Nixie Tube Clock

CP got a nixie tube clock for x-mas this year. Nixie tubes were used in the 50s - 70s before LEDs took over. The tubes are brand new, but were probably made in Russia 30 years ago. It came as a kit and it took him an entire day to solder all the components in place. The whole thing is run by an Arduino-compatible microcontroller that came pre-programmed.

There are some blue LED's under each tube that make it look really cool at night.

Old Neighbors

Our old neighbors stopped by over Christmas. A is going to school in Switzerland studying hospitality management and is going to spend a semester in Taiwan at a swanky 5-star hotel. C is still living in southern California. We tried talking her into moving back, but she likes the beach.

Merry Christmas 2017

White Christmas

It's nice having two grown boys around when it snows. And to think I was going to shell out $500 for a snowblower.

Day 11 in China - Home!!!

On Tuesday, we flew 13 hours from Beijing to Seattle, Minneapolis, and finally Lincoln. The entire journey with stops is around 24 hours. We left Beijing at noon on Tuesday and landed at 8 in the morning on Tuesday in Seattle. We got back the day we lost on the way over.

I couldn't find an "I heart Shanghai" shirt, but I did find one for Beijing.

So glad to be back home!!!

Day 10 in China: Baoding to Beijing

After the Governor's quarters, we hit a crazy indoor mall and picked up a large duffel bag for $8 to fill with all of our souvenirs. Actually, we filled it with dirty clothes and put the delicate items in our luggage.

The Baoding train station is big and modern and carries the distinctly Communist feel of a deserted building that is still in daily use. There's a huge plaza out in front, and a line of cabbies waiting to take you anywhere.

In Shanghai and Beijing, most of the facilities feature western fixtures. Not so in the Baoding train station. Good thing that my donkey sandwich was still behaving itself.

For the short jaunt back to Beijing, we were able to secure some 1st class seats. There were only five seats in the whole cabin.

Day 10 in China: Baoding Governor's Compound

After the donkey sandwich lunch, our host took us downtown Baoding to visit the former territorial governor's quarters. Baoding's history can be traced back to 200 BC; this compound of buildings was built in the 1700s. It's not unlike any historical exhibit in the states, except you can't read any of the signs (we hired and English-speaking guide).

Baoding roughly translated means "protecting the capital". Beijing has mountains and the Great Wall to its North, but to the south, there's a gap in the mountains and wall, so there has always been an army stationed here. At one point, there were 400,000 soldiers stationed in Baoding.

Life In Nebraska Post #1000

Holy cow! This is the one thousandth post on the blog. It took 12 years to get here. I should see if there's some way to archive all the post photos and put them in one of those Walgreens books. Maybe after I get caught up...

We moved here in August of 2005. The boys have grown up here and consider Nebraska to be their home. We've certainly had a good run here.

Day 10 in China: Baoding

Monday took us on another factory visit in Baoding (pop. 1,700,000). This time it was an investment casting foundry that is run by an old Communist guy and his two sons (and one of their wives). It is a success story for the privatization of Chinese industry. The family is warm and very dedicated to growing their business.

All over China you see people using these brooms. At first, it's funny - "Look at that! That guy just tied a bunch of sticks together for a broom." But then you realize that it makes sense, and they mock our need to pay money for a store-bought broom. They both do the same thing - why would I spend $10 for something that is growing in the yard? All over China this is the norm - they use things that get the job done and no more.

Baoding is known for their dog and donkey meat. On the way to lunch, one of the factory guys stopped off at a street vendor and picked up some donkey sandwiches. It was very tasty - much like a greasy pulled brisket. However, later that night my stomach disagreed with that assessment.

At the foundry, we noted that their metallurgy lab looked like it was from the 50s. They acknowledged this and explained that their intention was to upgrade their equipment last year, but then the air quality laws came out, so they instead invested in pollution control equipment. Many of their local competitors did not have the same foresight and thus did not become compliant - they are now out of business. We heard similar stories at all the factories we visited. The pollution control laws put a ton of factories out of business, but the remaining ones are now stronger and have more business than they can handle. The old buildings are being torn down in order to support the never ending growth.

