Going to the new Hollywood casino tonight at the KC Speedway. Special guest flying in? Wiz. Oh boy. This could be a costly night. I'm bringing Carol along to be the adult watching over us. The last time Carol watched over Wiz and I, Wiz went on one of the craziest runs in BJ I've ever seen, only to walk away with a small gain because he didn't know how to press properly. After the dealer berated him for his play, I think we lost his winnings betting on black.
And my hiatus will be over on playing UTH. Lasted a little over three months. Not bad for an addict.
Feb 15, 2012
Feb 8, 2012
State of the art Airports
Well, you know the drill by now. 7-8 days of silence followed by one day of 3 or 4 posts crammed together. Today is your lucky day, dear reader!As most of you know from past posts, we went to Thailand for Chinese New Year. We spent the first few days in Chiang Mai and then went to the southeastern island of Ko Chang.
In order to get to Ko Chang, you flew from BKK in a prop plane (Freddie and Warren both asked - is that a real plane???) for 45 minutes and landed at the small town/city of Trat. From there, you took a van and a ferry to the island.
The Trat airport was built in the late 1990's and should have a movie shot there in the near future. It is what you'd imagine an isolated, tropical airport to be. Where is Higgins --- or Tattoo?
The first picture is from the runway (we were on a golf cart heading to the plane on departure) looking back at the airport. The entire airport.
The second picture is the departure "lounge" - simply an open air hut (with a 2 foot fence around it, for security reasons!). The golf cart you see is the one that took us to the plane.
Calling all Butch Harmons out there
Well, this ought to get the comments flowing.
Over the Christmas holiday, we went to Sanya - the southernmost island in China- and I took Freddie (who is now 10, almost 11) golfing. He played about 12 or 13 complete holes, scoring legitimate 8's or 9's on most of them. it was a lot of fun - that's just about the age I was when I first went on a real course with my dad...... (ah, the fine Pine Ridge GC in East Lansing, MI....)
Anyway, for your pleasure, you can compare and contrast the swings here. Freddie's ball went about 120-130 yards down the middle. I was impressed.
My foot slipped on my swing, so we don't need to talk about where it landed.
Over the Christmas holiday, we went to Sanya - the southernmost island in China- and I took Freddie (who is now 10, almost 11) golfing. He played about 12 or 13 complete holes, scoring legitimate 8's or 9's on most of them. it was a lot of fun - that's just about the age I was when I first went on a real course with my dad...... (ah, the fine Pine Ridge GC in East Lansing, MI....)
Anyway, for your pleasure, you can compare and contrast the swings here. Freddie's ball went about 120-130 yards down the middle. I was impressed.
My foot slipped on my swing, so we don't need to talk about where it landed.
Chinese Writing
So I'm trying to figure out a little bit about how you actually write Chinese characters. In general - on signs, in most books- you read left to right. (However, bus listings are different; the stops for a particular bus route are read from top to bottom).
This left-to-right direction is just a general guide, however. I guess it is more correct to say that you read from "front" to "back". For instance, the Chinese characters for "China Southern" - the big airline in Guangzhou - start at the front door of the plane. If you are looking at a plane, and the nose is on the left and the tail on the right, the China Southern name (in Chinese) would start on the left and be read from left to right.
However, on the other side of the plane - where the nose-to-tail direction is right to left - the characters are reversed. The first character is the right-most character, since it is near the "front",and the characters are read from right to left.
Got all that? It's the same way for buses, too. The name of the company is read in the door - to - back direction, whether it is left to right or right to left.
The next question, of couse, is how the English translation of the company name is written? Here is an actual picture of the bus used to transport us from the plant to the hotel up near Shanghai. Obviously, the door is on the right, so the Chinese characters are read right to left....why wouldn't the English characters be read in the same way?
This would make a good sobriety test in the states... "please read this text"......on second thought, maybe you have to be drunk to read this clearly......
This left-to-right direction is just a general guide, however. I guess it is more correct to say that you read from "front" to "back". For instance, the Chinese characters for "China Southern" - the big airline in Guangzhou - start at the front door of the plane. If you are looking at a plane, and the nose is on the left and the tail on the right, the China Southern name (in Chinese) would start on the left and be read from left to right.
However, on the other side of the plane - where the nose-to-tail direction is right to left - the characters are reversed. The first character is the right-most character, since it is near the "front",and the characters are read from right to left.
Got all that? It's the same way for buses, too. The name of the company is read in the door - to - back direction, whether it is left to right or right to left.
The next question, of couse, is how the English translation of the company name is written? Here is an actual picture of the bus used to transport us from the plant to the hotel up near Shanghai. Obviously, the door is on the right, so the Chinese characters are read right to left....why wouldn't the English characters be read in the same way?
This would make a good sobriety test in the states... "please read this text"......on second thought, maybe you have to be drunk to read this clearly......
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