New Apartment!

Our new apartment! Sorry for the bad scan. Will try to get a better one next time we're in Jiuting.

From Shanghai, China- Miscellaneous Pics

But here it is! This is what we just bought here in Shanghai. 132 sqm (1420 square feet), the place will be ready in another 9 months. The building, as well as a third of the apartment complex is still being built. When it's finished though, it'll be a rather beautiful place to live, both the apartment and the surrounding areas.

Yesterday, we spent the day in Jiuting again, looking at various places, our fourth trip there. We saw one place that we liked, in a building already finished, but the asking price was too high. Some people there, who bought their places before the economic meltdown, paid a much higher price, and are now suddenly desperate to sell. Sell for a loss though, it's not going to happen. We passed on those ones, and someone from Bayside Garden told us of a special deal in the apartments near the main gate.

The people at Bayside were helpful. We told them that while we have the money, they're in accounts that if we pulled them out early, we would lose the interest earned on them. They however, came back and told us that they can match the interest. After a bit more negotiating, we got the price per sqare meter down to something more manageable (an effort to secure a lower rate of interest from the amount we still have to borrow) and afterwhich, we paid the deposit and signed the papers. On Friday, we'll go back to pay the down payment and arrange for the loan.


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What a light show in Edmonton Canada!

Caught by a police dashboard cam, the light in the background is a meteor entering the earth's atmosphere and disintegrating before landing.

Here's another view, a bit more close up.



Look for more when the clips finish

So who actually took the photos of Fomalhaut B?

We now finally see who actually took the photos. Good job, Google News & Starfleet!

We finally Photographed a Planet!

After all this time of talk about finding other planets, artists' renditions and all that, we finally got a clear picture of a planet! Yep, it's a dot. Well, 2 in that picture. Click it for a bigger picture.

This is only one picture of one planet out of hundreds of planets we've discovered in the last several years. Some are close and some are far. But the question is, how many planets remain undiscovered?

Here's a small look (only 32 megs) at one section of the universe and by all means, you tell me how many planets there may be.

No more Olympics!!!

Wow, I should really post! Been to Yangshuo but the wife has all the pics on her compy. Went through a summer term working days for a change, company's growing and all that, saw pics of Sienna in her knickers (her fault. she blogged them!), quit smoking again, started smoking again, quit again, joined a softball league, 2nd best team in Shanghai, and that's even after taking body shots from hookers' belly buttons, sucked at Golden Tee, watched the Olympics (did I mention they're OVER in 2 days?), regained my special "insomnia" skill, permed it too, I think, and lots of other stuff. Will have to update, I suppose.

Charities & Why we do what we do

Tonight wrapped up a weekend full of benefits for the Library Project. Overall, the weekend was successful. Tom, the founder of Library Project was quite happy with the overall turnout of the weekend's events, and the money that was raised was enough to build three, possibly four more libraries out in the countryside of China. Don't quote me on this though, I'm not the LP accountant by any means.

The one thing we'd talked about though that stuck in my mind the most was why people do this sort of thing. I looked at my own case first.

I run a small website hosting & development company here in Shanghai. As always, I want people to know about it and use my services. Duh! What small-business owner doesn't. In walks Tom of the Library Project.

I've known Tom for quite sometime actually, as we'd been colleagues in a company based in Dalian, China. Good company, a bit mis-managed sometimes, but overall, enthusiastic and active in the LP. He told me of his plans that eventually became the Library Project charity.

Fast-forward one year. Personally, I'd set up one event to get books for his charity, and at that time, it wasn't exactly established. Not registered in the US, not registered in the PRC either. He simply did it in his spare time. I took my website name, JinanLIVE.com and threw it at LP. We raised about 40 books for his project.

Fast-forward another 2 years... now, in Shanghai for the last three years, and again, still in contact with Tom. But now I run TeraScape. Thus starts my own case of shameless self-promotion. Our 3-sentence closing conversation ended with a simple unanswered question, why do we, why do the people who showed up & contributed, why does anyone do what they do for charity? Why do I and others involved in this weekend's events do it? I organized a big barbeque fund-raiser for LP at Kommune Kafe, here in Shanghai. Why?

