ameriken

Usually when we send gifts they get there within 10 days, maybe 2 weeks at most and we usually pay the higher Priority mail rate. Earlier this year I sent something to my wife (at the much cheaper first class mail) when she was visiting and after about 16 days she did not receive it. My wife called China Post and was told it was in China customs. USPS said the same thing and said don't do anything further until after 30 days. After 26 days she finally received it. I think packages sometimes just get stuck in customs and eventually end up clearing, I don't know if the postage rate we pay in the US has anything to do wtih it or not, but I don't think you'll have an issues. As for the wrong form, if you were using the wrong form the USPS clerk would have you fill out the right one...had that happen to me once before.

Well Ken, Moondog posted asking us for advice on cultural differences, so instead of ignoring him because we didn't also hear from his lady, we chose to respond. However, kudos to the many of you (yourself included) who at least tried to empathize with her rather than simply ragging on her.

'Joneses' is plural for the American family name 'Jones', and 'keeping up with the Joneses' is an idiom based on the obsession of trying to maintain the same (or better) socio-economic status as your neighbors (the Jones family). If they buy a pool, you buy a bigger pool. If they buy a 55 inch tv, you buy a 60 inch tv. There is a movie based on this, appropriately named "Keeping Up with the Joneses".

Been following this thread and withholding comments because in the past I have been far too judgmental of one party after only hearing one side of the story and just one perspective. While some here want to label her as controlling, isn't it also possible that some of her friends on the other side of the ocean might also label moondog as controlling? I'm not saying that either is controlling or demanding, but rather how easily this cross-cultural and transcontinental communication can easily be misunderstood. Personally I'd love to hear her side of the story so we'd know how she views the situation. Any chance of her becoming a CFL member?

In that case the word 'rules' is used to mean 'pork fat dominates' or 'pork fat is the best'.

My wife was telling me she avoids street vendors....the story goes that those who are selling lamb skewers are not really lamb but some lesser quality meat (cat, rat, fox?) soaked in lamb urine to give it the taste of lamb.

Asia and planes just haven't been getting along well lately.

My wife and I laugh whenever we see someone tatooed with a Chinese character, I always ask her about it and she gives me that exact answer 'it has no meaning'. You reminded me of this....

I guess people are getting tired of wood pulp.

McDonald's, Yum Suspend Meat Supplier in China OSI's Shanghai Husi 'Appalled' by Allegation That Chicken, Beef Was Past Expiration Date BEIJING—The U.S. owner of a meat supplier in Shanghai apologized and promised a swift response Monday after McDonald's Corp. MCD -1.79% and Yum Brands Inc. YUM +1.19% suspended purchases in China in the wake of allegations it sold expired chicken and beef to restaurants. McDonald's and Yum, parent of KFC and Pizza Hut, said they halted orders from Shanghai Husi Food Co., owned by OSI Group Inc. of Aurora Ill., after local Chinese media reported that Shanghai Husi was selling meat products beyond their shelf life. OSI, a longtime supplier to both fast-food companies, said its executives were "appalled" by the report and apologized to its customers and consumers. The company "has formed an investigation team, is fully cooperating with inspections being conducted by relevant, supervising government agencies, and is also conducting its own internal review," it said. http://online.wsj.com/articles/yum-b...ier-1405913128

We wrote one to her mom in Chinese with an English translation. The letter outlined the itinerary of what we planned when she got here. However it didn't matter, it still comes down to the financial evidence. Jie's parents are not rich, but are not destitute either. They own their own home, a rental property, had two retirement incomes, money in the bank and twice it wasn't enough. The nicest most well written invitation letter is not going to overcome what our government views as insufficient evidence that will compel the visitor to return to their home country.

Awe what a bummer, I loved the guy. RIP James.

Aliens.

My wife's mom was denied twice. It's all in the proof and it's an objective/subjective decision by the VO to decide who gets in and who doesn't.

It didn't look like a 777. Did a little checking...the same video was posted on youtube on June 6 claiming it to be an Antonov AN-30. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TELrLvX5ybU

CNN just showed a home video of the crash site, did nothing to block the dead bodies laying in the debris.

Oh yeah, got it on already, it's already non-stop (no pun intended).

I like CNN but they do like to....

Yup, maybe Don Lemon will entertain the speculation again that it was aliens.

