LittleBuddhaTW

Trebs continues to insist that Dan and I were separated at birth ... I think I behaved myself quite well this time ... you should've seen us in San Francisco ... lol

Lunch was a lot of fun. It was great to see Dan and Trebs again, as well as Rigel, and it was nice to finally meet Sharon, SonoLuminus and her husband ("The Other Joe" lol), and Robbie (who's quite the cutie, I must say ...). I hope we can all get together again soon! Have fun at the festivities over the next few days for those of you still in DC, and try to stay warm!

Thanks guys (and gals)! I'll try to enjoy it! *Hugz* Buddha

Hahaha ... there are actually a couple of nice bars/restaurants up in Rockville if you have any extra time to come up this way and hang out, or I can swing down to DC another evening while you're here and hit a bar (or two).

Hey all! You can count me in for Sunday! I'm only a couple metro stops away from Dupont Circle (I'll be coming from the Rockville metro station). Unfortunately, I don't get down to DC too often, so I'm not sure about a good place to eat, but I can ask around work on Monday. A good place to meet up would probably be at the Dupont metro station, and then we can all walk from there. I haven't been able to get onto GA much lately because work's been crazy, but please send me a PM when everything is confirmed, and I'll make sure to carve a few hours out of my schedule to come hang out. It'll be nice to see Dan, Trebs and Rigel again, and I'm just dying to finally meet the fabulous Sharon! *Hugs* Buddha

Not sure if I've ever told anyone the background story on the character "Ryan" in SOOTB, but he was based (in terms of physical appearance, at least) on a boy (also named Ryan ... hehe) that I met at a karate tournament when I was 18. We were hosting the tournament down in Florida, and he came down all the way from Ohio to compete. Anyway, I thought he was incredibly hot, so after the tournament, I invited him to come back to Florida a few months later to attend an informal gathering of the group of karate schools that I belonged to (about 50 of us who gathered down in Florida 2-3 times per year to hang out, train, and have fun). Shortly after I wrote to invite him, his mom called me and said she was buying him a plane ticket as an early Christmas present to come down to visit, and needless to say, I was TOTALLY psyched, because I'd developed a bit of a crush on him ... like I said, he was hot ... I didn't even really know him, only talked with him very briefly at the tournament and watched him fight a couple times (he won the junior fighting division, by the way -- he was very good). Anyway, he stayed at my place for the long weekend and we hung out and had a good time. He turned out to be really nice and we had an incredible time. I was too much of a chicken sh*t to say or do anything, but enjoyed the time we spent together (especially the time spent rolling around on the ground together, pretending we were actually 'training' ... lol). When he left to go back to Ohio, I went to shake his hand, but he grabbed me and hugged me, and I almost messed my shorts. We wrote back and forth for a little while, but eventually lost touch until a few months ago when I found him on Facebook ... and, come to find out, he really is gay! If only I'd known that back then .......... *sigh*

In my last blog, I mentioned my frustration at getting my company's ownership to hire additional staff that I think we need, particularly this really, REALLY hot boy (we'll just call him "Ben" for now) that I interviewed at the end of August. Anyway, things have been happening very fast over the past few days, much to the surprise of our management team. We've realized that we have to let an employee go (which is going to be very difficult -- she's been with the company for 6 years and everyone really likes her -- but, her skill set just doesn't match up with where we are heading now) ... so, I've been given the green light to go ahead and hire Ben. I'll be making an offer to him today. Since becoming a manager, this will be the first hiring and firing that I've done. It's also going to be a bit of a tumultuous 4th Quarter of the year, as we'll also be completely re-organizing our staff, in addition to the personnel changes. So, I expect it to be a very busy next few months. We're not really sure how several of the other employees are going to react to the release (we'll have a buffer of about a month of overlap, so that will give us some much needed transition time), so managing their expectations and reactions is going to be rough. We also might be letting our IT guy go in favor of hiring a third-party company to manage our entire network and IT development. That is going to be a challenge to manage as well, plus our IT guy is well-liked by most of the staff. Two releases in such a short period of time, plus all of the other major re-organization, is going to cause a lot of waves. Needless to say, I didn't get much sleep last night. It's never a pleasant thing to have to release someone, especially someone you like. I think it is the best decision for the company, though, so it has to be done. Anyway, Chapter 6 of WISYA is almost done. I'm going to try and have it ready for Sharon to review by the end of the weekend.

