Christmas Gift for all Running Mates Blog Readers and Twitter Followers

I wanted to purchase a Christmas gift for all the faithful readers of the blog and the 300 or so who follow on Twitter. But, I was torn at what to get for all of you. And, I'm on a budget. (My W2 for 2008 is going to have $0 income.) Plus, we've got this nagging problem with the global economic meltdown coupled with the news industry/journalism/newspaper meltdown. So, I need to be prudent. Finally, with our amazing trip to Beijing for the 2008 Olympics, I felt it would be exciting to bring you back a gift from the Olympics. We did bring back more than 200 gifts for our family and closest neighbors and friends. But, sadly, until now, we didn't have the capacity to share a gift for all the readers and Running Mates.

The other day my wife and I were chatting about the arriving Christmas cards and letters. Then it struck me. She and I were both tickled by Steven's note. Steven is a chef. He wrote that he had been doing some cooking at home to ready his family for the holidays -- while crafting his letter. Cookies were coming out of the oven and rather than sending everyone a dozen cookies, he sent those on his Christmas list the recepit for his cookies. Bam! Within the letter we had the formula for Steven's Christmas Cookies, a wonderful treat.

Perhaps we'll test and then re-gift Steven's gift in the future -- but now on to your gift.

It's a hat.

It comes from Beijing. No instructions necessary. Great when the sun is high and the heat is around 30-degrees C. Works with all different newsprint, regardless of the language -- sorta multi-lingual. Easy to export and import and does NOT require a hologram insignia of a branded logo.

This is the official gift hat of this blog, Mark Rauterkus & Running Mates, given on 2008's Boxing Day -- a day when all 20 of the teams in the Premier League are in action.

The hat is not so good for the next Steelers games. But, other local blogs have that covered. You might find this a splendid hat for watching the next test match of the West Indies Cricket Team now playing in the southern hemisphere.

Enjoy.

Pull up a seat and let's watch the guys splash around the pool

August photos are still being found

Erik, Mark, Catherine, Grant in foreground. In the background is the Olympic Softball Stadium in Beijing and the teams from Japan and Australia are shaking hands after the game. Australia picked up the bronze medal and Japan won in extra innings. Japan then played the USA for the gold and silver medals.

Sports Fan Trivia -- what's going on here?

Game time:

Can you tell what's going on here? I took the photo. Tip: click image for a larger view.

Prize to the one in the comments that gets it right.

What are these folks watching?

Said this before: Japan is upset that Obama won the election.

Four cities bidding for 2016 Olympics get to make their case - More Sports - SI.com: "It's also the first bid presentations since the election of former Illinois senator Barack Obama as U.S. president, a potential major boost to the bid from his hometown of Chicago.

A video message from Obama, taped since his election victory, is expected to be included in Chicago's 20-minute delivery.

'There's heightened interest and excitement in the presentations,' Hickey said. 'People are wondering if the Chicago presentation will include something from President-elect Obama. It's an added dimension.'

But, Tokyo has its own secret weapon. The Prime Minister of Japan is an Olympian. He was a shooter in the 1976 Olympics in Montreal.

So, I guess Madrid, Spain, and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, must be the ones that are the most mad -- since Obama won the election.

Obama goes into office in Jan 2009, he should still be in the White House and seeking re-election in time for the London 2012 Olympics. If he serves eight years, he'll be in the White House as the 2016 Summer Olympics are staged in his home town of Chicago.

Outfield of women's softball at Beijing Olympics had the Olympic rings. The team with the yellow and green is Australia. They lost to Japan and then got 3rd place -- in extra innings. Softball is due to get the Olympic ax -- as in baseball. Perhaps with the Chicago bid -- we'd get to see softball played at the home of the White Sox -- or the Cubs.

When do we get to talk about the next banner flap. We're still under marshall law regarding signs.

The Pens are back on the ice and I'm wondering when the next round of silly discussions and governmental finger wagging is going to kick up again about signs, banners, and other goofy governmental intrusions?

From ABCs of sports

Here is a hockey banner to make you blush.

And, it is a women hockey player too.

The Penguins might be able to put up a team banner if it is to include a lost kitten notice within the fine print. When do the Penguins play the "Panthers?" Who is going to 'be found' around here -- or not?

