I didn’t have much sense of direction when I was a kid because it wasn’t really necessary. My hometown was pretty much a grid, and when my parents drove around I was sitting in the back of the car reading a book. When I finally earned a driver’s license, I realized I didn’t know where anything in my hometown was. I had been to plenty of places, ( Read more... )

And now I am in Wisconsin where there is even more cold and snow than in Iowa visiting my brother, his wife, and three kids. They are a nice family; it was a bit of a shock for me when the kids could 'pick a prayer' and it turned out to mean a traditional prayer turned into a quick little ditty for singing ( Read more... )

I went on a weekend trip with the English Department to Huaiyin, what the Chinese consider to be in the fourth rank because it only has a million or so people. Cities that are big enough to be their own administrative districts like Beijing and Shanghai are rank one, provincial capitals like Nanjing are rank two, and other important developing ( Read more... )

Since I have lived in six different places in America, two in China, and traveled through many others, I have a long backlog of entries, so the dates on the entries and the posts may not always match.  This summer, when I return to the States for a couple of months, I'll have access to pictures, or might just create a link to my Facebook account.  ( Read more... )