I haven’t written a blog for some time as our lives were thrown into chaos early December when an electrical fire forced us out of our home. Then numerous hacker attacks crippled my website making it hard to post much.

Things have been rough for us in China since we decided to come here. But dealing with an electrical fire like this because of the lousy quality of workmanship here would normally be too much to bear.
Luckily I didn’t lose any of my work, and a lot of the studio equipment was ok, and so was little Evan & all of us, so that made it possible to rebuild our lives.

My Macbook Pro computer didn't survive...

But what really gave us the will to go on and feel any interest in being in China was the kindness and assistance of the Chinese people. They are quite different than the more individualistic people in the west. And the Baha’is here really went out of their way to assist us try and rebuild our lives. It was one of the most touching things we’ve experienced.
Thanks so much to all of you, to my mom, who sent Evan a sleeper that arrived the day of the fire so he had something to sleep in, and most of all to the Mahony family, without whom we would be truly destitute.

We are now in the process of getting a new place to live and setting up and building a new studio.

I could  share a lot more, but this experience and everything else that has gone on here has made me weary, and for legal reasons,  I will say no more except that things could have been worse.

We’ve been having such an amazing time raising dear Evan, he is such a precious, smart, friendly and happy boy!
We sure are lucky. So his first birthday was a great cause for celebration!
On November 30th, we celebrated 12 months old, 6 months since he joined our family.
Here are some photos from the party and special day we spent with him:

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Missing from these photos – His first taste of ice cream! Blueberry Soy flavor.

The music video I shot and produced for Elika Mahony’s song ‘Where There Is Love’ was chosen as official selection for the Dawn Breakers International film festival happening this weekend in San Diego California.

You can read more about the video and song I produced and mixed on Elika’s blog.

You can watch it on Youtube here, or on Youku.com in China below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dN6dal3mwK8

For viewers in China:

I’ve haven’t been able to blog much lately, even though I’ve never actually had so much to blog about…
That’s because even the simplest things seem to take so long in China and eat up a lot of your time.

Every day here in Beijing I see something that would blow your mind and often I take photos.
Wish I could share it all with you…

All I can leave you with for now is this – Lay’s certainly know how to market their products to a different culture!
One of many very bizarre potato chip flavors in Beijing, China:

I’ve seen a lot of crazy stuff in China, but this is the best one so far:

Would you eat at this restaurant?

I’ve been living in Beijing for over a month now, trying to figure out how to blog about all that has happened here and what a dramatic shift it’s been living in China. There is simply too much to write about and not enough time!

So I’ll simply share that we’ve moved into our new home, and the new studio is now ready, looking great and sounding fantastic! It’s the best quality studio I’ve had in my 20 years as a music producer and sound engineer.

I’ll blog more about the studio soon. If your in Beijing, come by the open house:
Sunday, September 26th, 2pm to 5pm

Please contact me to rsvp to let me know your coming.

Happy Mid Autumn / Moon festival!

Today marks one more week before our big move to Beijing China. I’ve never felt ‘prepared’ and I still don’t.
I can still hardly believe we’re actually doing this to be honest, even though I know it’s the right thing to do for us.

I’ve been appreciating the luxuries and conveniences that we’ve had in Vancouver because we won’t have those things in China, but I’m looking forward to the adventure that awaits us there, and other things that will potentially improve our quality of life.

First thing I will be doing when we arrive is setting up the new sound studio with some equipment and cables that I had custom made in Vancouver that I’ll be bringing to make it functional so I can get back to work finishing projects that have started for my waiting clients. We also have to get some appliances to make our place livable, but our things won’t be there for months, so that should make life interesting.

I’ll miss our friends and family that we’ve enjoyed visiting with the last few weeks, but the calling for China’s strong, and I need to get back to work in the new studio.

I’ll be back to North America at least once a year or possibly every 10 months or so depending on how things go.
To get in touch when I’m outside the country, you can leave  a message on my normal mobile number, or use the new Pro Soul number: (213) 908-1284.
Email is best though, and you can message me for my new number in Beijing.

And remember, if you want to work on a project or visit, we have a guest room.

Very excited and curious about embarking on this adventure living in a totally new culture and environment.

We adopted Evan Binh Minh from Bac Ninh, Vietnam on June 17th, 2010 at the age of 6 months. Like most orphans, he was listless and quiet. But within only a month with 2 parents, his development was rapid, and he changed dramatically. Just look:

Here’s a link to the video if you want to share it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W04FnjG5TZA

This is a great example of the importance of children having a proper family care for them.

Over a relentless 5 year process trying to adopt an infant, I’ve learned that politicians, institutions, and even non profit organizations like Unicef around the world feel that it’s best children stay left abandoned in orphanages or foster care in their own countries rather than be adopted internationally.
That is no kind of life, and I think children deserve better!

But the diseased world we live in has much higher priorities right now than children… things like the stock market, military, and politics.

We recently took an incredible journey to one of the most beautiful parts of Vietnam, Ha Long Bay while we’re waiting for citizenship paperwork to be completed for the recent adoption of our boy Evan Binh Minh. It’s around the middle of the Vietnam and China ocean, where the red A is below:

We had a fantastic 2 day cruise on the excellent Indochina Sails. Their boats are very classic, in between a Chinese junk ship, and an classic wood Galleon ship. It was really incredible, kind of like being in a Pirates of the Caribbean or Lord of the Rings movie! It was our first cruise and we really enjoyed it, very luxurious, but cheaper than a hotel!
The bay is between Vietnam and China, and has hundreds of islands, caves, and exciting wonders, with lots of local fishing boats.

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Part of the tour of the bay included swimming in the warm, very salty ocean on a beach off one of the islands. It was Evan’s first time in the ocean, he was mesmerized!
Then, we were taking to a floating fishing village subsidized by the Vietnam government. Everything on water, including floating stores that came up to our boat with their wares, latched right beside us as we were travelling, and a floating school! It was truly unreal how these people live where they work. You can see all of this in the photos below:

Finally, we went to a cave called surprise cave that was a massive underground cavern inside one of the island mountains! There were even live bats inside that we saw hanging around, and since we were the first visitors to the cave in the morning, we got to see them in their natural habitat flying around the back of the cave! Evan was asleep and suddenly woke up inside this cave, I wonder what he thought? He seemed quite fascinated.

We wished it was longer and will definitely be back for a longer tour, as there is so much to see in this beautiful place, the photos give a tiny glimpse of what you see when your there. I highly recommend you visit this part of the world… Fascinating!