I find myself being cold a lot in my house because my roommates need the air conditioning on. I got used to no air growing up and like the windows being open.

some interesting info from Hong Kong

I thought I would just give you all some interesting info from Hong Kong.

1. A lot of people have maids or helpers here. These are women, typically from the Philippines or Indonesia who either live with the family or are hired for a set amount of time each week to do a variety of tasks-including walking dogs, taking care of children, and cleaning house. Sunday is the day off for all the helpers in the city. They all gather in a specific park/area for the day and set up little picnics and play games. Based on the turnout at these areas-there are a LOT of helpers in the city

2. When they make repairs on buildings, the scaffolding is made up of bamboo. It doesn't matter how high up the scaffolding is, it is all bamboo. Here is a picture



3. There are raised walkways all over the city. You walk from building to building, rather than walking on the street. This cuts down on street traffic, but it is hard when you don't know exactly where the walkways are. Richard and I tried to walk to Causeway Bay from Central on the street, and got lost. You have to use the elevated walkways. There was virtually no way to get to where we wanted to go without using the elevated walkways.

4. They have boxed milk like they did in Ireland. It is milk that isn't refrigerated until you open it. It is a little funky.

5. Although it is very humid here, I've have very bad dry skin.

6. I got bloody noses for the first few days because of the pollution.

7. We took a 40 minute cab ride yesterday for about $15 (U.S.)

8. A mini watermelon (at an organic grocery store) cost about $20 (U.S.)

9. The English channels that we get include 2 HBO's, Cinemax, CNN, Fox News, Discovery channels (including travel, real time, science, home and health), Animal Planet, Nickelodeon and some channel called Star World which has some US shows like Heros, 30 Rock, Prison Break and Seinfeld reruns

10. We are going to Thailand (just Bangkok) this weekend.

Father's Day!

Happy Dad's Day, Ed! Hope it's a cornicopia of good times. Is Mom taking you to dinner? Don Pablo's? Power tools? Neckties?

And as for you Ryan, you get to be wished a pleasant Father's Day too. Detail the excitement for us. I'd love to hear what Ashley and Chloe had planned for you.

Oh yeah, the Chard's going to be a Super-Dad too. Future tense. Nice work.

In celebration, I submit this montage of Dad pictures...



-Rusty and Meridth

Austria Episode II: The Phantom Tourist

Meridth and I flew out of W.A. Mozart Airport in Salzburg last night at 11pm and landed in London Stansted this morning, ending the neatest, craziest holiday I've ever been on. We left on Tuesday morning and so we only had four days to see and do as much as humanly possible in Salzburg and the southern Salzach Valley (the places I spent 11 months in back in 2000-2001). We bought this wide ranging pass (the Salzburg Card) that gave us access to just about every museum and tourist-y attraction in the city. There is a time limit however (48 hours) so you really have to move fast if you want to get your money's worth. Some highlights of the trip include Hellbrunn, the summer residence of one of the more eccentric Prince-Archbishops. (The Prince-Archbishops were both the spiritual and the secular rulers of the Salzburg region until Napoleon conquered it in 1813 or so.) This guy loved pulling pranks on his guests so he set up a park full of trick fountains that would spray his chums when they least expected it. The stag above my head sprayed water out of his tongue and horns and stuff. Plus he had clockwork robots that moved via water power. The stuff was fairly complex, mechanically and it was all created in the 17th and 18th centuries (i.e. some 400 years ago) so that was really keen. We also saw the Liechtensteinklamm, a really beautiful gorge in St. Johann im Pongau, about an hour to the south of Salzburg. The gorge is super-narrow and the water that rushes through it is fast, cold and creepy, especially since the only way you can navigate the gorge is via small wooden walkways and through caves cut through the stone. I kept thinking as we were walking that Mom may have had a hard time with these bridges and heights, but that if she ever made her way to Austria again, I would force her to do it, even if she had to walkk through with her eyes closed. It is so worth it. Meridth went crazy over the place and we took dozens of pics during the hike. For the geographically curious among you who realize that Liechtenstein is the name of a tiny principality between Austria and Switzerland, the gorge is in fact named after that country because the prince some 120 years ago made a great big donation toward the construction of those walkways and tunnels. Before then it was called "Death Gorge of Painful Doom" or something equally unpleasent. We also visited the Festung, a majestic castle above Salzburg. It was build to defend the region from people interested in exploiting the wealth of the salt industry for their own ends. It also protected the aforementioned Prince-Archbishops from their own peasents during various uprisings. Aside from being VERY picture-esque atop the Monchsberg (Monk's Hill or Mountain) it was a fantastic defensive location. The last thing I wanted to do after marching up to the gates was deck myself out in some heavy armor and swing a 20 pound sword around. (>huff puff<) Construction on the castle continued in spurts depending on the paranoia of the rulers until the mid-19th century. For a long time it was a barracks and about a hundred years ago, they decided to open it up to the public and tourists (including Mom and Dad back in 2002) have been tromping through it ever since. This picture features Meridth freaking out (relatively) over the cool interior of said castle. Meridth had such a great time on the trip looking at art and stuff. She came away with at least three new favorite artists (modern sculpter Stephan Balkenhol, 19th century history painter Hans Makart and art-deco inspired Church artist Ewald Mataré) none of whom had anything to do with the door she's standing in front of in the picture. Like I said before, it was a veritable whirlwind of activities (six art museums in two days) and sadly we ran out of memory cards before running out of art to look at. And this picture is Meridth with a yak.

