Liz: I have a friend I think Thomas would like too. She’s VERY single.

Special Congratulations go out to Liz for successfully identifying Sydney Australia as the Satellite picture and San jose as the Skyline picture from the last skyline post. Well done Liz! also, it should be noted that today is Liz’s birthday.

So here we are at Skyline Number Nine. Check it out HERE.

And then we have the satellite image HERE.

You know the drill.
1. Where is the skyline located?
2. Is the skyline the same as the satellite image?
3. If not, where is the location of the satellite image?

WARNING: ANSWER MAY BE IN THE COMMENTS BELOW

I shined my shoes this morning. Don’t be alarmed if you have to shield your eyes when I walk into the room.

I have been accepted into RPI’s WEMBA program!

Booya!

I’m back from China!

It really was a fantastic trip. Two weeks of new cultures and wild times. The work itself, despite a few equipment failures, went pretty smoothly. I’m really just beginning to get back into the swing of things, and I’m not sure exactly how to organize all my pictures and memories.

The last week of my trip was amazing. I ended up climbing Tai Shan last Wednesday. It was the strangest mountain I’ve ever climbed. With sore calves I left Dongying Friday and I got to a few last precious hours in Beijing. Those hours were exhausting, but I fit in some of the most exciting cultural experiences of my whole trip including an authentic tea house experience - rich with tradition and delicious teas.

I got home safely on Saturday after an annoying 24 hours of travel and was immediately hit with all sorts of daily life annoyances that I was able to so happily avoid while overseas (Bills, cleaning, lawn care, and the like).

Stay tuned for more pictures and tales of adventure!

The Temple of Heaven is located in Beijing just over a mile south of Tian’anmen Square. It is appreciated for its amazing architectural beauty. Constructed in the mid 1400’s, the temple was meant as a link between Heaven and Earth. Heaven round, earth square. Aparently all of the round alters and tables inside the park sit on square bases.

The ‘temple’ is actually a whole complex of many buildings of religious importance. The main building is the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvest. Highly ornamental, this building is made entirely of wood without the use of any metal nails. Lightning struck the temple in 1889, and the legend is that the lightning was “divine punishment meted out on a sacrilegious caterpillar, which was on the point of reaching the golden ball on the hall’s apex.*” Over thirty dignitaries were executed for letting this happen.

I hope that Tom and I have the opportunity to stop by this temple. It is described simply as a wonder.

*The Rough Guide to China, Leffman, Lewis, Atiyah; Rough Guides

Provided all the work went well in China I will likely be returning home tonight. My flight leaves Dongying tonight (9:30pm China time, 9:30am EST) and brings me to Beijing. I’ll spend the night there and then head to the airport for a 1pm direct flight to JFK. The flight (Flight 4451: United Airlines operated by Air China) will be 13.5 hours and I’ll get back to New York at 2:30 local time.

I am least looking forward to the drive from JFK back to Meriden. That should be extremely interesting.

The 2008 Summer Olympics will be held in Beijing, China.

The Dragon is often associated with China, yet this is more true for western cultures than in China itself. The Chinese dragon is often connected to water. In fact, there are four Dragon kings that represent each of the four “seas.” The East China Sea, South China Sea, Lake Baikal, and the Indian Ocean.

Many Chinese associate the dragon with an aggressive relentless beast. This is not always the best impression to give in a business or trade environment, so China prefers to use the Giant Panda as its animal of choice.

Pandas, because of their rarity and peaceful nature, are considered a Chinese natural treasure. Recently they have been only given away as gifts of friendship. It became illegal to kill or capture a Panda after western cultures discovered them and hunted them all hardcore like.

The other big Chinese animal is the Tiger. The tiger is seen as the foe of the Dragon and more of a brute force animal than the strategic graceful Dragon. These characteristics are carried over into martial arts styles. I haven’t personally seen any dragon forms or stances yet, but when I do, I will confirm or deny this fact.

Neat huh?

The Chinese Flag is a red with five stars. Red is the color of the revolution and was mirrored in the “little red book” that was passed out all over the place during Chairman Mao’s reign (The book was a collection of quotations from the Chairman.)

The large star represents the Communist Party. The four smaller stars represent the Chinese people. Apparently their yellow color indicates the bright future of the country.

For more information, check out the website where I got that graphic. It is located HERE and talks more about the symbolism of the flag.

The other night as I was eating some hot pot, I struggled with my chopsticks momentarily as I de-skinned a shrimp.

Immediately, one of the highly attentive, highly attractive, table assistants zipped over and placed a knife and fork at my placemat.

