wawster

Ok...that's just funny right there... Maybe we could sell them the old USS Forrestal, or as we used to call her, the USS Zippo, cos she caught fire so many times.

Ahhh..now Mick that is just the epitome of great art! And it shows your high class too, in having it centered over the sofa! Makes my heart all a-flutter. Now, if'n you get the Poker playin' dogs on the opposite wall....now that's just heavenly feng shui right there! Charles....Listen to Mick n ol' Tsap...they'd never do ya wrong. Why, by the time you get the toggle bolts in the walls to hold up these priceless art artifacts, your lil' woman is likely to swoon with gratefulness!

Congrats to you n the lil lady, Charles! Then again, maybe you should start building a safe room..... I have some spare chicken wire and aluminum trailer siding, in case you need it! Guaranteed to take at least 2 mop hits before it caves in!

That's rough, Randy! One of my close friends had both knees replaced - said the recovery was really painful, but he's now glad that he did it. He's walking quite well now. I hope that if you go through it, the recovery is less rough!

Hi there, It is indeed shaky ground, but I can tell you my experience. We sent off Rose's 751 package last December, and received her NOA letter extending her green card for a year, in January. It took exactly one month to get here. A friend of mine who is married to a Chinese woman sent his off in October of '17, and got their NOA in 2 weeks. Rose traveled to China in April of '18. She already had her letter, and they asked to see it at the airport when she was on checking in for her flight. We had given them her green card, and they mentioned it was expired, and asked to see other documentation. They also scrutinized it on the travel back into the US. It probably would not be prudent to make the reservations for your wife to visit China until you have that in hand. With today's politics and such, it would just be asking for her to be detained at some point. She also might be refused to board her flight out, without the correct paperwork. Warren

Rose also gardens a lot! The ladies in the neighborhood always stop and compliment her on her flowers. But I have to drag her inside to feed her dinner sometimes. She likes hanging out in the kitchen, mostly perusing Chinese forums from folks around here on her phone, or watching movies with me in the living room.

As always, Thanks Dan!

WOW! Bummer! Rose and I are also in the process of getting the conditions removed....Sent in the I-751 and paperwork in January. I was getting ready to make an Infopass appointment to see where things were. I still will, I think, in order to clear up how we will handle things when her 1-year extension runs out. I expect they'll just give another 1 year extension.

Make sure the accordion organizer cover is see-through. I was warned about that before rose went for her interview.

I have faith in you! Transitions are always difficult, but you will do well in OKC. You will have your son nearby to help you, and I am sure that you will find a local church quickly that you will feel comfortable with. No worries!

And yeah, I built a wooden model trebuchet and have it on my desk at work. It tosses nerf balls across the room really nicely

I'm with ya there. It's really frustrating to go down the narrow, twisting path sometimes. We submitted Rose and Kerry's 751's back in January. We got the NOA letter extending their Green cards for a year about 3 weeks later. since then...no news at all. No bio-metrics appointments...nothing. My friend did the same for his wife back in October of 2017. They had her bio-metrics appointment within a month. And the worst part is when I called the USCIS recently, they said that they couldn't answer any of my questions. ROSE had to call them. You know...my lovely Rose, the one who speaks halting English, and wouldn't understand anything they told her on the phone. So I think this calls for a day off from work for both of us, and travelling to the USCIS office for an infopass appointment just so we can find out where things stand.

Rose and I got back late Friday night. You were right, Randy - sometimes I had Google, sometimes I didn't. More often didn't than did. We took a bus back to Changsha from Lanshan. It was a couple hours longer than the taxi/train route, but it was SO much more beautiful! I had really wanted to see the highways and byways on Hunan a lot more, and I'm really glad that I did. Changsha is probably 3X the size that it was in late 2014, and whereas I seemed to be the only laowai in sight back then, there were a scattering of tourists here and there now. Last Sunday, we were out shopping and visiting different places in Changsha, and I counted 25-30. The highest concentration was in the Old City, which has been preserved by the government, and is absolutely beautiful. It takes you back in time, and seems to be a tourist spot that foreigners are focusing on. i got the impression that it was more groups than individuals, so it looks like the tourist industry is alive and well there now. I'll post some pictures when I can. Warren

On the road from Chenzhou to Lanshan now in a taxi, and still have access. Frankly, I'm amazed. No VPN, just regular cell signal. Not looking a gift horse in the mouth though! 😁