What about this quality? Reactions welcomed

Save me from making a mistake! Feedback welcome.

What do you think? Too hard to see? Too small?

We're playing with a new PC and video software settings, in advance of PghPodcamp, of course.

Test #2 goes here:

Click to play

We Got Hope. We were there! Workers' Stadium, Beijing: USA women win gold in "football"

Are you ready for some great football news?

The USA women's football team -- in western PA its called soccer -- beat Brazil in the gold medal game at The Workers Stadium here in Beijing. And we were there and have lost our voices to prove it.

The day was filled with rain, breaks in rain and tears of joy for a few different teams around town.

We were hoping for gold in the softball -- but Japan beat the USA team, 3-1. Last night we saw Japan tag Australia for the bronze medal game. The victor, Japan, got to play the favorite, USA, for the gold. Oh well.

The other big game on the schedule today was in women's water polo. USA played The Netherlands. The Dutch won by one point.

Today's early hours were filled with heavy rain. Without tickets to the open water swim, and with the rain -- we blew it off. We had the alarm set for 5:45 AM. Got up then and checked the puddles and punted. Back to bed. We knew we'd be up late for the soccer game later.

Very little was on the television too.

We got a swim in ourselves (Erik and I). And we watched the women's volleyball team beat Cuba. We also saw the USA women win the beach volleyball. The women's hard-court spikers advance to the gold medal game against Brazil.

Grant and Catherine played some park badminton and we at the last of the leftover Pekin Duck for lunch.

Then the boys and I headed out on the bikes to the double-header football games. It was a 90-minute bike ride. We locked up the bikes on the street between the Worker's Stadium and Worker's Gymnasium. These facilities look to be a bit older, but nice. I'm not even sure what is played at the Worker's Gymnasium. But there was a lot of activity on the streets around the venues.

The first game of soccer tonight was for the bronze medal and it featured Japan vs. Germany. To the end of the game, Germany scored twice. Then there was a 1-hour break and the gold medal game at 9 pm.

The game was hard. Great for the USA -- our goalkeeper, Hope Solo. She was not going to let anything past here.

The game ended in a tie -- 0-0. Then the game has two 15 minute periods. The USA squad scored in the first session and turned back a number of good opportunities including plenty of corner kicks.

The audience was mostly locals -- some from each of the four teams. But there were 51,000 in the stadium -- with few empty seats. Some, but not many.

Outside, tickets were being sold at face value and below. That's a good sign for going to the men's gold medal game or perhaps to soccer.

We got our helmets off the bikes and headed to McDonals. It was packed and we didn't get anything. Ran to the subway at 12:30 pm and was told this would be the last train. We needed three to get home and were worried about a transfer and getting stuck without the bikes. It took two cab rides to get home.

In the AM, we'll need to get back to pick up our bikes.

Good night.

Yet to come at Olympics

A big day is slated for USA Women's Softball. The team has a leg up with rest as the team from Japan had to get past Australia in a long game tonight.

But we'll be pulling extra hard for the women's USA Water Polo team in its gold medal match.

But we'll be in the stands for the USA vs. Brazil women's gold medal football game -- if all goes well with the ticket delivery. They're be playing football -- also known as soccer to a small percentage of people in the world.

Examples of pulling rank play out at the Olympics

Examples of pulling rank play out at the Olympics 'The Olympics are a great festival of human beings seeking rank, and that's OK,' he said. 'We all seek high rank, and we rather enjoy watching other people seek gold medals, and we applaud the victor and feel sorry for the loser.'

Problems arise when rank holders abuse their power.

No kidding.

Beijing is a big city -- but it is really fun to ...

We love being in Beijing and running into friends on the street.

We've seen a few folks on various days at various settings.

Our phone(s) has a number of different names and numbers now stored within the "phone book." And, we've called to keep in touch and make future play dates.

People are seeing us on the streets too. Our good friend in China gets updates on our travels from people in his company who see us zoom past while on our bikes.

Another point of smiles is seeing people we've seen and some who we know on TV as they show the crowd shots on TV.

We picked up some new bike shirts at a bike shop today. And, we got a badminton net and more shuttlecocks for our play in the park. Our friends, Simon and his mom, had tickets to weightlifting, so we only played with them for about 10 minutes then they had to depart.