I sighed a sigh of relief. YES! REAL UTENSILES! Get a clue China! Chopsticks are of the past!

So I gleefully picked up my sharp shiny tools and immediately became enlightened…

Knifes and forks are completely static tools. Nothing more than stabby sticks with which we pitchfork our food and stuff our faces. Chopsticks are not a utensile of the past. nay. Chopsticks are dynamic forceps, graceful and alive. With chopsticks, I can manipulate and grip my food.

I put down the fork with disgust and returned to the chopsticks. Chopsticks are my new utensile of choice.

A man runs to the doctor and says “Doctor! you’ve gotta help me! My wife think’s she’s a chicken!”

The doctor asks, “how long has she had this condition?”

“two years.”

“What!?! why didn’t you come to see me earlier!”

The man shurgged his soulders and replied “We needed the eggs”

The Question

Shaun McQuaid, who is never afraid, don’t be delayed or I’ll be dismayed. ..

How much money could one save in gas by always staying to the inside of a curve by shifting lanes while driving on the highway? I’m not looking for an exact value, just a relative comparison between always on the outside of a curve, the middle, and always on the inside. You can ignore traffic and assume that all lanes are equal speed.

Yer Pal,
Jesse

The Answer

Let’s make a lovely little “perfect” world. In our perfect world, Boston is at the exact center of a half circle inscribed by Rte. 495 in Massachusetts. In real life, we’ll use I-495 from the intersection of I-93 in Andover, MA to the north, and I-495’s intersection with Rte. 24 in the south. This allows for an almost (meaning not really at all) perfect half-circle around Boston. Using I-90 as the diameter line, we discover that the radius of our circle is 27.5 miles, or 145200 feet.

The plan is simple - we will inscribe 2 circles, one on the “inner” lane of this simplified route, and one on the outer lane. According to my research, the most common lane width is 12 feet. Let’s assume a 3-lane highway - so, the “inner” lane has a radius of 145200 feet and the outer lane adds 24 feet to that total - 145224.

Calculating the perimeter of the circle will give us the distance traveled in each lane. Perimeter of a circle is calculated via 2 * (pi) * r, so a half circle is simple: (pi) * r. (For our estimation, pi is estimated at 3.14159).

Inner lane distance: 86.39 miles
Outer lane distance: 86.41 miles

Assuming 30 miles per gallon in your vehicle, this means:

Inner lane gas used: 2.879 gallons
Outer lane gas used: 2.880 gallons

So, in essence, by travelling only in the inner lane, you would save 0.001 gallons of gas. (Because of the tiny amount here, I ignored the “middle” lane and stuck with the right and left only).

Not quite as exciting as expected, is it?

The yellow river is really the life of northern China. Its name comes from the yellow silt that it carries and distributes along the coast. It is commonly compared to a dragon because of it’s curvy path and rough temper. It also has the nickname “China’s Sorrow” because it has caused much destruction and flooding in the past and has helped stifle the economies of the yellow river provinces. Some of the devestating flooding have been caused by huge influxes of water after dams of glacial ice burst in inner mongolia. These days, aircraft drop bombs on the ice to prevent a buildup of structure that could pose a risk to the low lying yellow river towns.

The yellow river is about 3300 miles long and starts in the Kunlun Mountains in the Qinghai province. It flows from east to west down the “steps” of china. China’s far western area has the greatest elevation and that drops in a series of steps down to the eastern coasts. From highest to lowest elevation the steps are:

The Tibetan Plateau (13000 ft)
The Mountains of Sichuan (5000 ft)
The Fertile Lowlands (<5000 ft)

With this in mind, it’s easy to understand the force with which China’s rivers reach the Eastern coast.

The drivers here use the horn like it’s their job. My hotel window is outside a busy street, and you can’t count to 8 without hearing more horns. It’s remarkable.

On the way to work in the morning, the bus that drives us usually uses the horn within 10 seconds of leaving the driveway. It’s not out of anger, just general “LOOKOUT! I’m here!”

Rock stopped day 7

The Rock, Stopped.
An MSPaint gallery by Mike D.

Title: The poor puppy.
Comments: This is “less than likely” entry number two. Because triceretops aren’t very common these days.

So here’s a monster pictoral update to my China trip thus far.

In Beijing, they know how to rock.

The Great Wall!

.

