Mick

And as Larry the Cable Guy always advises: keep the fartin' to a minimum.

Down cheer in Tennerbama, the Robins never leave. Our back yard is filled with them year round. As is their calling card, the Robins like to scurry along on the ground and are just hilarious to watch at times. We have plenty of them and find their eggs from time to time. The local feral cat population likes to dine on the eggs but for the most part, leave the birds alone. This area also has a lot of Cardinals, which are just gorgeous birds. The females are brown with a reddish tint underneath and the males are brilliant red. We also have a plethora of Mocking Birds, which can drive you nuts if one decides to camp out just outside yer winder and make calls all night. If Sweet Baby James still wants to buy one, I got plenty I'd be happy to ship his way.

It really looks great, Carl. You did a great job with the frets.

That's exactly where I am now (except at a much more advanced age). The visas aren't extended - you get a new one each year at the PSB (no border runs are required). After 5 years, you are eligible for a Chinese "green" card. But the baby may get a better deal. Then again, China considers the baby a Chinese citizen, so I doubt there would be a problem with claiming that citizenship, along with the family's hukou. I've heard that British citizens (at birth) have been required to formally relinquish their British citizenship. But for Americans, even that would not be a problem - they can reclaim their citizenship at any time. Let me see if I have this straight, Randy: A baby is a U.S. Citizen, then the parents take the child to China. They can have the child declared a Chinese citizen, but will need to renounce the American citizenship. Later, it they want the child to be a U.S. citizen, they can reclaim the U.S. citizenship and renounce the Chinese? That sounds like a pretty good deal.

I wonder how it works on the other end??? What do the parents have to do to continue the baby's visa status in China? Are there any cases of China refusing a visa extension after a certain length of time? I suspect they wouldn't do that, because it would mean breaking up a family, but I guess you never can predict that sort of thing. It will be interesting to see how this all plays out in the future. Seems okay to me as the parents are contributing to the economy in a big way by spending money here and, at least technically, they are not doing anything illegal. Still, many, like the Congressman, will view it as conning the system. Stay tuned.....

Do you have any update, Griz? How are things going at this point? Like others, I wouldn't want to put up with open bigotry and/or discrimination. Down here in Tennerbama, folks are famous for racism but it is not nearly as bad as it used to be. We live in a very small town in the rural south, so you might expect a few problems. We have been here ten years this month and we haven't had even one incident of a racial type. Is Montana your home, Griz? Do you have family ties in that area? If not, you might want to consider other alternatives.

Did you guys feel anything, Randy? I know when we lived in Shantou, and they had a quake in Taiwan, we felt tremors and sometimes the glass broke in classroom windows. We were located directly across the Straits from Taiwan, right on the coast. Please keep us posted as Li and I both have former students living in Dali.

The city can thank the fallen Bo Xi Lai... An interesting point - I had not thought of that angle.....

I am surprised that Dalian came in at No. 4. I would not have guessed it was that high up on the list. I would have figured Nanjing or maybe Wuhan might have been in the Top Ten. Also, interesting that Hangzhou is not on the list. Whenever we have visited friends in Hangzhou, prices were sky high.

My Dad, age 93 and counting, still lives down on the southwest coast of Florida in the little town where I grew up. A few years back they had sink holes open up just east of the city. None of the huge kind, but still was alarming. Tsap knew what he was talking about as far as gators go. When I was a kid a gator did eat my dog. I was eleven years old when it happened. The dog, Pete, was a Boxer and he wandered too close to one of the many canals in the area and that was that. They trapped the gator, a ten-footer. It had my dog's collar in its belly, along with some of our neighbor's chickens.

I would be interested in knowing what percentage of Chinese are now using mortgages for home purchases and what percentage are still saving and paying cash. I know in Li's family, the parents new home, the two homes owned by her sister, and the one by her brother, were all paid for in cash. I am just wondering how the prices of the homes, etc. are pushing a change in the cultural tradition of saving and paying cash as opposed to mortgages. When we lived in China most folks still paid cash, but we left there ten years ago. What is it like now?

Ah, now I understand. That makes sense, Randy. I am so glad you explained that because I couldn't get making a threat to fit, although that's how it appeared. Your character has never been one to make threats, so I was thoroughly confused and I imagine tsap was as well. Again, thanks for the clarification. Oh, and I got one of those shaky trigger fingers as well. If I am not typing, I need to keep my fingers off the keyboard.

Your question was put under the site issues forum since it is a site issue. Do you really feel that that is wrong? What was the open threat? Randy, I think the line about "enjoy it while you can" was where the open threat was perceived. If I were in tsap's shoes, I would have perceived that as an insinuation that I was perhaps on my way out (banned, suspended, etc.). I may be wrong, but that's where I would perceive a threat. Perhaps that was not your meaning, but it could be interpreted that way fairly easily.