Day 9 in China - The Great Wall

Sunday, we hired a guide to drive us to the Great Wall north of Beijing. It was a fantastic blue sky day with no wind. I think the cold kept the crowds at home - there were barely any tourists there, and the street vendors at the bottom were very eager to deal. I picked up some Chairman Mao pins for CP for a buck and an "I heart BJ" t-shirt for $3.

The challenge of a border wall is the support it requires. You can't just simply build a wall and expect it alone to keep out the invaders; it must be staffed and maintained. The Great Wall has guard quarters every few hundred yards. I can't imagine the resources that were required to keep this all in operation.

There is a feral cat colony at the wall. They all want attention, but cannot allow themselves to come closer than out of arm's reach.

After visiting the wall, we boarded a bullet train and went an hour (at 180 mph) southwest to Baoding. The restaurant there hat a cat motif on their seat cushions.

Day 8 in China: Hot Pot

After going numb from the cold at the Forbidden City, we sought out some hot food. Our guide took us on a wild goose chase in the blocks surrounding our hotel in search of a restaurant he had heard of. After 45 minutes of wandering around in the cold, we finally found it on the third floor of a sketchy looking office building. We were nervous going into the building, as it looked only partially occupied, but once we turned the corner and smelled the food and heard the din of a packed restaurant, we became excited.

The place specialty is Hot Pot. Now that I've had it, I'm severely disappointed that I missed having it while I was in Chongqing two years ago. It's AWESOME. Here's how it works: There's a cauldron of boiling soup stock in the middle of the table. Half is normal, the other half has an inch of red hot oil floating on top. You order whatever ingredients (or you can go buffet style) and then cook whatever you want while you chat. After a long day in the cold, this was a welcome meal.

The secret to Hot Pot is the Sichuan Peppercorn. It has a flavor known as Mala, which is hard to describe. It's hot, but it's so much more than that. It's also tangy and it actually numbs your mouth. In old times, it was used as a local anesthetic. Never in my life have I had anything like it. 

I'm no stranger to hot foods, so I dove in and indulged - why not? We had an everlasting flow of tasty Chinese light beer for coolant. As the heat kicked in, the numbness and a new weird sensation kicked in. I don't know how to describe it - just trust me and try it.

Day 8 in China: Forbidden City

While in Beijing, we hit Tienanmen Square and The Forbidden City. It was a nice Nebraska day: 30 degrees with a solid 20 mph wind.

These guys looked like they were not enjoying the cool breeze. They also looked like they are 16. 

A view across the city like this would not have been possible only a couple of years ago. In addition to banning coal, the government is also doing everything to curb particulates in the air. Any bare ground or piles of dirt at construction sites has to be covered up with tarps. Same for truck loads. The improvement in air quality is simply amazing! And yet we have a ding dong in charge here that wants to bring back coal. 

Day 8 in China: Shanghai to Beijing

On Saturday, we boarded the bullet train and headed north to Beijing (pop. 11,700,000). It's a two hour flight, or a 4-1/2 hour train ride in a comfy seat. Our train seated 1,000 passengers and ran at 190 mph with only a few stops. It rocked!

There are about 50 of these Shanghai to Beijing trains that run every day. That's 50,000 people a day! We really need to get serious about making hi-speed rail a reality in the US.

Our sunny blue skies disappeared as we neared Nanjing (pop. 7,200,000) where they're still burning coal. This is how everywhere was the past two times I visited. 

There's a food car on the train that serves up some pretty tasty train TV dinners. 

After we cleared Nanjing, it was blue skies and sunshine all the way to Beijing. (Chinese lesson: Nan means south, Bei means north, and jing means capital. Nanjing was the southern capital of China before it was moved to Beijing).

The countryside looks not too different from our countryside, except that all the fields are small plots. There are no 640 acre fields. Same goes for large ag equipment - everything is done manually or with small powered equipment. This has allowed the rural population to remain intact.

Day 7 in China: More Shanghai

The factory we visited on Friday in Shanghai is run by a very proud Communist. It was a world-class factory with modern equipment and competent people running it.