Up soon, a visit to the Beijing Exhibition Hall for an Olympic showcase with all sorts of Olympic stuff. Might get photos.

Had fun going to the computer mall again today. Want to get a new battery for the video camera yet. But, got some disks.

The cheering in all the stadiums from the locals sounds like, "Chi-go" or "Guy-go" or a ChGuy-go. Its literal meaning is 'Add fuel.' As in 'get oil.' Use your energy. Burn baby burn. Then they often say, "China" (but in Chineese) in the off beats.

We want to sign up for "Team Sabrina." She is an Olympian from Canada. Rower.

New Zealand Swim News

Curtain falls on two fine careers
The curtain came down on two fine swimming careers at the Olympic pool tonight.

Helen Norfolk and Dean Kent, who have become the first New Zealand swimmers to attend three Olympics, announced their retirement from the sport.

Norfolk, who turns 27 later this month, has represented New Zealand since 1997. She won a bronze medal at the 2006 Commonwealth Games and at the 2005 World University Games, she scooped a New Zealand record three silver medals.

The medley specialist was extremely emotional in announcing her retirement. “It’s an emotional moment,” she said. “Swimming has been my life.”

Kent, who turns 30 in November, is believed to be the oldest swimmer to represent New Zealand at an Olympics. He made his New Zealand debut in 1999. One of his career highlights was his 200m individual medley silver medal at the 2006 Commonwealth Games.

Neither swimmer went out the way they’d have liked tonight.

Kent, swimming in the 200m individual medley, ended up only 21st fastest of the 46 starters, and his time of 2min 01.12s was about a second outside his best. He had estimated – accurately as it turned out – that he would have needed to duck under 2min to make the semi-finals.

Norfolk led off for the New Zealand 4 x 200m freestyle relay team which was travelling well until it was judged that fourth swimmer Natasha Hind had entered the water too fourth-hundredths of a second too soon – swimmers are allowed three-hundredths’ grace.

It was a pity because the New Zealanders – Norfolk, Lauren Boyle, Hayley Palmer and Hind - swam about 7min 57.3s, which would have chopped nearly seven seconds off the national record.

Burmester fourth as Phelps wins
Kiwi medal hope Moss Burmester's Olympic dream was put on hold on this afternoon as he finished a heroic fourth behind the phenomenon Michael Phelps in the men's 200m butterfly final.

Phelps, racing in his signature event, won in 1:52.03, setting yet another new world record in the process.

Getting away to a fantastic start Burmester was in the lead at the 50m mark by 0.03 seconds ahead of Phelps.

By the time they returned to the starting end, Phelps had stolen the lead back by a fraction but Burmester looked on course to push him all the way. Both swimmers were on pace with world record time.

The third length saw the field closing in on Burmester but he looked set to resist them and deliver New Zealand's high point of the Games.

As Phelps powered on in the final 50 metres, Kiwi eyes were on the man in lane one, but it unfortunately became clear that his fantastic effort looked likely to fall just short of earning a medal place. Sure enough Phelps touched first and Burmester, with a new New Zealand and Commonwealth record time of 1.54.35, couldn't quite get there ahead of Hungarian Laszlo Cseh and Japan's Takeshi Matsuda who claimed silver and gold.

Burmester admitted he had left everything in the pool.

"It hurt. I turned at 100 metres and I knew I was right up there. I was hoping to go a bit quicker but I couldn't have done anything more" he told TVNZ.

The Kiwi had been suffered from a stomach bug in the lead up to the race but said he wouldn't be using that as an excuse for his performance.

Soon after Phelps collected his fifth gold medal of the Games in the 4x200m freestyle relay to clock up his 11th Olympic gold.

Meanwhile New Zealand are still left waiting for their first medal.

Burmester should nevertheless be delighted with his performance, being the first New Zealander to reach a swim final since Danyon Loader in 1996.

Quick Update from the end of week one

We lost the internet for a couple of days. Sorry about that. Guess I shouldn't go to rouge video sites sorta like Utube-ish.

Out of the blue, Grant crashed on his bike (again). A bit of road rash is on his leg and arm. We've started a list of all the things that Grant has crashed into. I got really mad at him today as we started out and he did the old classic -- "Look mom! No hands." But he doesn't know the joke. The jokes on us. Ouch.