We had a fantastic time and might post some more pictures later, but we need to pick up some groceries today before everything closes at 7pm. Oh yeah, and the picture at the top is at the peak of Untersberg. We didn't have time to climb it, but there was a cable-car. They like to put restaurants and hotels on the top of mountains in Austria and Germany. It's a little weird, but since I climbed the mountain twice already, I didn't feel bad cheating.

Love you guys!

-Rusty

HAPPY BIRTHDAY RUSTY!!!

Hope your birthday is going great! What are the plans for your special day? Are you going to eat some yummy food? Are you and Meridth still in Austria? We love you and miss you and hope your special birthday is just great! HAPPY BIRTHDAY EDWARD-o!

Lincoln Highway

I was reading an article in Everyday with Rachel Ray about restaurants along the Lincoln Highway. They profiled a restaurant in Ft. Wayne, Indiana. Has anyone been to Cindy's Diner (830 Harrison St.)? Of Cindy's Diner Rachel Ray said "Do the twist in one of the 15 swivel sttols while you down doughnuts and a potato-egg scramble. You won't be the first; the menu claims: We serve the whole world...15 at a time!"

Nothing really

So, I feel badly. Mom asked me to post everyday which has basically translated into once a week. I stink. I wanted to post some pictures, but I don't have a key drive to use with my camera memory card. We have one on Richard's computer, but he dropped the phone on his computer screen and completely broke it. We are going to buy an I-Book.

It is pouring rain here in Hong Kong right now. I'm sitting in the Pacific Coffee House working. I am researching someone and I found a source that said this person was a professor/Dean at the University of Akron school of Law. I went to their website to verify that information and I found this heading on their website.

"Click here to learn why more than 6,000 people since 1921 have selected The University of Akron School of Law for the Akron Advantage."

Does this make you want to click here? 6,000 people since 1921? Richard's law school class is 300 (-ish). Yale and Georgetown regularly have classes over 800. It just made me laugh.

Why not?

So after watching some idiots flip houses on TLC i think we gimbel's should come together and start flipping houses. Sure the housing market is slowing, but whatever... i'm a college business student and we all think flipping houses is a lucrative and wise investment. We also all worship ari gold.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MOM!

Speaking of old ladies ;-) Let's give it up for our darling mother who turn 53 today. Lots of love here from NC, Mom.

xoxo
-M

Old lady

some old lady asked me for 1.5 pounds of ground beef. I found a package with 1.66 pounds. She asked me to take the extra out. at our sale price of $1.29 she saved herself a little over 20 cents. Old ladies drive me crazy.

My Celebrity Look-alikes

My cool celebrity look-alike collage from MyHeritage.com. Get one for yourself.

Deja vu...

Before...


...and after.


-Rusty

Hong Kong Hawkins

I'm here! I've made it to Hong Kong! After three long weeks without Richard and a very long flight (with a kid in the seat behind me kicking my seat every few minutes), I've made it to Hong Kong! Richard was waiting at the airport for me and it was very nice to see him again.

He had to go to work as soon as I got there, so we dropped my stuff off at the apartment (which is TINY!) and then we walked to his office. I spent the morning exploring the area around his office. The streets are busy-full of people and traffic. There is a ton to see everywhere, from the alleys full of venders selling knock-off bags and clothes to the posh shops like Louis Vitton (I'm sure I spelled that wrong) It was a lot of fun to explore a little. I spent the afternoon unpacking and relaxing (I watched the Fugitive, that is a great movie!) and took a little nap before Richard got home.

Last night, we took the escalator up the mountain up to a neighborhood called the midlands (I think, maybe...I could be wrong) and ate at a Chinese restaurant (we were depating between Mexican and Chinese, I thought we should have Chinese for my first night in Hong Kong). By 8:00 p.m. I was exhausted and we walked home to go to sleep. I'm feeling pretty good with the time change, we'll see how I feel today!

Question from Zach Smith...

After LeBron James' performance in game 5 against the Pistons, Zach Smith had this to say:

"The first time I've heard a guy say "Jordanesque" and not immediately thumbed my nose at him. Wow! I, as Rusty could tell you, used to be a huge NBA fan. When Jordan dried-up, so did any class the game I loved had to its name. But seeing all that made me believe it's possible and if Lebron has a good head on his shoulders, which by all accounts he indeed does, we just might be treated to a few years of spectacular gameplay on par with his Holiness.

Its times like these I wonder what Karl Gimbel thinks."

And he linked to this highlights video of the game:
http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoID=2033228989

Your thoughts Karl, so I may post them on to Zatch?

Argentina!

I heard this great story on NPR about Argentina. As I am sure you are all aware, Meridth served her mission in Argentina. She was there 6 years ago during the horrible economic crisis that this story discusses. The story talks about how the country (at least some parts) have recovered from the economic crisis and are now thriving. Yeah for cool countries like Argentina and Yeah for missions!

I also like the picture of the old guy with the boot

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=10520083