I actually like the chest hair and stubble ... very sexy. I never really thought he was cute as Harry Potter, but he sure has gotten sexy as he's matured.

For any of you who haven't heard about the recent article on Daniel Radcliffe in "Details" magazine (including his confessions of losing his virginity at age 16 to an "older woman" and his desire to play a drag queen), here is the link: http://men.style.com/details/blogs/thegada...cliff.html#more

Hmmm ... well, I don't usually wear underwear, but when I do, it is usually boxers ...

DAN!!!! You know, there were a couple parts that I was thinking of you when I was writing! Can you guess which ones? hehe

I'm really glad we've got a long weekend coming up. This past week has been crazy busy, and one of my project managers has been on vacation all week, so I've had to pick up about half of her workload, in addition to my own. To make matters worse, on Wednesday, our whole network went down, and I was stuck at the office until after 9 PM supervising our IT guy as he troubleshooted the issue. We finally figured out that it was a problem with the firewall. It's never pleasant when our network goes down, because it affects our internet connection, internal network, phones ... everything. Basically, we can't do any work, and since we're a transactional business, the work piles up FAST. Our Chief Operating Officer and I have come to realize that we really need more manpower to handle the volume and complexity of work we've been receiving. Unfortunately, convincing our Ownership to bring on new employees is like pulling teeth from an angry wolverine. We're shooting for a hire in the next 60 days or so, so hopefully it will happen. I've started interviewing prospects, and yesterday interviewed probably the hottest guy I've ever met. We all like him a lot and would love to bring him on immediately ... it's now up to Ownership to decide if we can pull the trigger. I currently manage a team of 7 employees (plus hundreds of sub-contractors), but the new guy would be my own personal assistant, therefore working VERY closely with me ... *sigh* And did I mention that he's REALLY hot??? I mean really, really, really HOT ... Anywho, Chapter 5 of WISYA is now posted. As usual, Sharon did a wonderful editing job! Please stop by the discussion forum and let me know your thoughts. Feedback is what keeps me inspired to write, so please don't be shy ... *nudge nudge*

Chapter 5 is now posted ... http://littlebuddhatw.gayauthors.org/WISYA/WISYA5.html Many, many thanks to Sharon for a wonderful editing job! Chapter 5 marks the end of Part 1. Chapter 6 is underway, and I hope to have it completed before too long. ENJOY!

I just finished watching the last of the semi-finals in the Little League World Series tournament. I was really pulling for the Florida and Maryland teams, but they both got defeated by Louisiana, and Louisiana will now be going to the U.S. championship game on Saturday, facing the team from Hawaii. The Louisiana team is very impressive, and their ace pitcher reminds me a lot of Grady, mainly in that he throws over 80 mph. That's very impressive for a 12 year old kid, and is the equivalent of 100-104 mph at the Major League level. When I was that age, I could throw around 70 mph, and that's still really hard, so 80 mph is just unbelievable. I've watched more of the tournament than I did last year, because the Detroit Tigers have been sucking so bad, and there's no other good sports to watch until college football starts a week from Saturday. I can't wait for that, when Coach Urban Meyer unleashes Tim Tebow on the SEC. It'll be a very interesting season, and I think Florida has a chance at the national championship, if they can get past Georgia. Anyway, on to more important things ... I just sent Chapter 5 of WISYA to Sharon for editing. It ended up being longer than I'd originally planned, because I wanted to get all of the LLWS stuff wrapped up in this chapter. Starting with Chapter 6, we'll get to find out what happens next in Grady's life, who he meets, and how he deals with his growing awareness of how he's different from the other boys. There should be a few interesting twists and turns along the way -- some adversity, some new friends, and some continuing relationships ... It should be ready to post by the end of next week, so please keep checking back ...