Hi guys, Got into Changsha last night to spend a week with Rose before we fly home. In the 3 years since I've been here last, a lot has changed. First, the streets are absolutely littered with those rental bicycles. They're everywhere! It's hard to walk down the sidewalks without tripping over them. Folks just drop them in the middle of the sidewalk and leave. Second, Changsha has made it to the WeChat age. Cash is ok, but taxis, and most purchases are done on WeChat now. Pretty cool. Construction is all over, as usual. They're making new subway branches, and building new high speed train lines. Makes it a bit hard to get around, but we did ok. One thing I was amazed by is that Google is working. Translate, mail, everything. And not just in the hotel....out on the street it's working. Not sure why.... we'll see what happens when we get to secluded Lanshan county. We're heading to Chenzhou in a few hours on the train, and then taxi for a couple hours to Lanshan to get together with family for a few days. I'll write if I can Warren

Nah, I'm a curmudgeon But I'd be a fool to not understand (or try to understand) cultural differences, and how important they are. Besides, my sweetie is a good woman.....never risk pissing off a good woman if it can be helped.

Hi Yajie! Do not worry for your son. He is intelligent and the right woman will come to him quickly! And i am proud of you for your work as an ESL teacher. You are helping many students learn what they will need to know here in the US. Rose is still taking ESL classes, and is trying hard, but her English is improving very slowly, because she works in a Chinese restaurant, so she does not speak much English at her work. Kerry's English is much better, and he is improving rapidly. Enjoy visiting with your son! You will always be his mom, no matter how old he gets. Keep smiling, my friend! Warren

Rose and her family went to visit her fathers grave up in the mountains near Lanshan on Sunday. According to Rose, it was a very nice day, and she had a good time conversing with her father about her life with me in the US while they tidied up his grave-site and had a picnic lunch there. It reminds me of the first QingMing after we had been married. rose was still in China, and I was here int he US while the I-130 was making it's journey. Rose had told me that she discussed our marriage with her father at his grave-site, letting him know that she believed me to be a good man, to be a good member of the family, and that I was pledged to take good care of her. Also according to Rose, her father showed his approval. I never asked her exactly how he showed approval, for fear of making her think I was belittling the experience in some way.

Lovely pictures, Randy!

Dunno Larry...that's pushing the envelope, slap-wise....

Well,if the Ribeye supply is safe, then you're all set! Can't ask for a (arguably) better steak! Really nice to be able to get the tortillas and sausages, though. You know, when you live stateside, these thoughts never enter our minds for the most part. It only hits me when Rose wants to get something special and the Asian markets here don't have it.

wow...agreed!

Sorry for laughing, but the "Mandarin chatter" on the phone got me... LOL! I can hear it in my head. Rose gets after Kerry in much the same way, and the diatribe is a wondrous thing to hear. I usually just sit back and listen in awe of her ability to verbally tear the poor boy down when he gets stubborn or misbehaves. It's also kind of funny to see her chasing him down the hallway smacking him about the head and shoulders while he tries to duck n cover. Especially since he's now about 6'1" and she has to reach up to whap him upside the head. Usually she can't quite reach... LOL... Mothers are the same everywhere. I vaguely remember my mom doing much the same thing to me when I got...er.."non-compliant". One eventually learns that mom is the supreme ruler, and to just say "Yes Ma'am" and do whatever she asks. Hmm...sorta like SWMBO....Maybe that's conditioning for when a guy gets married...

Yikes! Mopslap extraordinaire! Hope you're ok, buddy! I'm sure the son has some bruises!

Very true. With multi-processor systems, it by needs must be a distributed processing architecture. I deal with this all the time in the systems that I develop for Police, and it's imperative that the command and control architecture between systems be asynchronous, due to speed mismatches. Not only that, but the interrupt structure has to be configured so that it's very flexible in handling unexpected messages, or messages that are out-of-time. It can't be a polling scenario either, as that's resource-intensive. Embedded systems can't afford to have the clock cycles tied up that way. In the realm of error-checking, the structure gets out of control very easily, unless it's mapped well before-hand. And I'm talking about a smaller embedded system, like a cop car video system. There are so many inputs, from Emergency lights, siren, brakes, accelerometers, Radar, GPS, ignition, body-worn video activation, other trigger voltages, temperature, back-up battery systems, etc, and they all need to be handled in a timely manner. If one of them is malfunctioning, or is giving a bogus input, it needs to be recognized and addressed right away. in the case of a car....it's time to stop and pull over. Unless of course the discrepancy isn't recognized or captured...or reacted to. When you get into a much bigger and interactive embedded system, the variables can easily spiral out of control. My hat is off to the guys who are developing these systems, but it's clear that the architecture isn't quite there yet.