This could be the end of Malaysian Airlines

Malaysia Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur crashes in east Ukraine POSTED 11:38 AM, JULY 17, 2014, BY CNN WIRE, UPDATED AT 11:45AM, JULY 17, 2014 A Malaysia Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur has crashed in eastern Ukraine, Russian news agency Interfax reported Thursday. An adviser to Ukraine’s Interior Minister says the passenger plane carrying 295 was shot down. Malaysia Airlines lost contact with MH17, and the flight’s last known position was over Ukrainian airspace, the airline said on Thursday. The jet is a Boeing 777, according to Interfax. The plane reportedly went down near the border between Russia and Ukraine. Purported video of the crash site has been shared on social media. http://myfox8.com/2014/07/17/malaysia-airlines-flight-from-amsterdam-to-kuala-lumpur-crashes-in-east-ukraine/

HOW TO SHOWER LIKE A WOMAN: 1. Take off clothing and place it in sectioned laundry hamper according to lights and darks. 2. Walk to bathroom wearing long dressing gown. If you see your husband along the way, cover up any exposed areas. 3. Look at your womanly physique in the mirror--make mental note-must do more sit-ups. 4. Get in the shower. Use face cloth, arm cloth,leg cloth, long loofah, wide loofah and pumice stone. 5. Wash your hair once with Cucumber and Sage shampoo with 43 added vitamins. 6. Wash your hair again to make sure it's clean. 7. Condition your hair with Grapefruit Mint conditioner enhanced with natural avocado oil. Leave on hair for fifteen minutes. 8. Wash your face with crushed apricot facial scrub for ten minutes until red. 9. Wash entire rest of body with Ginger Nut and Jaffa Cake body wash. 10. Rinse conditioner off hair (you must make sure that it has all come off). 11. Shave armpits and legs. Consider shaving bikini area but decide to get it waxed instead. 12. Scream loudly when your husband flushes the toilet and you lose the water pressure. 13. Turn off shower. 14. Squeegee off all wet surfaces in shower. Spray mold spots with Tilex. 15. Get out of shower. Dry with towel the size of a small country. Wrap hair in super absorbent second towel. 16. Check entire body for the remotest sign of a zit, tweeze hairs. 17. Return to bedroom wearing long dressing gown and towel on head. 18. If you see your husband along the way, cover up any exposed areas and then sashay to bedroom to spend an hour and a half getting dressed. HOW TO SHOWER LIKE A MAN: 1. Take off clothes while sitting on the edge of the bed and leave them in a pile on the floor. 2. Walk naked to the bathroom. If you see your wife along the way, shake wiener at her making the "woo-woo" sound. 3. Look at your manly physique in the mirror and suck in your gut to see if you have pecs (no). Admire the size of your wiener in the mirror and scratch your ass. 4. Get in the shower. 5. Don't bother to look for a washcloth (you don't use one). 6. Wash your face. 7. Wash your armpits. 8. Blow your nose in your hands, then let the water just rinse it off. 9. Crack up at how loud your fart sounds in the shower. 10. Majority of time is spent washing your privates and surrounding area. 11. Wash your butt, leaving those coarse butt hairs on the soap bar. 12. Shampoo your hair (do not use conditioner). 13. Make a shampoo Mohawk. 14. Peek out of shower curtain to look at yourself in the mirror again. 15. Pee (in the shower). 16. Rinse off and get out of the shower. Fail to notice water on the floor because you left the curtain hanging out of the tub the whole time. 17. Partially dry off. 18. Look at yourself in the mirror, flex muscles. Admire wiener size again. 19. Leave shower curtain open and wet bath mat on the floor. 20. Leave bathroom fan and light on. 21. Return to the bedroom with towel around your waist. If you pass your wife, pull off the towel, shake wiener at her, and make the "woo-woo" sound again. 22. Throw wet towel on the bed. Take 2 minutes to get dressed again