It wasn't much different than the Arirang festival in North Korea. There's an old saying in Chinese, "Even when you take a cow to Beijing, it's still a cow." (niu qian dao beijing, haishi niu) In other words, a leopard never changes its spots -- or, to be more clear, Communist China can throw around all the money and pomp it wants, but underneath, the regime, at heart, is no better than North Korea. It was a huge mistake to give the Chinese government the legitimacy that the Olympics brings. I've lived there and saw the repressive regime first hand, hence the reason I decided to live long-term in Taiwan instead of China. Peace, LB

I'm slightly adverse to watching the Olympics because of where it's being held and how they've treated Taiwan, in particular. With that said, I'll try to tune in for the diving, and I'll be rooting for GB's Tom Daley ... quite the impressive little athlete. I'll probably watch baseball, too.

It's been a long time coming (almost a whole year!), but Chapter 4 of "When I See You Again" has finally been posted. Many, many thanks to Sharon for a wonderful editing job. Chapter 5 is under way ... not sure when it'll be ready, but I'm shooting for at least one chapter per month, maybe a little more for a while, since I'll have some extra time to write during my vacation, which starts next week. Please be sure to stop by my discussion forum and leave your comments on the new chapter. Readers' feedback is what keeps me inspired to write, so keep it coming! Take care, and have a great weekend! *Hugz* Buddha

Chapter 4 has finally been posted ... http://littlebuddhatw.gayauthors.org/WISYA/WISYA4.html I've also re-posted Chapters 1-3 with some minor tweaks, for those of you who want to go back and re-read. As usual, many many thanks to Sharon for editing! Enjoy!

Yeah, I'm much more of a college football fan than pro, but that may because my team, the Detroit Lions, absolutely suck. My college team, however, the Florida Gators, is going to spank every other team in the SEC this year. Tim Tebow is the greatest college quarterback ever to have played the game ... and he's H-O-T!!!

Yeah yeah, I know it's been a long time ... but, the good news is that I've just finished writing Chapter 4 of "When I See You Again" and sent it to Sharon. Hopefully it will be ready to post by next weekend. I plan on starting Chapter 5 tonight, and hopefully can make some good progress tomorrow, since I have a day off from work. Over the past couple of months, I've gone back and re-read almost all of the stories listed on my "favorite stories" page, and that helped motivate me, in addition to being in the heart of the baseball season. I've got another vacation from August 15-24, so I should get a lot written then, and that just so happens to be when the Little League World Series is on! Anyway ... I went to Seattle for the 4th of July to visit my aunt and uncle, and we had a GREAT time. I got to see all the sights, enjoyed the AMAZING view of Lake Washington from my aunt's deck, and even went to Safeco Field to watch the Seattle Mariners play the Detroit Tigers (unfortunately, my Tigers lost! ) One really cool thing, though ... my uncle is best friends with the actor who plays 'Dr. Anspaugh' on the show "E.R.", and he went to the game with us ... VERY interesting guy! One last thing ... I still get quite a bit of email about SOOTB. I just checked my mail tonight, and a woman (or girl -- I'm not sure) had found the story while searching for Elton John lyrics, and she wrote to tell me how much she loved it. Kinda makes me wonder how many people have come across my story that way! lol Well, I don't want to take up too much time writing this, and I should get back to working on Chapter 5! *Hugz* Buddha

Hey guys, sorry I've been out of touch for so long ... things have been really hectic since I got my promotion at work, and I'm doing a lot of translation work in addition to that, so I haven't had much time for anything other than working. But, I'm still here, and I still plan on writing ... I just need a little time for things to get settled down! *Hug*

Hey guys, sorry for being absent for so long! I just recently got a promotion at work (I'm the 'boss' now! ), plus doing extra translation work in my spare time for extra money, so I haven't even had time to read anything, let alone write! I'm alive and well, though, and will get back to it before too long. Chapter 4 of WISYA is about half-done, but I just need to get up the energy to sit down and finish it, and go through the editing process with Sharon. The good news, though, is that baseball season has just started up, so that will give me some much-needed inspiration (I hope!). Anyway, sorry for worrying you guys ... I'm fine and I'll be back soon! *Hugz* Buddha

Happy 25th Birthday, Sharon!!!!!! I'm VERY lucky to have you as an editor (and friend), and I appreciate everything you've done for me over the past couple of years, not just editing my stories, but your excellent advice and support as well!

Dan, you just had to take a picture of my ass at the beach, didn't you? Or was that Trebs? lol

Well, Dan and I are starting on a new collaboration ... San Francisco provided LOTS of good ideas ... STAY TUNED!