Sleep Catchup

I let my jet lag finally hit me today.

I slept in till 12:45. . .

The day goes much too quickly this way, however.

Back to Work

No time for jet lag. Too much work to do!

Rambling back to Beijing

Another fun day in Beijing with Chunlin's brothers, I'm sure. Temples, restaurants, palaces, or perhaps just chilling in a park. I'm certain we had a good dinner!

Rambling up and down the Great Wall

If we didn't hike the Great Wall of China today, hopefully that means we visited it earlier this week. Perhaps we're now settling in for a night at Simatai, at the far northern edge of Beijing Municipality.

You can climb the Great Wall, but not the Great Firewall!

Rambling Northern China

We're probably back in Beijing now, after visiting Tai Shan and Zaozhuang, Chunlin's home town. Anyone know a good place to eat in Dongcheng?

Rambling around Town

Still behind the Great Firewall. I wonder what we did today. Perhaps today we toured the Forbidden Palace and a nearby museum or two. Or perhaps we caught a train to Tai Shan because the weather was good and we are now sleeping at a hotel atop the mountain. Our schedule this week is a bit looser than last week. . .

Rambling to Beijing

Since I'm in China, I can't access Blogger. I wrote this post a couple weeks ago. I hope it looks fine.

Today we had a flight from Shanghai to Beijing. If everything went according to plan, I met Chunlin's brothers and their families this afternoon. . .

Rambling through a World Expo

Even though I can't blog, I'm still blogging. . .

Perhaps this morning we awoke in Hangzhou, but soon we were back in Shanghai and touring Expo 2010 . . . in all likelihood.

Rambling up Huang Shan

Still behind the Great Firewall. . .

Today we probably climbed Huang Shan, which directly translates as Yellow Mountain.

There are hotels on top the mountain, so we're probably settling down for a good night's sleep now. Perhaps we'll get up early tomorrow to watch the sunrise.

Rambling to Nanjing

Since we are behind the Great Firewall of China, this post is set to appear automatically. . .

Today we probably visited Chunlin's coworkers in Changzhou and then continued on to Nanjing to see her uncle and the sights of the ancient capital. . .

Rambling to China

Chunlin and I should have just landed in Shanghai.

Blogger is blocked in China, so this is pre-recorded. . .

Overtime

Leading up to our vacation starting tomorrow, I've already worked enough overtime this week to pay for a drive to San Francisco and back.

We're not driving, though. Nor are we going to SF. . .

Big Ten Prediction

When the Big Ten conference announces at the end of this year whether it will expand or not, I predict that they'll decide to expand to sixteen schools by adding Nebraska, Iowa State, Missouri, Rutgers, and Syracuse.

This will give them two eight-team divisions. By adding three to the west and two to the east, they won't have to split any state in half.

Plus, all these schools are part of the 61-school Assocation of American Universities, a research association. The Big Ten prides itself on being the only conference with all its schools in the association. Notre Dame and Connecticut (names bandied about for expansion) are not in the AAU (but could be invited if their graduate academics are up to par).

I predict that they'll skip over Pittsburgh (also in the AAU) to gain the new tv markets that Rutgers and Syracuse would provide.

This all would leave the Big 12 with only nine teams and the Big East with only six football teams, so they'd both have some scrambling to do. Maybe they'll raid the C-USA like the Big East did a few years ago. I doubt, though, that Rice will be reunited with the big Texas schools in a new Big 12. Not if those schools are chasing money.

Devils Should All Be Women

From a historical perspective, those sexy devil women stickers one might occasionally see on the back of a truck are more true to the origins of the symbology than any masculine representation of a horned devil.

The horns are the moon, you see, which was closely associated with women in ancient times. And the pitchfork is useful when bringing in the harvest, since the moon goddess was often also an earth goddess.

The halo, on the other hand, was originally a solid disk representing the sun. And we all know that the sun is masculine, right?