Friday, August 01, 2008

[412] Beijing Bound. Our summer vacation shapes up -- Olympic style


[412] Beijing Bound. Our summer vacation shapes up -- Olympic style


Hi Friends, Neighbors the world over!

We depart (and the house guests arrive) for Beijing in a couple of days. Your gift and postcard requests are due to me ASAP.

Throughout August, my family and I are going on our 4th trip to China -- but this time we'll be within the buzz of the Olympic Games. We're excited.

I'll be blogging from China, as best as can be expected, at this new
site with others.
http://2008gamesbeijing.com/

Check out a service called TWITTER as well. See links on my blog.
http://Twitter.com/Rauterkus/


Recent snip: "her teammates stopped their training session and flashed their middle-fingers at the man behind the camera..." Sign up to follow my twitter feed.

Olympicpedia has concluded. My sons and I -- with the help of a few others -- built a 1,000+ page wiki this summer. study up for our sporting experience. http://AforAthlete.wikia.com There is plenty to do there -- and it will be a lifetime labor of love. Your input is most welcomed.

I've got a lot of hanging questions yet:

- Where can we train in Beijing, as I expect they'll not let us splash within the Water Cube without tickets. Erik, Grant and I want to continue to swim and exercise / lift.

- I need a loaner computer monitor. I'll bring the PC/Mac Mini. We're in an apartment in BJ's Silicon Valley.

- We would like to get 3 bikes for the month. Perhaps the 4th bike could be one with a bench. Then the boys can drive my wife an I around town.

- Tickets and tips are welcomed, especially to gratis events. We have a sample of tickets to many different events, swimming, water polo, basketball, canoe, table tennis, football.

- I'm very light on Biz cards, pins, trade swag, N at . Anyone with a suitcase full of Pitt t-shirts or hot ideas -- call me.

- My blog(s) and wiki(s) are not able to be seen from within China -- at last report. So, we do what we can. Mega uploads are expected in September. A proxie and other technical questions might -- like camera storage needs -- might still materialize.

- Go USA Athletes!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Have a great trip with your family, Mark. I'm enclosing a special link/suggestion for your wonderful journey. If time permits, check out this enclosed web link:

http://www.toastmasters.org/websiteApps/searchresults.asp?Country=China&imageField.x=35&imageField.y=6

It's the link about China Toastmasters International clubs from http://www.toastmasters.org/ . I briefly visited it and saw that 70 clubs were listed. During my skimming of those names, I saw at least 3 listed in Beijing. Visiting a TM meeting, which I'm sure you remember lol, would give your vacation a special added twist.

Just my thought and 2 cents. Do feel free to stay in touch (if time allows). Otherwise, let me and all on your LOOP know highlights whenever the mood and time is there. Talk to you soon. Godspeed and safe journeys/traveling mercies.

Rick Hays (Richard M. Hays, Jr. and 'Rick from Mt. Washington')