House and Yard Video

This is our house and yard in Chiang Mai, taken with the video camera on my phone.

Thanks Matt Harmless for giving the the inspiration to get started. Look out now, cause I'm gonna start video blogging up a storm!

Boxes, boxes, boxes!

I think we are up to #53. Most of them are in the living room. The movers/craters come next Monday! Oohh, I'll be glad when this is over!

Memorial Day 2006

Memorial Day, in the USA, is, officially, a time to remember those who have died while serving our country. My family, however, is woefully lacking in military heroes, so, we honor deceased family members. We don't worship them as in many Asian cultures, but we simply remember them. We do it because it makes us feel better, not because it brings us any kind of merit or brings any helpful anything to our dead relatives.

I want to remember my grandfather. William (Bill) Saylors. He was known as Bill, Clifton, Jelly, and most interestingly, Doll Boy. He was Doll Boy to me. I was his first grandchild and his first male decendent. He had four daughters, two of which died way too young. He was a Ford mechanic and once changed a water pump for Pretty Boy Floyd. He really loved me and I really loved him.

He took me fishing. He called me his little helper. He would roll up the windows in his truck because I wanted everyone else to think we had an air conditioner. He took me everywhere with him. He died in 1975. Even though it has been 31 years, I still really miss him. He was a great guy.

Email service upgrade

My email server will be down for the entire weekend. The best way to deal with this is to use my Yahoo account.

Otherwise, we are still hard at work packing up the house. The kids will be in school on Monday since it isn't a holiday here in Thailand, so Sally and I will tackle some of the bigger culling projects then.

Wrapping up and packing up

Well, when I got home from my trip, I could barely get in my living room for all the boxes. Sally and the girls have been hard at work, packing up our treasures for our move to Hong Kong. I brought a box with me to work today to start packing up my personal things in my office. (I doubt I'll get to it today, but at least the box is here!)

We'll be moving to Hong Kong in 21 days. Three more weeks in wonderful Chiang Mai. Three more weeks to enjoy driving a car. Three more weeks of eating out affordably. (Yikes!)

In two weeks, we move out of our house an into a hotel. Someone at church yesterday mentioned that living in the hotel will be good training for living in a high rise apartment in Hong Kong. I hadn't really thought of it that way, but, except for the maid service, they are right!

I'm Back!

After having experienced a horrible episode with my laptop, (I messed up the domain/network settings trying to "fix" it) I haven't been able to get to my blog until this morning.

We had a very good 'rest of trip' and are now safely at home in Chiang Mai. I may have one or two more pictures to post later.

Thank goodness for our "Tech Team"!

OUCH!!!!

I am taking it easy today, just laying around the hotel room after passing a kidney stone the size of a bowling ball early this morning.  It isn’t fun.  Not fun at all.

 

I really hate missing out on seeing the area.  I do have a REALLY nice view from the hotel room, but, whoop-ti-do!

Happy Mother's Day, Mom!

July 1974

You are a great mother and I love you!

Donkey Meat for Lunch

You read right... DONKEY MEAT! Kind of tastes like roast beef (when you get past the thought that you are eating DONKEY MEAT)

Brasilian BBQ part deux

From the smile on that face you can tell this stuff is goo-oood.

Well, which is it?

Is it here or 200 meters up the road?

Gondola Ride

Our last day in Yantai, we took a gondola ride to the top of Yantai Shan. The ride was absolulely wonderful and the vistas from the top were spectacular.

Rough seas

Yesterday in Penglai, there was gale force wind, which made for some pretty sea pictures. The one on the top is part of the Penglai Pavilion. It is NOT the great wall of China!

Lottie Moon Country

I took a day trip yesterday to Penglai to see the church that Lottie Moon started back at the turn of the last century. I found THIS website to tell about who she was.

Yantai Lighthouse

Yantai

Doesn't it look like Europe?

Still having problems

Well, I can't seem to upload photos to BoyneBlog this morning, so I guess I am out of luck. I was able to upload one to my Wunderphoto site. Here it is

Technical Difficulties

Technical difficulties are making it completely impossible for me to post pictures on my blog today.  I tried to post one earlier, but at this point, I can’t even access my blog to see if it posted.  I can only send in text posts via email.

 

I had a really good day today.  We traveled by bus for about three hours to Yantai.  It is a great little town (of about 1.5 million people) right on the coast.  We are staying in a very nice hotel and had an excellent dinner.  I took about 95 pictures of the city.  Hopefully, I will be able to post them tomorrow morning.

View of Yantai

Yantai is a beautiful city with a long history of foreign influence. It was the base of foreign consulates after the opium wars of the 1800's. The city has a gorgeous old town that looks like it stepped right out of Europe.

Eric Liddle's Memorial

Internet too slow

I have been trying for the past two hours to post some pictures from todays adventure, but with to no avail. I will try again in the morning.

