bokiwen

My wife doesn't wear her wedding ring or her engagement ring. I am partially part of the problem since I don't typically wear mine (more of a work thing, because I will sometimes work in electrical cabinets). I do know that she already has been asked out in Walmart (she is a cashier there) by co-workers. She will wear them if we are going out, however.

Well thankfully it is not us buying them! A friend of my wife (and consequently my friend) and her husband bought them (not that it matters, but they are both university educated people). I don't really know all the details, but it sounded like the "friend of a friend of a friend" had found these eggs [4 hours by car outside of Wuhan] and is looking to sell them (which I believe that in itself is an illegal act in China). From talking to my wife last night, it sounds like they will be cleaned and just be kept at their apartment in China. I'm not 100% sure they intend to resale. I'm hoping to get some photos/details soon... It could truthfully just be geodes.

I'm curious to see/hear more what happens with the eggs. I just thought it was very odd and strange, and never heard that before. (BTW: it's hilarious if they say you could extract the DNA). Certainly not something I would invest in, but again as yuanyang put it, there is no way I can trump what a Chinese woman would say about it...

That's basically what I'm thinking. I think the real problem is to make real money on it, you probably have to get it out of the country, which from what I am reading makes it highly illegal. It is a niche market, no doubt..

Some friends of ours in China have invested some money in Chinese Dinosaur eggs. When my wife told me about this, I cautioned of a scam and advised that it would be illegal to ever import this to America. However, she insists it good idea, and I know our friends are fairly level headed. Did anyone have any experience with this?

I just went through a similar situation. I was 6 months into a year lease, when we bought a house. It was clearly spelled out that I could give 2 months notice to break a lease, however, written notice had to be given by the beginning of the month, which is basically Cathy's landlord stance on the issue. I was very careful to send notice before closing, but with also a statement that if closing did not happen as expected, I could continue my lease. I purposely opted for a longer closing date so my first house payment would be made after I paid rent two months. One of the things which may be legal would be to not pay last months rent, but allow the security deposit to be the last month rent.

Windows tries to work as a "plug and play" (or pray) operating system. Whenever new hardware is inserted (e.g. a printer, a memory stick) it will search for the best driver. While this can be make the use of computer easy, if for some reason something happens and you lose the driver, it might detect it as new hardware being installed. The ethernet controller is most likely referring the the physical LAN port (RJ-45 port) or wifi port on your computer. If the problem persists, it could be a sign of a hardware problem.

Another option: Supposedly you can also buy the iPhone 4 unlocked in Canada (from Apple) without getting it through AT&T, which I guess would be available for firmware upgrades...

Another possible scenerio: Depending on how she filed (or if she filed) her W2, she might not make enough money for them to take out federal taxes (this for example was the case with my wife when she started at Walmart). They did however take out the other deductions (social security, state, local, etc). As per her green card and taxes, I'm not sure what her employer means by that.

We got a notice of action in the mail on July 31st, stating that Yin's 10 year green card has been approved. She's pretty excited.

Not sure what the current timelines are for everything after your POE, but when my wife arrived with her CR-1 in July of 2008, within a month the welcome to America letter, the social security card and green card arrived, all basically in the same week.

I remember looking two years about the possibility of my wife flying to America for the first time on her CR-1 visa through Air Canada through Toronto. I couldn't make any headway as to how to get a transit visa (I even emailed the Canadian consulate in Guangzhou) just to see if we could get a transit visa. But to answer your question, I have traveled through Canada with Yin and her green card, no problem.

Looks like Venus and Mars are alive and well. More like, (to paraphrase my wife who is a minimalist), "you can keep some stuff, but I don't want to see it..." But alas my wife wants to try her hand at interior decorating at little, so an unused bedroom seems like a good thing for her to have.

Thanks. We looked for approximately 2 months before buying. We are both happy with our purchase so far. We even compromised in letting Yin have one of the three bedrooms for her own personal room, and I'm allowed to have one garage and the office as my man caves!

Thanks for the info!! I didn't realize there was a seperate form for the sponsor's change of address.. Interesting this is done through USCIS, whereas the AR-11 is done through DHS. As a side note, I thought it was interesting when my wife purchased the money order from the post office from the I-751 for $545 they gave us the blue anti-money laundering pamphlet. A $545 purchase doesn't even apply to the money laundering act. Small town post-office I guess.

Yin and I had a busy week last week. We bought our first home together last Tuesday! We also submitted an AR-11 and I-751, as we were waiting until we moved before doing so (we still had 60+ days left in our 90 day window). I did file the AR-11 and I-751 via snail mail, although I had a letter sent with the 751 indicating that we have an AR-11 pending. Now comes the fun part of moving. We are actually still in our lease until June 30th, so we can take some time to move everything. Yin would like to spend her birthday as our first night together in the new house, so we can see.