Tsap, as I read your post it brought back a memory from the old days of the early 70s. A group of us nefarious characters went down to Birmingham for a Joe Walsh concert. Birmingham is Joe's home stompin' grounds, so whenever he came back to town it was a show not to be missed. The concert was at Legion Field and it was packed out to the rafters and then some. Anyway, we made it back to the hotel (one of the old places in downtown B'ham) about midnight or so. We quickly discovered the air conditioner didn't work, so I called the front desk. They told me to: "Open the window". We were on the 17th floor and Birmingham was by far the most polluted city in the southeast, with all the steel mills running full blast 24/7. It made Pittsburgh look like paradise. Within fifteen minutes we were all gagging and coughing like crazy. We ended up leaving at about 2 am and drove the 100 miles back to Huntsville. Birmingham and its surrounding cities eventually closed all those steel mills and the air down there is really fine now. But back then it was a nightmare.

Eat Drink Man Woman is one of my all-time favorite movies. Of course, his other films are fantastic as well, but Eat Drink just blew me away. I saw it many years ago when I lived in Miami and it was playing down in Coconut Grove. The characters, especially the three daughters, were excellent and the surprise at the end was priceless. Can't say enough good things about that film.

I was living down in Miami in 1992 when Hurricane Andrew came to call. Blowing sand a very fine particles of glass did a number on the paint job on both my cars. They had an adjuster out within 48 hours (you can imagine how busy they were after the storm) and I had both cars repainted within ten days. All fully paid for as I had a hurricane clause in my contract that specified any damage due to flying debris was covered at 100 percent. They considered the glass particles "debris" and paid for everything. I really lucked out in that storm insurance wise. I had State Farm on my house and they treated me more than fair.

Believe me, that is one incredible timeline! Congrats and best wishes for a great future together.

Been using it for years. Nothing comes close and the service is also great.

This is a very complex and multifaceted issue and with that said, I think it is hard to generalize as to a person's motivations for seeking a visa. When Li and I were first together, there were friends on both sides who felt she was only out to get a visa, blah blah blah, etc. etc. The fact is, she refused to come to America and, though she had an open mind about doing so in the future, at that time it was a no go. I respected that and changed my plans. I originally went to China with the thought of staying one year, then returning home. I ended up staying a little over five years. As I said, Li didn't want to leave China as there were some issues with her family that were unsettled. So we waited. She has never formally tried to teach me Chinese, but I have picked up a lot over the years, especially living over there.

no - I'm thinking it was partly done (one time) in the belief that a smaller database would alleviate the CPU load. I think maybe that's when my pink thingies disappeared.

I often have the same suspicions, tsap. Li is so different than the stereotypical Chinese woman that you would swear she was raised in another culture. I really wasn't aware of how different she was when we first met, but because we lived together in China for so long, I think I was able to draw some fairly deep comparisons over the years. And now, after ten years in America (come March 29), the difference is even more pronounced. As for 001, she visited the site a couple of times when we lived in China and never went back. It was never so much a case of believing them over me or me over them. Li always preferred to do her own investigation and make up her own mind. She never was a person to take something as gospel, just because someone said it was true.

When I first moved to China, the round about way of getting at things drove me crazy as well. I think I finally just got used to it, because I never was able to find an effective way to change it. My wife is just the opposite, however. She is very direct and often gets impatient with folks who beat around the bush so to speak. Also, sometimes Chinese people will not ask yes or no questions, either. Or for that matter, not directly approach an issue. A humorous example happened shortly after my arrival. The university where I was teaching had several ex pat teachers. I was hired in as the "Senior" because I have an advanced degree. One of our young teachers, James, had a tendency to show up late for his eight o'clock classes and after several weeks, the Dean decided it was time to deal with this issue. As the Senior Teacher, it was evidently my responsibility to whip the whippersnapper into shape. The Dean, however, did not come straight to the point. Our conversation started like this as we were walking to my classroom. Dean: It is a very cool morning for September. Me: Yes it is. Dean: Did you have your breakfast? Me: Yes, I had baozi and a meat pie. Dean: So, what time does James usually have his breakfast? You get the idea. We finally got around to his showing up late for class, but not until we had discussed what time the student dining hall opened and what they normally ate for breakfast, etc. I actually came to enjoy this sort of thing, once I realized there was no way I could ever change it.

Best wishes for a great future together. Although the goodbyes are a bummer, focus on the positives and savor them. Getting to go back every three or four months is a true blessing. Again, best wishes and remember to keep your nose, pecker, chin and anything else you might think of up.

I am a little over two hours north of Talladega but, as you say, the traffic is a nightmare and a half. Growing up down in Florida, I used to go to the Daytona 500, starting in ninth grade and all the way through high school. I loved it. That was way back in the days before NASCAR became so popular. I also used to make it over to the Sebring race every year, although that was not NASCAR, but more of a road rally with open-wheel cars. Sebring was only about 50 miles from where I grew up. Daytona was a lot farther.

Sorry to hear you are still in the dark with all this. I hope your Senator can be of some help, but often they can do little more than you can yourself. This brings back so many memories of the old Black Hole days of 2002. My wife Li had her successful interview on August 20, 2002. They did not issue the visa, but said it shouldn't be more than two weeks. We were finally able to pick up the visa on March 10, 2003. That was, of course, a much different situation than whatever is going on now. Ours was one of thousands of cases caught in a log jam. Again, I wish you the best and please, keep us posted as to how it is going. If nothing else, we are here for support.