Catherine and I were headed to WalMart on foot to buy a little table for our meals and playing cards -- and we ran into two women who were looking for the weight lifting venue. They had just taken the subway here and were turned around. We walked them to the venue, knowing a short cut even. And, they had two extra tickets. But, most of the session had already happened. Anyway -- we got to see some weightlifting -- on a lark.

They were headed next to the canoe venue and I just got some great suggestions on getting there. Our tickets are to canoe in the afternoon. We have three tickets in the moring to Artistic Gymnastics. Trouble is -- it takes more than an hour to get to canoe. And, we live in the North East/Central, while artistic gymnastics is south west and the canoe is past the airport at the north east.

One tip was to take the subway (train) to the airport and then get a cab to the canoe venue. Most of the cabs don't want to drive all the way to the canoe venue. The charge is about $70 from airport and $120+/- from Beijing at the end of the subway line.

Needless to say, we can't bike to the venues tomorrow.

So weird to live blog Opening when the content is invention of paper

Live blogging -- really will put it all on Twitter.

Meanwhile, China invented paper.

Scroll unfolds....

dots get typed.....

Pinch me when life gets any better.

List of swim pools in Beijing where we might workout

A new friend from Mexico sent along a list of swim pool for our consideration. We need a place to swim and do our workouts. Grant, Erik and I would love to have a 90-minute workout once a day.

I'm offering to teach or coach for 30 minutes as a trade our admission to the pool. I could come earlier or stay later -- or even do it within the 90-minute time block.

Friendship Hotel
Friendship Hotel, Baishiqiao Road, Haidian District
6849-8888, 10 am-11 pm, 30/2 hours

Fragrant Hills Hotel
Fragrant Hills Park, Haidian District
6259-1166 x 3243, 10 am-1 am, 30

Sino-Japanese Youth Exchange Center Swimming Pool
40 Liangmaqiao Road, Chaoyang District
6466-3311 ext. 3185, 1-9:45 pm, 50

Dongdan Swimming Pool
A-2 Dahua Road, Dongdan, Dongcheng District
6523-1241, 10 am-10 pm, 30

Overseas Chinese Village Swimming Gymnasium
Inside Overseas Chinese Village, Jianwai Avenue, Chaoyang District
6515-0615, 10 am-8 pm, 50

Tiantan Swimming Pool Gymnasium
4 Tiantan East Road, Chongwen District
6701-7562, 12 pm-1:30 pm, 7:45-9:15 pm, 10

Yingdong Swimming Pool
Inside Olympic Stadium, Chaoyang District
6491-0468, 11 am-11 pm, 30

Perhaps we'll go to them all. Thanks for the pointers Carlos. If anyone else wants to go or meet us, call. Email might be okay too. Our local phone numbers are listed in the blog below.

8-8-08 is here and we're headed out on our bikes

I picked up a few others to follow on Twitter.

Putting on sun lotion for the big day. Will spend some at "Car a for" a French owned mega super market. This is near the electronics mall part of the city -- North West corner. The torch may be there at noon-ish. Will try to confirm with an Information booth (so nice).

Recent blog -- err "journal" entries are on paper and via my wife

My wife is keeping a journal and she has been logging lots of pages there -- on paper. Her stuff isn't crafted for the world to see, as mine flows.

But, another stream that she manages is email to those at home. When she is in a good mood and when I've been good (as I am generally), she'll CC me the messages for my awareness. Re-use, not so much.

Some snips from her about our recent days, edited some by the blog master, (me).

It is Thursday afternoon here (5am for you). We finally have email - it wasn't working at first. Actually, I'm not completely sure how we got on this time, so we'll see if I can get back on tomorrow! We are all settled in. The flight was easy and the driver met us at the airport. We were on a plane with many NBC reporters, USA Today reporters and quite a few athletes. It made for a very festive atmosphere.

We came right to our apartment. Grant started a nap that would last through the night. Mark went out and started to get to know the neighborhood (which includes a really nice WalMart!). He bought a bed (like one of the chairs that we take to the pool, but it stretches out to a long, canvas bed). We need this for Erik. Grant has the coach at night. Bedroom (room 2 of 2) has queen size bed.