Because I can PROMOTE it. I'm a prolific poster on Shanghai Expat with close to 8000 posts on that site. Everytime I post, my sig file is on there. What's my sig file?

"
_________________

~ Website Hosting in China
C:/Dos ~ C:/Dos/Run ~ Run/Dos/Run

"

Short, not very clever, but the image links to my company. I promote LP on Shanghai Expat and with every promotion, my OWN link goes on there. Overall, it's indirectly self-promotion. I also use my company login on other sites, like City Weekend, SH Magazine, Shanghaiist (new favorite website!) That's Shanghai... you name it, all promoting Library Project, but all with some small, unsymbolic link back to me and my company.

"So what the hell is your point?" you're asking yourself now. The point is, those of us involved with charities, don't always do it because we want to help charities. It's also self-serving.

"Sounds AWFUL!" you say to yourself (or you've already stopped reading). But it isn't. I couldn't do a THIRD of what I did this weekend if it weren't for my clients. I couldn't do a FIFTH of what I did if it weren't for other charities and the lessons I learned there (Warren Jaycees, Kudos!).

The point is, support your local charities, but also support the people behind the charities. If they don't have business, then they're not going to be in any position to support or be a part of any charities. When we do stuff, it's not always because we simply can. We want to because our situation allows us to do that. We actually enjoy doing this, and if your situation doesn't allow you to be active, all you have to do is support the companies whose situation does. In the overall big picture, you're also doing something for charity.

More on Library Project at http://www.library-project.com.

Sea of JAPAN

One, it's the fucking Sea of Japan, not the Sea of Korea.

Two, The map was published in China. If they see fit to call it the Sea of Japan, argue with them, not me.

Three, it's a fucking map. I don't give a rat's ass. World opinion doesn't always go with China or America either. Get used to it.

Four, when the kid's got ADHD, he can't fucking help it. I'm not punishing him for something he can't control. Trust me. I know from 3 years of Ritalin enduced experience.

Ranting over.

Sichuan Earthquake

By now, most people know of the news about Sichuan's Earthquake. For the sake of those back home, we were nowhere near that area, so it's all good here (I know what your China geography is like. ;) ). Shanghaiist is posting the story, with over 100 updates already. Check it out here.

Reuters also has news & pics.

Red Cross donation information is here.

Happy Int'l Workers Day!

Here and in other communist/socialist states, today is May Day, also called International Workers day. According to the wikipedia:

In the United States, Labor Day is celebrated on the first Monday in September instead of on May 1. This Labor Day was a creation of the 1880s Knights of Labor and was adopted officially in 1887 in the U.S. in an attempt to disassociate labor activism from the radical left. In 1958, President Dwight D. Eisenhower proclaimed May 1 both as Loyalty Day and as Law Day. Each year, the sitting president proclaims these observances on May 1.

Because of this, I thought I'd share some photos of North Korea. A friend of mine, David Akast, from England took a trip there late last year, and took the photos shown here: http://picasaweb.google.com/davidakast/NorthKorea

As an American, I obviously can't go there, as they'd shoot me on site, though I did manage to get to the border between the DPRK & China, in the city of Dandong in the fall of 2006. Interesting seeing the North Koreans coming across the bridge between Dandong, China & Sinojiu, DPRK.

Anyways, have fun at work. The commies have today off!!!

What? Post? Oh Crap...

Yep, I've temporarily abandoned yet another blog, but it's all good. I'm back with a vengeance!

What's new? Let me think... the locals are protesting LV and Carrefour. Carrefour is dealing with it while LV has come out and said the protesters boycotting LV can't afford their products anyways. They're probably right. Grace has suggested reading Han Han's blog (Google Translated) for one Chinese Netizen's reactions to all the Pro-China, anti-everyone else ferver going on. The writer, Han Han quit high school and has thus spared himself from traditional Chinese education. Judging by the comments on some of his posts, his "more educated" compatriots don't exactly understand what he's talking about. Google Translate doesn't help much, but you'll get the drift, I'm sure.

More later.