Solar Roadways passes $1.4 million in crowdfunding: Just short of the $56 trillion required, but not bad for a crazy idea By Sebastian Anthony on May 27, 2014 at 1:45 pm Over the weekend, the Solar Roadways project on Indiegogo reached its target of $1 million. At the time of publishing, that figure is now north of $1.4 million, with five days left to go. The concept is verging on utopian: By replacing the USA’s concrete and asphalt roads with solar panels, we could produce three times more electricity than we consume, instantly solving just about every energy problem we have (geopolitical stuff, reliance on fossil fuels, CO2 production, etc.) It’s not hard to see why Solar Roadways has attracted so much attention and money: On paper, it really does sound like one of the greatest inventions ever. In reality, though, where, you know, real-world factors come into play, it will probably never make the jump from drawing board to large-scale deployment. Solar Roadways, the brainchild of Julie and Scott Brusaw of Idaho, have been in development since at least the mid-2000s. The concept, as described by dozens of videos and blog posts over the years, is pretty simple: We replace roads with hard-wearing solar cells. By adding other electronics, such as LEDs and touch sensors, additional functionality has also been mooted: Illuminated road markings (and animals crossing the road), roads that melt snow and ice, and so on. Electrified/networked roads could also be a key step towards self-driving cars and wide-scale EV adoption. To be fair to the Brusaws, they’re not exactly scammers — Scott is an electrical engineer, and most of the science checks out — but so far, despite $850,000 in grants from the Department of Transport, the couple have only built a small prototype parking lot. TheIndiegogo page doesn’t exactly inspire confidence, either. Right at the bottom of the page, there’s a single line describing what the $1 million (and counting) will be spent on: “We asked for $1 million to hire an initial team of engineers to help us make a few needed tweaks in our product and streamline our process so that we could go from prototype to production.” These engineers will be tasked with the rather difficult task of turning Solar Roadways from a utopian concept into a real-world product. I do not envy them. While no one is arguing that it would be great to turn our road system into a massive solar farm, there are simply way too many obstacles that need to be traversed — much like fusion power, cold fusion, or heck, building a frickin’ star-encompassing Dyson sphere. Chief among these obstacles is cost. While exact figures are hard to come by, there’s roughly 29,000 square miles (75,000 sq km) of paved road in the lower 48 US states. As you can probably imagine, asphalt is pretty cheap (on the order of a few dollars per square foot) — and Solar Roadways, which are essentially solar cells wedged between thick slabs of ultra-tough glass, are not cheap. Back in 2010, Scott Brusaw estimated a cost of $10,000 for a 12-foot-by-12-foot segment of Solar Roadway, or around $70 per square foot; asphalt, on the other hand, is somewhere around $3 to $15, depending on the quality and strength of the road. According to some maths done by Aaron Saenz, the total cost to redo America’s roadways with Solar Roadways would be $56 trillion — or about four times the country’s national debt. Beyond cost, there are other factors like strength and durability, how to store the power, how to wire remote stretches of road into the grid, and, perhaps most importantly, how to keep the roads clean. The Brusaws say the glass tiles can support 250,000 pounds (113,000 kilos), which is certainly enough for any vehicle that might use the US road system — but what about withstanding piercing impacts? What about chemical spills and fires? If a glass tile breaks, is it easy to fix? Will the shards puncture tires? To get around the roads-get-rather-dirty issue, Solar Roadways proposes using self-cleaning glass — but in a kind of hand-waving way that conveniently forgets that self-cleaning materials, by virtue of being oleo- and hydrophobic, are incredibly slippery. Sounds like the perfect way to make the morning commute a bit more exciting. Suffice it to say, dirty roads, broken roads, and roads that are too far away from civilization to be useful might as well make no power at all. With all that said, there’s still no denying that Solar Roadways are cool — but why not just, I don’t know, put solar panels along the side of the road? Or on the roof of your house? Or in the desert? Having built-in ice and snow melting is pretty neat, and lighting up when an animal steps on the road is cute, but neither are worth $56 trillion. Rooftop solar arrays are reaching the point where they’re actuallyquite cost effective in certain parts of the world — and they’re much, much cheaper than building a Solar Roadway — but adoption is still very low. As much as I’d love the US to be blanketed in green, fossil fuel-replacing electrified Solar Roadways, it just isn’t feasible. On the small scale, there could well be some companies that roll out Solar Roadway parking lots — but I think that’s about it, for the foreseeable future. http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/183130-solar-roadways-passes-1-4-million-in-crowdfunding-just-short-of-the-56-trillion-required-but-not-bad-for-a-crazy-idea

Fiscally it's gotta be a astronomical....I'm thinking to entirely re-do our infrastructure, which includes redoing all our roadways in solar panels and rewiring the electrical grid to power communities has gotta run into the trillions. According to an Ohio DOT link, just repaving a road with cheap asphalt is $120,000 per lane mile for 2 lane roads $502,000 per lane mile for 4 lane roads https://www.dot.state.oh.us/Divisions/Finance/GASB%2034%20Documents/PavingCostpermile.pdf So simply repaving just 1000 miles of one four lane hwy is $502,000,000. I'm guessing if successful, their initial sales would come piecemeal from well to do homeowners and businesses (and perhaps local govt offices) who want to redo their driveways, sidewalks, parking lots, etc. As the technology gets better (and cheaper) then maybe governments on the fed and state level may jump on board. Who knows how long that might take. Great idea though, I hope it takes off.