Through the magic of the Internets you can follow along as I traverse the planet. I’ll be on Continental Flight 89 on the way over and Continental Flight 88 on the way back.
I leave Newark at 12:15 PM tomorrow and arrive at Beijing at 3PM Friday (Beijing time). I leave Beijing at 4PM (Beijing time) Sunday, March 11th and arrive at Newark 5:40 PM the same day (Wow, that’s a heck of a jet stream, huh. 🙂 )
From FlightAware plots it seems I’ll be going right by the north pole. Another first!
I just checked in for my flight to Beijing tomorrow. I was sweating the seat selection process as the plane has filled up considerably since I booked it. Luckily for me I have managed to snag an entire row to myself on the starboard side of the plane! That makes me one of only five lucky passengers to have a row to themselves. For now, at least!
There are so many unknowns about China for me. While the training I’ll be doing is pretty standard stuff for me now, getting around the country will be a roll of the dice. This should be nothing like the visits I made to Hong Kong 15 years ago. I’m content to allow for a few “stupid tourist” moves but hopefully I’ll avoid the worst ones.
Westerners are not so rare in mainland China anymore. One tour book I’m reading says 200,000 or more are in Beijing and Shanghai. Numerous blogs of expats in China are available on the Internet. I expect to find some English-speaking friendly faces when I need them.
The weather is cold there, however, which might impact any of my sightseeing. Average temperature is 43 degrees, with a low of 17 forecast for Monday morning. Not exactly tourist weather. I’ll make do, though.
Look for blog posts and photos to appear throughout my trip. I should also have access to email, too.
Now, time to pack!
Well well well, if this isn’t interesting! A few clips of the BBC World Service have surfaced on Youtube showing a report from September 11th, 2001 that the WTC7 building had collapsed while all the while WTC7 is plainly visible behind the reporter.
This has got to be fake. Someone is just trying to embarrass our government. In case you want to see what these obvious nutjobs are suggesting, here’s the clip.
Saw a news story the other day saying that Middlebury college has banned Wikipedia citations in papers submitted by students. One professor said that the reason is that Wikipedia entries may not have been “fully vetted.” The NY Times article seems to try to frame this as a New-Media-Vs-Old-Media battle, but Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales agrees that Wikipedia shouldn’t be cited,because no encyclopedia should ever be cited in a research paper. Makes sense to me.
Anyone can add to Wikipedia, which I consider one of its strengths. Someone begins by adding information to a subject. Others are then free to mold that information as closely as possible to the truth. Experts often weigh in with factual information that is orders of magnitude more detailed and accurate than any publishing fact-checker could achieve.
Wikipedia is Open Source for facts. Everything’s laid out there to be debated. It doesn’t guarantee the information’s accuracy, but it does guarantee exposure to debate that will eventually lead it to accuracy.
I also love that Wikipedia’s entries are constantly evolving. Traditional encyclopedias are frequently out of date as soon as they are printed. Wikipedia is updated constantly.
Our understanding of things evolves as well. A description of electricity from the early 1900’s would look far different than today’s. The same with nuclear theory. Our perspective on historical events changes over time as well. As the saying goes, winners write the history books.
The truth on any matter often varies upon whom you ask. Wikipedia allows any of us to add our knowledge of a topic up for debate – a most democratic means of soliciting truth. The more eyes that can review information for accuracy, the more accurate that information can become.
My Blood
The Neville Brothers
Ja, please come to the crossroads
You can save the children, I know
Ja, please come to the crossroads
Tell them to let the people go now
Ja, go to Mother Africa
Answer this prayer for me
Ja, come to Mother Africa
Set all the people free
That’s my blood down there
Over Mother Africa
My blood down there
That’s my blood down there
Oh yes it is now
That’s my blood down there
Continue reading
Can someone explain to me why anyone gives a flip about the Oscars? With all the things going on in the area and the world, why is the Oscars at the top of the front page? Why is all the ink wasted discussing what so-and-so wore? Where are the people who care about this?
In my mind the Academy Awards is nothing but a Hollywood circle-jerk: a bunch of overpaid bimbos and bozos patting themselves on the back, sneering “we’re more perfect than you are” at America. Its the biggest, clique-ish private club around. We peons are invited to gawk.
Sorry but I don’t get it. If Hollywood wants to congratulate itself by passing out awards among its members, that’s fine with me. I just don’t see why anyone outside of Hollywood should care. I can’t name a single person whose life will be directly affected by this show. Maybe my movie-biz friends can enlighten me.