After work, we took the subway from Hongqaio to Pudong, which is the metro area of Shanghai on the other side of the Bund. It's where all the super tall buildings reside. Most of the subway riders are commuters, but with the large airport and railway station at Hongqaio, there are a lot of travelers. This little girl rode the entire way sitting on her mom's suitcase. It was obvious that she knew the drill.

Getting around on the Shanghai subway is intimidating at first, but once you understand how it works, it's totally excellent and easy to use. I'd rather take the subway than drive any day. One of our company guides liked to drive, so he drove us everywhere - it's not for the faint of heart or those that suffer from carsickness. The other guy didn't like to drive, so we took the train and subway everywhere and relaxed along the way. 

In Pudong, we hit the Fake Mall. It's a collection of hundreds of small shops that sell fake stuff as well as normal nice Chinese stuff, like scarves and Mahjong sets. I was amazed at the number of fake Star Wars Lego kits we saw: Star Wart, Star Plan, and Star Wnrs.

Thank goodness the boys have outgrown this - I would have had to send home a crate of lego kits for them.

Day 6 in China: Suzhou

On Thursday, we took the bullet train to Suzhou (pop. 10,700,000). Driving would have taken over an hour, but the train only to 15 minutes at 180 mph. The Hongqiao railway station is the largest in Asia; it's also connected to the Hongqaio airport and Shanghai subway. I'm glad it wasn't busy.

We visited one of our suppliers that makes radiators for one of our suppliers. They also gave us a tour of their other plant that builds heat exchangers - Wow! What a cool factory! They make radiators for the bit Caterpillar mining trucks as well as heat exchangers for extreme chemical processing plants. Some of them have stainless steel pipes running through huge blocks of graphite. The biggest one they made was over 80 feet long.

When we got back that evening and explored "The Hub" which is the center of a new metro area. I'm not sure how they do city planning in China, but they do a good job. In this case, the story is that downtown Shanghai is maxed out, so the area immediately west of the Hongqaio airport is being developed as the next high-density metro center.

Day 5 in China: Nantong

Wednesday, we drove north two and a half hours, across the Yangtze River to the city of Nantong (pop. 7,200,000) to visit another factory.  

At lunch, this pitch-black stuff made it around three or four times on the lazy Susan before I got up the nerve to try it. The only thing that it looked remotely close to was deep fried dog poop. I was relieved to find that it was just pitch-black deep fried fish that was as tasty as Mrs. Paul's finest fish stiks. I was told that the black color comes from black sesame. 

This is a typical dining room in a Chinese restaurant. All of the tables are round with a lazy Susan in the middle. Large ones, like this one, are usually self-powered. Servers bring the meal one dish at a time and everyone shares everything on the table. 

Chinese food rule: It's impolite to ask WHAT it is, but perfectly normal (and expected) to ask HOW to eat it.

Also - never use your chopsticks to point.

With the crackdown on pollution and burning coal, all of the currently operating power plants and factories have undergone modifications to curb emissions. Those that didn't step up and conform have been shut down. All up and down the Yangtze River are HUGE industrial plants. I know the sky looks murky here, but it's a thousand times better than the previous two years.

Day 4 in China: Ningbo

On Tuesday, we drove from Hangzhou to Ningbo (pop. 3,500,000) and visited two factories: an investment casting foundry, and the machine shop that machines their parts. The casting factory was top notch, but the machine shop was sketchy. It was one of those places where they were really trying to put on a show, but we could tell that what we were seeing wasn't their normal day-to-day operation. That's why it's so important to visit our suppliers' (and their suppliers') factories.

As usual, lunch was an adventure. The ordering room featured lots of dead fish as well as some live ones.

The Chinese aren't bothered by bones in their food. Most meat dishes are either cooked entire animals (like the fish below), or diced animals. Whereas we tend to separate meat into different cuts and types (steak vs. ribs vs. tripe), in China it's all just chopped into chopstick-manageable cubes. 

After lunch, we drove back to Shanghai across the bridge the Hangzhou Bay Bridge, which is the longest ocean-crossing bridge. Instead of staying downtown Shanghai, we moved our base to the Hotel Intercontinental by the Hongqaio airport. I LOVE 5-star hotels. I can't afford them in the states, but in China, they're under $200 per night.