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May 26 Once around the block - oh, and stop at the drive-in, pleaseWhen I was a kid, I remember that on occasion mom and dad would pile us all into the back seat of our beloved pink and white Ford Fairlane (we'd named her Passie because my dad liked to drive fast and we loved it when he passed all of the cars on the road!) and head off to the drive-in for a treat. We'd put on our pajamas, grab our pillows and a quilt or two and mom would load up a bag of snacks and off we'd go. It was always a good time.
I don't specifically remember many of the movies we saw, but I do remember the jostling for postion that my brother and sister and I did in the back seat, and the buzz of the mosquitos in the hot humid southeast Mo. air. We didn't have air conditioning at home so we weren't any more uncomfortable sitting outside to watch a movie than we would have been in our living room at home. Those 95+ degree days were so hot, that when the temps fell into the 80s at night it actually felt cold. It wasn't long after the sun went down and the movie started that we'd all three be cocooned in our quilts. Since normal bed-time was 9 p.m., it was a struggle for us to stay awake past the cartoon. My sister never made it - she'd be sound asleep leaning on me or my brother, long before Porky Pig stuttered 'thaaaaaat's all folks'. My brother and I would spend the next half-hour or so shrugging her back and forth to lean first on his shoulder and then mine... until we would finally fall asleep and leave mom and dad to enjoy the movie in relative peace.
By the time I was a teenager, drive-ins, in the south, had fallen victim to air-conditioned homes and multi-screened theater complexes. I thought they were gone forever, but the first Memorial Day after Joe and I got married he mentioned that the drive-in was open and showing Grease. I thought that was pretty cool, so we went and had a great time.
Last night we saw the new Indiana Jones movie at a restored drive in - the movie was good, a solid B, and just seeing Harrison Ford in that fedora again could arguably push that to a B+. The whole experience was totally cool. We got there early and there were lots of spaces to choose from. We were directed to park in the 'big vehicle' row next to the mom and dad vans, so we were right in the middle of little kids in pajmas, and middle kids tossing baseballs and footballs to each other in the aisles, and pre-teenage kids strolling back and forth between the consession stand and the family chariot.
We had consession-stand snacks for supper, hot dogs and hamburgers and fresh hot fries with seasoned salt...yum. I miss the old-fashioned speaker that used to hang on the window, but other than that, once I was snuggled up with my blanket and pillow, it was almost like those old days in Passie.
Here's the link to the website for the drive-in (that's definitely not like the old days!). It's called Twin HiWay Drive In, but there is only 1 screen right now. I think the 2nd screen is in the works. http://www.twinhiwaydrivein.com
I took a few pictures too...if you look closely, you'll see that there is a yellow taxi in one of the shots - do you think that the meter was running through the whole movie. What's the fare these days for a two-hour movie, and does that include snacks?
Kids playing catch - the kid in the black shirt was Mr. Cool.
Is the meter running?
May 25 Whole lot a Shakin going on...Another large after-shock occurred about 4:20 p.m. local time in China on Sunday. The US Geological Survey puts it at 6.0. Chinese seismologists are reporting that it was 6.4. Either way, it was a significant jolt. Early news releases indicate that fatalities were minimal compared to the May 12th quake, but that around 70,000 homes were destroyed. At this point, those structures have to be so weakened that they are just crumbling into rubble with each successive jolt. The devestation is unfathomable - both in the loss of human life and property damage. For the survivors, I'm sure they will live with the psycological damage for the rest of their lives. Even the damage to the national psyche will be long lasting too...I keep remembering how angry and victimized we felt as a nation after 9/11, and that was over a loss of fewer than 4000 people. I can only imagine the feeling that comes from knowing that more than 80,000 of your countrymen were killed in the blink of an eye. It chokes me up.
On a personal level, I'm more than a little nervous about this upcoming trip - my anxiety comes from several sources, some earthquake related, and some just plain old fear of the unknown. I'm trying to work through it, but I'm not sleeping well and as the trip gets closer, I'm getting grumpier by the minute, which Joe is quick to point out. He's feeling the stress too. He's worried and doesn't want me to go. My mom doesn't want me to go, I don't want me to go... but I don't want this hanging over my head for another year either, so at this point, I'm resigned to going and getting it over with.
We're undoubtly going to lose money - lots of money, boatloads of money, a person's whole yearly salary worth of money. I can't see any way that we'll be able to save this conference financially, but the cost of canceling it now would be even worse... cancellation penalties at hotels and convention centers don't come cheap, even in China. And, who knows what sort of damage we'd do to our reputation. We're just cultivating our international image and canceling our first international conference would not be good for that.
I'm hopeful that this experience will turn out to be one of those things that even though you dread it, and you can't wait for it to be over with, in the long run, you learn from it and are glad you experienced it.
Prayers are greatly appreciated - both for me and my traveling colleagues, but more importantly, for those millions of people who are directly affected by this horrible disaster.
