Nice 2 Meat You

Steve, I expect a full review this summer of this burger that will be sold at Canal Park. Canal Park is in Akron, home of the Akron Aeros (the AA-affiliate of the Tribe).

"1 ¼ lb. hamburger, stuffed with a ½ lb. hot dog, and ¼ lb. of bacon, cheese, and onions.". That makes a good jingle.


It looks so bad...but I want one.

US Geography lessons needed

So the main airline I fly here is China Southern. It's a partner of Delta's, so I get to rack of the miles flying from Guangzhou to Taiwan, or Guangzhou to Beijing, etc. The miles are actually being credited, so that's good!

I was flipping through the route maps in the back of the airline magazine on one trip. One purpose was to figure out all the cities in China that I have heard in conversations, but have no clue where the location is. (Urumqi? Ha'erbin?)

I stopped at the section where it showed all the internation flights - especially the flights from China/Asia to North America. As usual, it showed two "colors" of flights - one in blue that were actual China Southern flights; the other was in red, which were codeshare flights. Apparently, Delta and Continental hubs were included.

The one "blue" flight was the non-stop from Guangzhou to LA.

There were a few reds to the middle of the US - to Atlanta, to Cincinnati, and to Cleveland - all hubs for Delta (the first two) and Continental.

The map had no borders - it was just a picture of the North American continent but with no countries shown.

So, now picture yourself as the person that needs to put the city dots on this map. How would you describe where Atlanta is?
"Just north of that peninsula in the lower quadrant of that mass in the north".

Done -Atlanta was pretty well placed.

Cincinnati? "Well, just kind of north of Atlanta"
Cincinnati looked like a suburb of Atlanta on the map, but ok.

Cleveland? "Well, it's on the south shore of the Great lake."

Well, unfortunately, the Great Lakes did not appear on this map. So Cleveland, on this map, is seen at the southern tip of Hudson Bay. At least 1200 miles north of the Cincinnati-Atlanta metroplex.

I'll have to get a picture of this to show it. I don't think I am doing the map justice.

Clothing Blogging

OK, trying to resume blogging after a layoff. I need to make sure I take my VPN login information when I travel so I can blog from hotel rooms in China (when I seem to have the time).

Two quick notes on clothing:

1. How much clothing should one pack when moving to another country?

Now, before answering...

How much clothing should you pack if you knew that your laundry would be done every day?!?!

The answer is that I packed way too much. Don't need to have 15 pairs of underwear when they are washed every day!

I have too many pants, dress shirts, golf shirts, etc......many haven't been touched yet. And why not? When you have a rotation of 5 favorite work outfits - why change if they are all clean and rady to go?

2. When did you all say: "Where's my winter coat?" for the first time this season? November 17th? December 2nd?

For me, it was last Sunday - and that's only because I had to travel to the north of China. It's nice living in the tropics! It may get to 70 next week! :)

The first of many?

I wonder if next year, at this time, I will be freaking out....

I'm celebrating by going over a friend's house tomorrow morning (still technically my birthday in the US) and watch the National Championship game. I'll be munching on a bag full of Sausage McMuffins with Egg.

Game Time beverage

During our trip to Taiwan, I needed to get a pop out of the vending machine.

Here was one of the multitude of choices in that machine. It was hard, but I had to pass on "Root SARS".

By the way, this is the beverage that most Browns fans drink every Sunday from 1999-preseny.

Let's not make any rash decisions

Hello everyone. It's been a while since the last post, and I have a ton of topics to cover. So there will be a big posting dump over the next 5-7 days or so.

Hope everyone had a good New Year's. My parents came in for Christmas, which was very nice. They left on New Year's Eve and got to the airport well ahead of their scheduled departure time. Dad was feeling a little queasy that morning, so we gave him some medicine before taking him to the airport.

As I was riding home after dropping them off, it occurred to me that they have no way to reach me! Dad's blackberry wasn't working, and his email stopped working for the last 2 days of the trip. The paranoid person in me started worrying - what if Dad gets sicker? How will they reach me? Do they even have my number written down?

I was playing with Martin in our apartment's children's area later that afternoon. I looked at my phone and I somehow missed a call 2 minutes ago - from an unknown number. Now I started to worry a bit more. Who is this? Did Dad grab a cell phone from an unknown Chinese person in the airport to get a hold of me?

I dialed the number back. It was a recording - all in Mandarin - and as I heard it, I could pick out a lot of numbers in the message. What exactly is this?

I texted our driver to see if he could call the number and tell me what the message is.

His response:
"Just harassing phone calls, promote gambling"

Hey now! Just wait a minute! Let's not rush to judgement on those recorded phone calls!

I may have to give that number another call once the NFL season is over!