Happy Birthday, Grandma Brodhead!

Doris Lillian Pettigrew Brodhead - far right - is 88 years old today! This was taken in Maine, where we spent some time this summer on Great Pond.

On the lake

Pat, Chloe, Matt, Sarah, Garrett, Joe

Judy really likes lobsters

It's fair to say I like lobsters twice as much as Gary. We completely grossed out Chloe.

Gary eats a lobster

Gary doesn't really like lobster the way some of us do - but he was a good egg at the Rockland Lobster Festival in Rockland, Maine this August.

From the camp

Isn't this gorgeous? It's a view from the cottage where we were staying in Maine this August on Great Pond.

Live Lobsters at the Rockland Lobster Festival

Susan, Doris, Annie, Teddy

Acadia National Park, Mount Desert Island, Maine

Annie

Not in China, You Don't

From what I've read it sounds as though we won't be able to see this blog, or any blogspot blog, in China. When my colleague went to China two years ago and used blogspot, she could post but not see it. I'm not sure I'll even be able to post. It sounds as though the blocks in China are pretty extensive when it comes to blogs. Bummer.

Bought a computer!

Despite my constant exhortations to students to use their computers more, I haven't had one of my own in a long time. Oh, I have one at work and my husband has one that I use. But it's his work computer, since he works at home, so it's pretty inconvenient. And often I just go to my office so I can work on the computer (and the networked email works better there too.) But yesterday I bought one! And it only cost $450! It's not my dream computer (that would be some kind of Mac laptop) but it's so new it works beautifully! It took no time to set up and since we have wireless at home I could start right up on email and blogging! So happy! What was I waiting for? It weighs 6.5 pounds and I will take it to China and Japan, where I am heading on Thursday. I'll be with 12 students from the college where I teach and it will be quite an adventure. I'm teaching a class on Travel Writing and I've been reading lots of travel books and guides. Went through "Culture Shock - Japan" and "Culture Shock - China" this morning. The first one is excellent - very specific - and the second is too general to be much use. Not to mention that it was published in 1990, supposedly "updated" in 2004. But not too well - has the tone of a slightly cranky British businessman who wants to tell the Chinese a thing or two and much prefers Hong Kong. And it suggests you can't bargain in China, which is the absolute opposite of what we saw in June and July. That's because the China he s writing about - at least the Beijing he writes about - has changed utterly.

How many blogs do I need?

This is the third blog I've created today; for some reason I get to a certain point and can't go any further, usually after I've created one post! This is going to get tedious if I have to start a new blog every time I want to post a few paragraphs. I'm going to have to ask my students to help me; I'm sure they are much more techno-savvy than I am. I'm heading to China and Japan on Thursday and hoping that we'll be able to see the blogs we have created; two years ago a colleague of mine was able to post on Blogspot but not actually see the blog (how odd is that!) It's blind blogging. It sounds as if my students have all sorts of blogs and lists that they are already active in; I'll be interested to see if they use those venues to write their Travel Journals, a requirement of my course.