May 24 Nothin could be finer than to be in Southern China in the Summmm-ah-ah-erI'm going to China - I probably should have been blogging about this for awhile, but I've been too busy being scared out of my wits to blog about it...
The center of earthquake that happened on May 12 is about 200 miles north west of where I'll be going. The city is called Chongqing and the population is about 29 million people, or around the combined populations of the top 16 US cities; New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Philladelphia, Phoenix, San Antonio, San Diego, Dallas, San Jose, Detroit, Indianapolis, Jacksonville Fla, San Francisco, Columbus OH, and Austin Tx. That's a lot of people that I won't be able to communicate with, which, considering my talkative nature, has me a bit concerned.
I've been working with very nice people at the Convention Center and at 2 Western-style hotels. Their names are Lucy, Jane and Sandy - somehow I don't think those are the names on their birth certificates. We've mostly been communicating via email, and they all are quite proficient in English. I've made a real effort to reduce my use of slang and Americanizations, and they seem to be trying really hard to figure out what I mean. They check and re-check about things that they don't clearly understand.
Lately I've been working on the menus for the meals we'll provide to our conference attendees - I got the proposal from the convention center this week and I'm going to try to attach it here so that you can see some of the delacacies that we'll be sampling... I'm looking forward to trying some of it, but other dishes... not so much. I think that I'll definitely pass on the Sliced Pig Ear with Oil Sauce and the Ox Tendon Jelly, but count me in for the Sauteed Shrimp with Chicken, Steamed Baby Lobster and the Sacher Cake, which is a traditional Chinese sweet cake... I'll definitely try that.
The menu below will be for our all-conference banquet on June 11. You can see the price is RMB158 per person which translates into about $23 per person. A menu that included Lobster and Shrimp and this many items would cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $200 per person, at a convention center or hotel in Boston or San Francisco.
中式晚宴GALA DINNER 时间time: 6月11日Jun.11th,19:00—21:30 地点avenue: 会议中心4楼宴会厅, 4F, Grand Banquet Hall, Convention Center 价格price: RMB 158 / Per.people (drinks & wines not included)
冷菜Cold dish:
热菜Hot dish:
点心Desert:
More on this subject later -
May 23 Un-Freakin-BelievableI'm taking a couple of days, or more accurately, portions of 2 days, off of work this week. I needed some downtime before I leave for China in a week or so. Have I mentioned that I'm going to China? I didn't think so... I guess in my mind, I thought it might just go away, but if a 7.9 earthquake centered 200 miles from where I'm going can't postpone my trip, I guess nothing will... I'll talk more about China later, but back to the original subject. Joe took today off as well and we spent a lazy morning just hangin out in our pajamas, and drinking coffee...ok, I spent a lazy morning hanging out in my pajamas and drinking coffee and Joe slept until Drew Carey called him to come on down and play the Price is Right. After tPiR, we had lunch at Olive Garden and made a dash through Wal-mart, dropping a quick $300 in Sam's coffers to do our part to help stimulate the economy. And then.... I needed gas, ok, I really needed gas, I'm having a hard time getting my head around $3.00+ a gallon for gas, so I've been putting it off ... and off... and off...until I was as close to empty as I've ever been in this car. I'm becoming obsessed with gas, I pass 3 gas stations on my way to work each day and I check the price at each one every morning and every afternoon... and it goes up every day.. not 1 or 2 cents per gallon, somedays it goes up 6 or 7 cents, one day it went up a dime from the time I passed the gas station in the morning until I come home that afternoon. Today, because Joe was in the car and one of his cardinal rules is that you don't let the gas guage go below 1/4 of a tank, and because I passed the 1/4 mark about 3 days ago, we filled up the car. I almost cried. The total was $70 and that was with a 10 cent per gallon discount from a local grocery store promotion... 70 freakin dollars just to buy a tank of gas... I just can not deal with this.... short of buying a horse and buggy I don't know what I can do about it, but it's really driving me crazy.
May 15 Baaa Baaa?An actual article from tonight's Pittsburgh Post Gazette - I don't even know what to say about this... but I laughed out loud.
Lamb's Sakes
Waynesburg will celebrate its annual Sheep and Fiber Festival from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday.
High Street will be closed to traffic but be open to sheep and people. There will be sheep-shearing and sheep-herding demonstrations, plus wool washing, carding, spinning and weaving demonstrations, as well as crafters, food (including lamb) and music.
Some sheep may escape the lamb grilling competition at 2 p.m. Saturday. For more information go to www.sheepandfiber.com. For those outside of Western PA, Waynesburgh has another goofy festival called 'Rain Day'. It's rained something like 110 of the last 130-something years on July 29 in Waynesburg, and the town celebrates it. Here's a link to that story - http://www.raindayfestival.com/. This town sounds like it could be located somewhere near Hooterville.
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