61 degrees this morning, light rain (probably after heavy rain last week).
Listening to my Chinese language tape, I am somewhat surprised to learn that in the Chinese language, America means "beautiful land". No reason I was surprised, I just was. May mean that America was discovered by Chinese explorers! Actually the basic simple spoken Chinese language (with the tones, which of course is something I will never learn) is fairly simple. Of course, remembering what to say at the right time is more difficult!
This morning I read an article with the term "Grey Ceiling", to represent ageism in hiring and other personnel actions. Four months ago, I wouldn't have believed it, or at least not understood the full prevalance of it. Not me as such, but horror stories I have heard.
Speaking of criminals, I always get angry when I read about a group or individual that own the majority shares of a business company (usually a "hedge fund"), who borrows a lot of money to issue a "special dividend" to themselves (I have seen as high as 3 billion dollars!), they then "spin off" the company to unsuspecting shareholders and the company is unable to operate under the debt load (which unjustly enriched the previous owners) and declares bankruptcy. I guess in addition to wondering why these criminals aren't in jail, why do the banks (or whomever) loan the money in such a scheme? I assume it is greed, the loan is probably high interest and they think "this time" the loan will be good. How is this any different than looting a company of it's cash and leaving town? I get angry than realize I can't do anything about it (other than avoid their stocks) and don't worry about it. However, I can state my opinion. Lands End is the latest of these capers and I just read about it. Probably the less I say about my feelings about this the better since I am sure they are well covered by contributions to lawmakers.
I discovered an app "WeChat" (actually the person who we are consulting about our China trip told us about it, apparently it originated in China. We will be able to make phone calls on it on wifi without using the very expensive international minutes. I have used it a little and it works well. "Whatsapp" is another one. (I think that was the one purchased by Facebook, so who knows what might happen with that). Of course, the other party needs to have it also and I haven't been able to get on my iPad.
I'm debating bringing a camera with me. The iPhone camera (or iPad camera) works so well, but it does have some limits.
Probably a rainy day today. Made my first "Memorial" pictures of some hats that I am going to give/throw away (so I remember the event). Trying to decide how to proceed after this, as far as where to post. I really like this idea.
Making up some business cards in both English and Chinese for my trip, and for use afterwards. I always have fun working on a project like this and probably spend a lot more time than I should on it.
That's it for now.
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