Everyone is sleeping well. The apartment is great - very modern with lovely light wood furniture. Mark also got us phones the first afternoon which is great. ... You can call us if you like. (#s below / scroll down)

In the morning we ventured out into our neighborhood and found the little shops that have food cooking. We found a great place for "breakfast sandwiches". The people got a kick out of us - no other foreigners around this little neighborhood behind were we live. We've been there for breakfast each day and they know us now and are very friendly.

We spent part of yesterday buying bikes. We are great on our bikes. (Got plenty to say about bikes later.)

(She is wise to say little about the bikes until our return to keep worries at bay. But, she is right. We are great on the bikes. Erik and Grant are excellent. The New Zealand bike trip made them strong and wise. Here we are even on the right side of the road. Plus China has much less of a problem with drunks than US. Here the bike lanes a wonderful.)

- found the electronics district yesterday. When we went in to the "electronics mall" (largest in Beijing) some people were shouting at us and pointing us away from where we were going. We actually were with the landlord of the apartment and he just kept going, so we did, too. I couldn't figure out what was wrong and why he was ignoring them. On the next level, more of the same. Then I heard what they were shouting - "Dell", "Sony". These were all salespeople trying to guide you away from the competition and to their product. It was unbelievably noisy and visually busy. Pretty exciting. The boys want to go back to check out IPods and flash drives.

(Catherine said later that she was a bit scared upon our entry into the shops/mall. We went to the 4th floor, zip, zipping along. We (white folks) were ignored, helmets in hand. But our leader, a local, got the brunt of the 'welcome.' Catherine felt as if they were telling us to exit as something urgent and bad had just happened. Why would you want to go there -- in -- when a cyclone just ripped the top floors off this building or some other horrible news and gloom await just ahead. We dove in. I had a much better understanding of what was happening and wasn't at all perplexed. The boys and I had been frequent visitors and shoppers at the electronics mart in Chengdu. This one was very, very similar. Tip: this isn't like Best Buy in the states.)

This morning (Thursday) we set out at 6am (since we woke up around 4am) to ride our bikes to the Olympic venues to check things out. It took about 45 minutes (maybe a little less) and we were at the Bird's Nest - really exciting. It was really hazy here today - it will be interesting to see how all this weather turns out for the events. We rode bikes for about 4 hours checking out different venues - very exciting.

Back to Wal Mart today for shopping now that we have a working refridgerator (the new one didn't work when we got here). The boys met one of the medical trainers for the U.S. Diving team and a manager from the U.S. Field Hockey team. They were very nice (buying fans) and gave the kids Olympic pins.

(The apartment / bathroom has a single unit, pint sized) washer with a special supper spin cycle which partly dries clothes. Then clothes are hung in the window area (like a big bay window) and they are dry by morning. It's great to have laundry. (Catherine got it all to work -- despite the electronics / instructions being only in Chineese.)

We are on the 13th floor of the building (top floor). (No worries here about 13 being unlucky. That # is 4.) You'd never see a 13th floor in the U.S. It is neat to look out at dusk and into the night at the big buildings (neon and Chinese letters). We live right behind the big Microsoft China building.

The opening ceremonies are tomorrow. Everyone is very excited to see how it will go. There will be fireworks all over Beijing. Our first tickets are for waterpolo on the 10th. ...

Calling to China

The 011 = US exit code. It must be dialed first for all international calls made from the USA or Canada.

86 = the country code for China.

The city code the region of Beijing is 10. But, for a cell, that does not matter.

In China they have area codes of 2 to 4 digits.
In China, the phone numbers are from 6 to 8 digits.

Area Codes:
Anshan 412
HuaiYin 517
Tianjin 22
Beijing 10
Jilin 432
Weifang 536
Changchun 431
Jinan 531
Wuhan 27
Chengdu 28
Nanjing 25
Wuxi 510
Chongqing 23
Ningbo 574
Xi'an 29
Dalian 411
Qingdao 532
Xiangfan 710
Guangzhou 20
Shanghai 21
Yangzhou 514
Hangzhou 571
Shenyang 24
Yantai 535
Harbin 451
Suizhou 722
Zaozhuang 632
Huaibei 561
Tai'an 538
Zibo 533

To dial to China from USA, as we have a cell, I think, dial:

011 + 86 + 13520815205

My blog is working from within China. Wiki won't. We are here! BG08 excitement!