Then again, if there’s one thing good that might come out of it, perhaps it will knock Anna Nicole Smith out of the news. Last I heard she was still dead.
I’ve got four days before I leave for China. Thursday would ordinarily seem far away and yet I’m already suffering from travel anxiety.
The funny thing is that I’m not at all afraid of flying. I trust when I leave the ground that I’ll return to it safely. Even a long stretch in a plane doesn’t faze me.
I don’t anticipate any trouble in China, either. I can find my way around just about any city. In fact I had to laugh at my New Jersey coworkers when they were befuddled by the PATH train process that I can practically sleepwalk through by now. I’ve gotten used to being put into unfamiliar territory and learning how to quickly fit in.
What really worries me is not the things I’ll see and do when I travel. What worries me is the things I’ll miss while I’m gone. Eleven days is a long time to be away from the wife and kids. Eleven days is a lifetime to a kid, especially. Its hard to hug a family with arms half a world away.
Just in case you thought I’d cooled down from my rant about UnitedHealthcare, don’t think for a second I’m letting them off the hook. After reading some N&O letters to the editor on the topic, I discovered that WIlliam McGuire, United Healthcare’s recently-departed CEO, pocketed $124,000,000 in compensation last year. Now that McGuire lost his job he is broke and penniless. He was last seen rummaging through garbage cans.
Ha ha! Just kidding! Actually, he left with one of the largest ‘golden parachutes’ in corporate history: $5 million a year for life and an eye-popping $1 billion plus in stock.
This is the kind of shit I’m talking about when I talk about the healthcare industry. It is an industry, and you and I are being taken for a ride. There is an ungodly amount of greed involved. Sickening, actually (no pun intended). America could do so much better if it made affordable health care the right of every citizen. Even our screwed-up government would have a hard time squandering this kind of money.
I’m back from my whirlwind trip to New York and Washington. Yes, I had originally planned to just go to NYC but I realized I had to take a detour to DC for my China visa. I will be leaving a week from Friday and there is no way I could get a visa that soon without doing it myself.
The NYC trip was highly successful, though. We arrived onsite around 6 PM (since my Continental flight did 90 minutes worth of doughnuts waiting to land at Newark) and got to work. By 9:30, the customer was pleased with the product and had agreed to buy. Yes!
We went to a local diner for dinner around 10 PM. I was in bed by 11:30, begging off going to a bar with the guys. At 4:11 my alarm woke me, whereas I packed up and took various trains to the airport. At 7 AM I was airborne for DC, arriving with enough time to get breakfast at the airport.
Then I hailed a cab for the trip to the China visa office. The office was tucked into a commercial office building. I was fourth in line 30 minutes before it opened. When twenty minutes later the line was in the dozens I was happy to have gotten there so early.
It took all of two minutes to drop my documentation off. I then camped out at the neighborhood Starbucks for a couple of hours.
Lunch was at a local Italian diner. Then it was back over to the visa office where I picked up my documentation early before hailing another cab back to the airport. It was National Airport, so I booked my return trip on US Airways.
I was soon reminded why I don’t fly US Airways anymore. Because they suck! The self-checkin ticket agents whined about having to change flights when they could’ve directed people to the right line in the first place. The gate area was overflowing with unhappy passengers waiting for their delayed flights. The gate agent was practically yelling for late passengers on the PA system, raising more than one eyebrow in the seating area. Oh, and to top it off my flight was over an hour late. The classic, catch-all “maintenance problem” was to blame.
It just seems that practically everyone at US Airways hates their job. Its such the opposite of my Southwest experience. Even Continental is leagues ahead of US Airways. Thank goodness Continental fended off US Airways’ recent takeover attempt.
In spite of all this, the plane crew was competent and seemed to enjoy their jobs. The flight was smooth, too. I made it back in time for dinner. Now to catch up with Kelly and do some reading before collapsing. Its been a pretty intense two days.
I’m off on an overnight trip to New York City to close out a long-running eval with a customer. Sleep may not be in the cards for me tonight in the worst-case scenario. I don’t expect any issues, though.
Wednesday morning I jet to DC to get my visa at the Chinese Embassy. In the days of the Internets, one would think one could do this without going in person. One would, of course, be wrong. To top it off, tomorrow is the first day after the Chinese New Year, so I should have plenty of company at the embassy. Yay.
Ah well, that’s the cost of doing business, isn’t it?