However, I had a most delightful day. We went to Weifeng and saw the monument to Eric Liddle, from "Chariots of Fire" fame. He came back to China after the olympics and taught as a missionary. When the Japanese invaded China during WWII, he, and many many others were interned. He died while in the interment camp in Weifeng a few months before the prisoners were liberated by the Americans. There is a wonderful monument to him outside the prison (which used to be a school building and hospital).

Meanwhile, I did manage to get one picture posted on the Wunderground Photo site: http://www.wunderground.com/wximage/imagesearch.html?handle=Boyne&handlebox=1&submit=go

Perhaps that could work until the morning.

Qingdao

This is a view of some of Qingdao, China. Pretty nice place.

Korean food

We had lunch today at an incredibly wonderful Korean restaurant. I must say, it is the best Korean food that I have had so far. It was very fancy and we had our own private waitress who stayed in our private room and waited on us only. High falootin stuff!

States I have visited

create your own personalized map of the USA

OK, I am just following along in the wake of those who have blogged before me, but, tough. I'm older than you guys and I have been in 38 states! So there, pbbbbbtttt.

Brazilian barbecue in China!

The advent of Brazilian barbecue in China just might outdo Starbucks! What a feast!

Countries I have visited (or at least been in the airport)

create your own visited country map

Misc Shanghai Pics

Waving Hello

Me and Mau waving hello from some university campus in Shanghai. (I don't remember the name of the university, except that I couldn't pronounce it)

Shanghai sights

I don't really know where this is, except that it is fairly near a wonderful restaurant called "Shanghai Uncle". Mmmm, mmmm, good! In fact, it was the best meal I have ever had in China!

Rough Start to a Long Trip

Well, we got a rough start to our two weeks of traveling.  While on the way to pick up my traveling companion to go the airport, a guy on a motorcycle pulls right out in front of me, while I was traveling at a pretty high rate of speed.  I hit the brakes, then hit him.

 

I reckon I put down about 475 yards of black marks, well, ok, about 40 feet.  And I skidded another 20 feet or so AFTER I hit him.  By God’s grace alone, that man didn’t die today.  I hit his motor cycle about at the handle bars.  I figure I was going about 50/60 kph when we collided.  It knocked parts of his motor cycle and my truck all over the road.  It really was a miracle that he didn’t die.  Another 6 inches out in the road and the truck would have struck his body, instead of his moto.

 

He ended up with a hurt ankle, but he was walking around and it didn’t appear to be broken.  I think he knew he was lucky to be alive.  There was a man there who spoke some English and he helped us sort it all out.  We were all set to let each person take care of his own stuff, until the man’s family member arrived.  She saw money signs since I am a white foreigner.  She got the man all riled up and the man started writing down my tag number.  Once we saw that, we said we should call the police.  I was afraid that they would go to the police later then try to claim it was a hit and run or something like that.  It just so happened that a policeman came by on his motorcycle and sorted it out for us.  He felt that we should each pay for our own.  That shut the female relative right up.

 

Anyway, to sum up, we made it to the airport on time and I am now typing this way above Viet Nam or somewhere.  I’ll send it when we get to Shanghai!

Two Week Trip

I leave tomorrow morning for a two week trip. I hope to post some exciting travel pictures.

Bloglines Subscription Correction

My wife pointed out this morning that the "Subscribe to Bloglines" button on the right hand column subscribes you to my "old" blog. I have corrected that as of a few moments ago.

Bloglines is a really cool tool that lets you check everybody's blog without having to actually go to their blog. A list of all the blogs you have subscribed to shows up and if any of them have new posts since you last checked, then it indicates that. It is pretty cool.

Tower of Babel

(Click on the picture for a bigger image.)

A friend of mine recently made a trip to Iraq and brought me back some of their money. On the back of this 250 Dinar note is the Tower of Babel. I find that absolutely fascinating.

More important than burritos

I think this sign sums up the failure to understand the gravity of the situation. If this man thinks the whole immigration issue is about trivialities like burritos, he is dead wrong. It is about the legal right to enter a country after going through all the "hoops".

I just got word that my Hong Kong visa is ready. I (and many others helping me) had to jump through bunches of hoops to live in Hong Kong LEGALLY. It irks me to think that folks think they can cross the border into the US then live off our "gravy train" without paying taxes or taking any civil responsibilities. I really do understand what it is like to live in a poor nation, but they must still jump through the hoops.

Do those who are planning these large protest events not think that everyone who lives in the USA is not decended from immigrants (including the native Americans)? Someone has dropped the ball in the thinking process. They are aiming straight for the emotional jugular vein.

Monkey Email

Go to THIS site to hear "me" speak. (Update: This link will only take you to the website to create your own Monk-email. My voice is no longer available as stored data 11/06)

Well, OK, then...

Well, just to let you know, I ended up having "a little bit" of fun yesterday. I didn't want to, but I was forced to.

Actually, it was a pretty good time. We all got sun burned, except for Emily.