This blog post comes to you from our apartment in north central Beijing, just one long block north of the 3rd ring road. Microsoft's headquaters is just the next building. Many high tech universities are around.

Our phone numbers in China are:

13520815205

and

15011009765

To call us from outside of China, you'll need to enter the country code -- and I'm not sure what to tell you about that. We also can accept text messages. But, we might not reply as charges are steep and the dollar isn't like it used to be.

The travels and apartment is fine. Some stories will come in due time.

Beiing is sultry, to say the least.

Two suface to air missles are between the Water Cube and the Bird's Nest. Former President Bush is here already. We've seen a dozen or more athletes and dozens of others (managers, medical, IOCers, etc.) in our bounces around town so far.

The biggest news from us comes from Wal Mart. We have navigaged the city on bikes for two days and we are all still with all our limbs. We purchased three bikes. The fourth is ours on loan. Grant did wipe out over by the archery venue -- clipping a parked bike and taking a spill -- but going along at a slower speed.

With the bikes, it is as if the city was shrunk by a factor of 20. However, the city is about a gazillion times bigger than Pittsburgh.

Now -- to catch up on the rest of the email and the other blogs.

We do not have NBC TV here. So, where in the world is NBC's Today Show setting? Where is Matt Lauer? Updates welcome.

This city is buzzing. The place is exciting. We are having a great time. Stay tuned for more insights.

Tip on the opening on 8-8-08 at 8 pm: "Grand does not need to be long." Furthermore, the lighting of the cauldron isn't going to be such a big deal. Other, more important elements are going to be showcased.

Stay tuned.

Travel on a budget to Beijing

From Mark Rauterku...

Getting to Beijing has been expensive.

The passports for the boys needed to be re-issued. You can't enter China unless you've got more than six months of valid time still on the passport. The boys, because the children grow so fast, need to get their passports renewed more frequently than adults.

Then there are charges for the visas. A service helps by standing in lines and speeding the process that might otherwise be impossible. Our passports, after getting stamped by the local post office, went to Miami, Florida, then to either Boston or New York. I forget. Then they came back to Pittsburgh.

All four of our passports went out in one envelope. But, they came back in two. First the boys then the adults -- about five days apart.

The cost for the kids was $505.00. The charge for the adults, $990. Plus, there were two or three overnight envelopes to pay for. The helper required the kid's original birth certificate and not a photocopy as had been presented earlier.

The visa and passports for China allow us one entry into China between now (July 28) and January 1, 2009. We get to stay for no more than 30 days.

Furthermore, the paperwork we needed to show included our round trip airline tickets. They want to know you've paid for your flight home. And, the home bank account information to prove that there is sufficient money in your home bank. Plus, we needed to show a lease as to where we would be staying while in China. Not just an address or a statement we'll be staying with friends. No, we provided a lease. And, with the lease a copy of the passport of our host and friend in Beijing.

In Beijing, I expect we'll need to check in with the local police department. That has been the case in the past. We'll also swing by the USA Embassy -- just to let them know we're in town. Nice to have friends.

The 'red tape' is easy to witness. But, we've got nothing to hide. We don't need to worry about going into or out of the country with more than $10,000. Not even close.

We've got a weekly budget. We know what we spend in the US for a weeks worth of food and groceries. We'll stay within 3-times that amount per week and will be on budget.

To make budget, we won't be going to McDonald's or KFC -- much. Those are expensive places.

When we went in the past, the US Dollar was much stronger. Europe is way worse. But in the early trips we used a factor of 1:8.1 RMB. That was $1 US dollar to 8.1 of the Chineese currency, called either 'yen' or 'RMB'. Now, it is much worse. We're in the 1:5 or 1:6 range.

In Pittsburgh, PNC Bank does not even hold onto the foreign currency from China. But many other money is available there. However, there is an exchange window in the Pittsburgh International Airport. They had an "olympic special' if you cashed in $1,500 USD. We'll had time to kill in D.C. before our plane left for Beijing. That's where we did the first wave of money transfers.

We've also got a bit of money tied up in travelers checks now.

China didn't take much plastic on our other visits. Visa is a sponsor -- and we are not to leave home without it. Yeah, right.

You've got to watch out so as to not get some bad money. A bank setting is going to be trusting for our comfort. However, there was only one bank in Chengdu that would cash our travelers checks.