Spring 2014 5 19 Monday

59 degrees this morning.

Just returned from an 18 day trip to China, which is why suspended the journal.  I wanted to concentrate on the experience.  I will post my China Journal as a separate entry.  

China was a great experience.  I really enjoyed meeting the Chinese residents and seeing the Shanghai, XI'an, Bejing, Wangzhul and then Shanghai.  I attended a Conference in Wangzhul and a Study Tour in Bejing and the other cities were personal tours.  The Conference was truly International in the sense that there were persons from Russia, Australia, Denmark, Nigeria, Great Britain, Canada, and, of course, China and the United States.  It was unique cultural exchange, focusing on the urbanization problems of China and sustainable practices in cities.  

Re-entry into reality should be easier, since we currently have no reality.  I am trying to find the "right" job, and we are trying to sell our house so our options are limited by other circumstances.  

The experience in China really made me think about my future.  I know I will be more international in my thinking.  While I vaguely knew the urbanization problems of China (and other countries), I was unaware of all of the work that has been done in this area.  The major items about China I will remember (besides the wonderful people we met, and perhaps the wonderful food!) is the emphasis on enhancing residents lives by providing for parks, separate bicycle lanes, landscaped medians (and landscaped separations between the bicycle lanes and regular traffic).  The architecture is spectacular to say he least, especially in Shanghai and Beijing.  

Problems I saw were housing (waves upon waves of high rise apartments, it has to be seen to be believed) and the truly chaotic traffic. Somehow it works, but I don't see how!  Actually the rapid urbanization is a major challenge as well as an opportunity for China.  I understand housing costs may be a major problem for younger Chinese as the costs increase.  

I noticed a major difference in each City we visited.  Yangzhul (the "smallest" city) perhaps overwhelmed me with the number if bicycles and scooters (much more percentage wise than the other Cities, with XI'an in second place) and with fascistic facilities for bicycles and scooters.  The people of XI'an were wonderful, but then so were the people in Beijing and Shanghai.  

Meanwhile, I have planned the China trip since December, so a major event in my life is now over, other than planning how I can get back to visit again!  

I am going to emphasize my knowledge of "sustainable practices", I think that is a major opportunity for cities in the future.

Meanwhile, back to reality, whatever that is.  Right now, the only reality is change and potential change.  Selling the house, moving, job/business changes.  We love Lakeland, but for what it was, not what is it going to be now.  After the city turned down a much needed bicycle trail and decided all parks should be private, eliminated code enforcement, it is time to leave.  Eventually Lakeland will merely be like the county, without any reason to have a city, except perhaps to further the ambitions of the spoiled brat mayor and he spoils system of machine politics.  

Spring 2014 March 25 Tuesday

37 degrees this morning.  We are in that S L O W period of warming up, where it seems to take forever for summer to get here, even in Memphis.  Some years it is mid-May before it has really warmed up.  I mentioned liking baseball yesterday, but we frequently avoid going to any games until early May, unless we are sure it is going to be warm, because it gets so cool at nights yet, too cool to just sit there and watch a game.  

One of the more fun parts of last weeks visit by Kali and Katherine (among many) was riding the bike with them.  Yesterday, at my afternoon ride, I missed having one of them riding with me.  I always ride my morning ride by myself.  (May have something to do with the time!)

The New York Times had an article about age discrimination this morning (even the old discriminate!)  Until 4 months ago, I wouldn't have agreed with it, now I definitely agree it is pervasive and there is little you can do about it, even when employers literally come out and say it is your age.  In a way it is strange since it is the discrimination that everyone (who lives that long anyway) will face.  It will definitely impact your life if you start looking for a job.  I guess it is a matter of that I wouldn't want to work at a place that views age in that way and go on with life.

Scheduled to work on the "MacBook Air" basics again (along with my iMac desktop) at the Apple Store.  The "one to One" program at Apple is certainly a huge benefit if you own any Apple products (although it is available at it's fullest benefit only for computers and laptops).   I always come away rejuvenated from the sessions and I always learn something.  (By the way, I am always pleased to see that, at least at the Apple Store, there is a wide diversity of "creatives" and "geniuses", with ages of all generations well represented, as well as all segments of society.  That is actually one area where someone could argue that age could be  a criteria, but I see no difference between the very young and the very old employees, they almost are all encouraging and informative, with only a few clinkers here and there.  There was one instance several years ago (when Facebook and Twitter came out) that one of the younger creatives couldn't hide his shock that I had a Facebook page.  This was well before it was commonplace, at least the general feeling was that it was for younger persons, but actually an older person helped me set it up, after I blundered around trying to set it up.

Spent a lot of time yesterday filling out the "Visa" applications for our China trip.  The highlight of the trip is the International City Manager Association (ICMA) International Summit, and a pre-tour Study Tour in Beijing.  We are going to spend a day or two on personal tours also.  I have the air flight,  the hotel reservations etc., but haven't finalized the personal tours.  We decided after a "private" tour in Washington D.C., it was well worth the money to take a short "private" tour of the highlights we want to see. I would never have seen Lincoln's Country Retreat on a regular tour and this gave me time to look at it in detail.

One of the more interesting tours we took in Washington D.C. was the "pedicab" tour, which was relatively inexpensive.  It also scared us at times, being the back end of a bicycle in Washington D.C. traffic.  However, it was fun and we saw things in a different light.  

The upcoming Tennessee City Managers Association conference is having a session on "Leadership lessons from Lincoln".  I am looking forward to the seasons since this has been a special interest of mine.

That's it for now.