It was steep at times. Here’s Tom on the Hero’s slope

This is our standard lunch here in China. Clockwise from the outer circle inward, starting at 6pm the food is as follows:

soup #1, rice, raw garlic cloves, pork, squid legs, razor clams, tomato egg drop soup, hot peppers and unknown meat, sliced sauteed cucumber, bean sprouts, thousand year old eggs,
(inner circle)
steamed bread, dumpling like things filled with veggies, soup #3, sliced potato

The girl shown here is ALL about mike d.

I’ll spare you the contest, this is the skyline of Dongying, China

Me, like a dragon, in the Forbidden City.

Tom shocked at the size of the Forbidden City!

Team China takes on the Temple of Heaven.
That’s Tom, Theresa, and Florence

Me crushing the head of a dragon

And finally, the hacky sack series. That’s me in the forbidden city, Flo in the forbidden city, and me at the great wall.

The sign behind me on the great wall says “Do not climb the battlements!”

That’s all for now! Rock on!

Rock Stopped day 6

The Rock, Stopped
An MSPaint gallery by Mike D.

Title: Ronnie, Jesse’s co-worker, a few months ago.
Comments: In late April Jesse told us of how Ronnie was in a parking garage and managed to drop his keys into a storm sewer. I have often feared this fate. I believe they got it out with a clothes hanger.

Food update:

Cow Bone Marrow
Cow Ligament and Tendon
Chicken Hearts

San is leaving tomorrow for Taiwan, and with him he will be taking one of the last few computers with internet access. So I fear that it is very unlikely that I will be able to post any more Real Posts. I have added a few more auto posts for next week, but next week won’t be quite as full of posts as this past week.

San is also the only other American here. so from now on… it’s me and the Chinese.

Rock Stopped day 5

The Rock, Stopped
An MSPaint gallery by mike d.

Title: My least favorite.
Comments: Despite being the most frequent, I think this is my least favorite of the Rock Stopped gallery. I have very little to say about this piece.

On this date, Tom Ig should be leaving China. It will be a bummer to lose my travel companion, but I still have San. Unfortunately, Tom does not have a direct flight back so I’m sure he’s not thrilled either to get to spend another 20 hours in a plane.

Ideally, by this date we will have finished all the tough work here at the mill. That would be fantastic, though it’s not completely likely.

Tai Shan means peaceful mountain and is located just southeast of Ji’nan in the Shandong province. This is a hot tourist spot, and from the descriptions, I can understand why. Tai Shan is spotted with many temples, hundreds of ruins and tablets, and over a thousand stone inscriptions. The picture below shows a natural rockfall known as the immortal bridge.

This beautiful mountain also has historical significance in that many emperors and notable Chinese climbed the mountain in order to gain “assurance that their heavenly mandate would be maintained*” Included in this crowd were Qin Shi Huang (first emperor of China), Confucious, and Mao Zedong.

If I have any free days whatsoever, I’m going to do my best to go here. Chinese mythology claims it to be “the most significant mountain under heaven**” I think this would be an ideal way to see and feel China’s natural side.

* China, Eyewitness Travel Guides cw 2005 Dorling Kindersley Limited
** Chinavista.com

This hotel is fantastic. It’s 4 stars and well deserving of each one of those stars.

The room is quite nice and fantastic for out of towners. There’s a water cooler in the room with fresh delicious non-threatening water and tasty treats greet you when you open the fridge. Would you like some slippers? they are beside the bed table. Robes galore, tasty nuts, and much appreciated air conditioning, this place has got it all.

Included in the “got it all package” is the plethora of cute women in formal chinese dress. Formal chinese dress is very glamorous. There are also dudes in official garb maning the doors and pointing in a military like manner as they direct cars through the driveway.

Also, the rooms have real toilets. This is something I didn’t truly appreciate until I had to use the bathroom at the mill today. Bathrooms at mills in China consist of an oval hole, and two traction pads adjacent to it. After carefully squatting, you do your business, and then we americans use the toilet paper that we brought from home to clean ourselves. I don’t know what the Chinese do. I don’t ask.

Probably about a good 8 or 9 hour drive from where I’m staying is Song Shan and the Shaolin Temple. Kung fu loosely translates to “skill” and can mean anything from martial arts to musical strengths. Shaolin translates to “young forest” and the monks that practice there are known for the incredible feats of will and strength.

Unfortunately, I’ve read that this area has, to a certain degree, sucumb to blatant commercialism.

I’m told that the Kung Fu that I’m learning is a Shaolin style. but I’ve also been told that it’s a southern style… and the temples that I’m referring to in this post are most definitely in the north.

I’ll try and figure all this out and get back to you with more information.