Does anyone have experience with FTA (Free To Air) Satellite Dishes and receivers? Yin and I were discussing dropping Dish network when we get our house (in three days!), installing an over the air antenna and maybe a FTA dish and receiver. Supposedly there are 9 or so channels with Chinese content available (CCTV 9 is also FTA). Does anyone know the content of any of these channels? Beautiful Life TV (Galaxy 19) CCTV 4 (Galaxy 3C) Da-Ai TV (Satmex 6) Da-Ai TV 2 (Galaxy 19) Hwazan Satellite TV (Galaxy 19) Hwazan Satellite TV (Satmex 6) New Tang Dynasty TV (Galaxy 19) Taiwan Macroview TV (Galaxy 3C)

We are getting ready to file Yin's I-751 (wow, two years already!). Yin's 90 day window will start on May 1st. We are also working to get under agreement to buy a home with a closing data of May 24th. Because we are not 100% sure everything will go through with closing, if filing on May 1st we would fill out the I-751 with the current address, but would almost immediately have to file AR-11 (change of address). Has anyone done this before, or do you think it is more beneficial to just wait until after May 24th (24 days into the 90 day window) and file it with our new address?

My wife and I went through the same line at Newark (I'm guessing I just told her to come in the National line with me), and I was able to go with her to the immigrant processing. I do remember I was trying to make a phone call telling my mom I had landed and was told I couldn't use cell phones in immigrant processing. I also came in on a flight (Hong Kong to Newark) with several adoptions, and it was my belief that they got processed before us. It was rather painless, where we did run into slow down was in customs. We had 4 rather heavy suitcases (if I remember each one weighing around 50 lbs). Customs was not busy at all when we went through, and they wanted to go through each bag thorougly. This left a bad impression on my wife (I remember her commenting that they were going through her underwear!).

First rule about Pittsburgh --- don't forget the "h" at the end... B) If you are ever up this way, on a trip to the Strip District, please let me know. (We actually come down your way to Cessna/Fishertown occasionally to go to the Amish store for their dried spices). The snow though, has been interesting. I took Yin to work at WalMart of Saturday morning during the aftermath of realizing we had 20", and she was only one of two cashiers and they were very happy to have her (although they also had no customers). Yin had to take many pictures to send back to her family in Wuhan though! More snow coming... Argh... I'm wondering where the heck I'm going to put it....

We talked with some administrators from the business school my wife wants to attend, and came to the conclusion she would not be able to enroll this term starting March 7th. We had her transcripts from high school/college/and university emailed to the school, and they sent them off to an accredidation department in Tampa (supposedly they are one of the better ones to deal with Chinese/US degree equivalency). Anyways, the school in Tampa rejected them on the basis that they were not official (e.g. an email). Officially we think we could get the documents from China and sent to this accredidation department in Tampa before the term starts, but my wife thinks the expense is too great to do this. The accredidation department in Tampa states that all the documents need to be translated or a $50 per page fee will apply. Of course, we could do the translation in Wuhan and have them sent with the documents, by my wife thinks "this is so expensive". Yin is afriad of the GED because she has no time to prepare (they give in on Feb 16, and Feb 23rd) in order to enroll. So we have the old, "you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink" standoff. At least I can say I've explored all the options I could explore, for this term, at we know what we are up against to try to enroll in future education.

I have Dish Network, but just a standard definition receiver. I use an antenna for HD, found my reception of with a recommended Channel Master antenna ok. The signals aren't really omni-directional, an I find I have to move the antenna to various parts in the upstairs spare bedroom to pick up more stations. I think if I could somehow multiplex two antennas together, I might be able to get all the available signals in the Pittsburgh area.

I read this earlier on engadget. Sounds interesting, but I'm sure it's only to be a voice service, and not data. I gave an original Magic Jack to my father in law, and he has used it a couple times.

I've always used ATM's for money exchange throughout China. I've had the most success at Bank of China, but I have used Construction Bank also. Most of the ATM's I've also used have allowed you to select English, and allow you to select foreign or domestic card (I believe many Chinese PIN #'s are typically 6 numbers, whereas most American PIN #'s are 4 numbers) and have given me favorable rates. I will caution that I notify my local bank before doing this, since they will put holds on accounts if they see suspicious activity.

I enjoy Continental, and am happy they just became a partner with Star Alliance, although I will miss not being about to get miles on Continental through China Southern (they were part of one pass when Continental was). As a side note, Air China is part of the Star Alliance (which also includes, US Airways, Continental, United, and Air Canada)