Click here. (Yes, there is sound.)
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Cambry plays Chopin.
Deb’s Handstand
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Monthly Archives: July 2006
Beijing Institute of Technology
Mike,
You might wonder if I’ll be able to live up to my promise to connect to the blog from Beijing. But I have good reason to believe I’ll be able to. The meeting organizers seem to be very web cognizant, as evidenced by the VR tour that they provide from the COSPAR-Beijing web page. There doesn’t seem to be a direct, one-button route to the VR pages, but here is how to get there.Â
1. Click
2. Click on the Beijing Institute of Technology banner on the map. -> New map
3. Click on the orange blinking Teaching Center, and wait for the panda to toddle over there.
You’re now on the 1st floor of the building where I’ll be on Monday or Tuesday?
4. Click on the VR-360 button. And scroll around the room. You can also go to the 2nd floor and look around.
I should be on that floor putting up my poster at some point. This VR thing is probably not a web cam, otherwise I’d arrange a time for you to look in on me! Remember, this is from what used to be a 3rd world country, not so long ago.Â
rakkity
Quick Update
I should stop stealing pesky godson’s titles and dream up my own, but here’s his latest post which ends with, “Also, no, I am no longer planning to go to Jerusalem.”
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What’s this generic web page? When rakkity travels he’s careful to first pull up the biog.
Matt and Deb met this couple and then speculated on their age difference.
More Water
Beijing
Mike,
I just bought a replacement e-camera for my upcoming trip (7/16-23) to Beijing. I’m hoping to be well enough connected to send some real-time pictures, but with those pesky chinese bueaucrats, you never know.
I’m planning to get to the Great Wall, Tianaman Square, & the Forbidden City in between meeting sessions. Maybe even the streets will provide interesting shots.
After returning from the far east, there won’t be any traveling for rakkity except to colorful Colorado!
rakkity (out of retirement)
City Streets
The Holy Land, but not The Holy
I M’d with Pesky Godson as he was updating his blog from a resort on the Jordanian shore of the Dead Sea. Here’s his first post.
First Photos
Matt and Debbie returned home with over five hundred photographs. Unfortunately, most are good which will make my job as blogmeister (aka soft touch) a tedious one. Here are the first two:
Are You Addicted To Blogging?
But you can’t post this unless you tell us how many of these items apply to you.
Charlie
Michael’s answers:
10. No. But if the stats were in plain English like pesky godson has checked your blog 79,5 times in the last two days instead of 71.199.090.12 blah blah, I would.
9. Not an issue. She also has a love affair with the blog.
8. Well duh! How else would it get fed?
7. Not to mention my mother’s prolonged agonizing passing. Should I be locked up?
6. Nope. I’m flattered when one person posts a comment even if it is just a question.
5. Rarely. I really try to control myself because I’m deathly afraid that rakkity (retired) will stop
contributing.
4. The blog is self-selecting. I used to have more real friends.
3. No, because answering the blog’s “Feed Me!” command is so much easier than grabbing a paint brush when my house screams “Paint Me!.”
2. My lunch hour is my time to check on the relative success of my (and that includes my long list of contributors) morning’s post.
1. No, I ask, ” Do you mind if I post our conversation on my blog?” I’ve only been turned down once and that was by two female musicians I met on the banks of the Ohio River.
Bone Church
Mike,
Is this too gruesome for words? How would I feel if I knew that the bones of one of my ancestors was part of a chandelier or a coat of arms? What are these Czechs thinking? They seemed sort of normal when I passed through their country.
Ed (rightpaw)
Our Best Trip To Europe
Michael,
I don’t expect you to post any of our Eastern Europe pix and tales until Matt & Debbie get back, and all of their stories are told. But here is a tidbit for you to use ater.
This was the Schmahl family’s hardest trip to Europe–hardest because of all the complicated planning involved, because of the incomprehensible laguages of the region, because of the logistics of trains, buses, trams and Metros, and because of a few bad things that happened. But it was also the most rewarding, for the view of new and very old cultures all blended together and the colorful sights. (Being able to watch the World Cup from every square or cafe in Prague and Budapest was a major plus, too.)
I’ll skip all the bad stuff and go straight to Cesky Krumlov, a medieval town in southern Czech Republic. We had the most amazing (inexpensive) pension on the Vlata River that wraps around the town. From our window we could see the sun rise over the castle tower, and all day long, we watched canoers and rafters brave the spillway just down stream. (Those that scouted it survived, those that didn’t got drenched!)
Here is the view from our Pension’s front yard picnic table (using Beth’s 10 year old snapshot camera):
So many things happened to us, and we learned so much about the land, the cities, the languages, that I find it impossible to summarize it all. But Patrick & I have taken copious (handwritten) notes, and we’ll put it on the web sometime soon.
–rightpaw (rakkity is retired)
