks back we celebrated Gary's birthday with some cake and ice cream on Saturday, mongolian bbq for lunch on Sunday, and bowling Sunday afternoon. Lisa was the bowling champ. Jonathan brought up the rear, even losing to most of the kids. Here are some photos and a couple videos:

And if that isn't enough pictures, there are a bunch more here (and I've started uploading photos to the Picasa web album at high enough quality that they should print well and you can order them from Shutterfly...just click the order prints button).