me talking out loud

I just learned that Vim 6 supports Unicode encoding. I accidently found it in on a message board how to do it.

1) Open vim
2) type :set enc=utf8 or :set encoding=utf8 (Enter)
3) make sure the font you are in can support the characters involved ( I used the ‘Edit’ drop down menu and selected ‘Sim Sum’ for Japanese characters

And tada… Japanese characters were showing and capable of being saved (Even had a friend who reads Japanese verify it). From what I read vim uses utf8 internally now. This is pretty cool stuff.

Found this site from Gabe Guzman’s blog. My husband and I collectively have been to about 9% of the world (will be adding Australia within the next year) and about 54% of the United States. Some of the states are a little wishy washy (like Alaska - was there for a flight connection for 5 hours and yes I went outside and saw the incredable scenery- been wanting to go back ever since) but I think I can count them if we drove through over 5 times or if we were in the state (and actually saw it) for over 4 hours.

create your own visited countries map

create your own visited states map

Just when I thought I had finally gotten rid of them - they show back up. At least instead of 100 spam comments I am only getting ~ 5 - 10 a day.

First off I just want to say thank you to Lisa and Lee (our tour guide and driver). Our trip wouldn’t of been half as informative, fun, and noteworthy if not for you. Thank you for showing us your incredable home.

Now for anyone who cares to know about our trip I will give you a full recap.

Sept 19th -
Caught the 6AM flight out of Guam to the Kansai International Airport - in Osaka, Japan (That is the new airport that is being built on a man made island in the south of Japan. The terminal is a sculpture all by intself.) From there we flew on to Beijing. It should be noted that for some reason there were problems with my ticket… Nothing major - just enough for my husband to threaten to leave me behind while he went on the trip. He even promised to take lots of pictures for me - .

We arrived in Beijing ~ 2pm did the whole customs, immigration thing and then luckily found Lisa, our tour guide, right away. She speaks excellent English - which is more then I can say about myself. Lee - our driver - unfortunately did not speak English, but she definately knew how to drive in the craziness of Beijing traffic. Anyway - off we went to lunch (which had a small show going on at the time), to fuel up and recharge.

From there we went to the Temple of Heaven. The main building was under renovation so we didn’t get to see it - but the gardens more then made up for it. They were spectacular. As was the rest of the complex. After that we took a rickshaw ride of the small, twisting roads behind the Forbidden City. Back there a “normal” road was 6 feet wide. It is slowly turning from a poor man neighborhood - into a rich mans… It should also be noted that this area is adjacent to one of the big bar areas.

By now we are starting to crash hard (exhaustion) - so we went to dinner and then on to our hotel for the night.

Sept 20th -
This was a free day for us. We spent the morning visiting the National Museum for the People. It was pretty cool but I guess I was expecting more. China has the terra cotta worriors, the history of the emporers and the beautiful artwork that went with it, many dinosaur fossil sites, ect and yet there were not exhibits for them. Many of the exhibits they did have did not allow pictures so we didn’t have as many as I would like. The rest of the day was spent shopping and eating in the back alleys off of Tian’anmen Square - haggling to our hearts content. Picked up a beautiful piece of art for my mother-in-law. She will love it.

Sept 21st -
Lisa came and picked us up at around 8:30. Off we go to explore Tian’anmen Square. Chairman Mao’s Memorial Hall had a line that had to of been at least a mile long… never seen such a long line before. Walked around and giggled at the large tour groups… then moved on to the Forbidden City.

I can’t begin to tell you how incredable the Forbidden City was. We were there easily 2 - 3 hours and I could have stayed there twice as long and not seen the same thing twice. Anyway - we went to lunch after that (that lunch sucked - but such is life).

After lunch we visited a pearl “factory” - where we were shown how the Chinese cultivate fresh water pearls (and of course offered the opportunity to buy some). After that we moved on to the Summer Palace. We entered on the far side of the lake and took a “dragon boat” ride across to see the building in all of its glory. We didn’t get to see much of the main building (just the exterior) but we did see the “Long Corridor” with its magnificent paintings and some of the outer buildings. All were very cool and very crowded. Hit up a silk factory after that and picked up an all silk bed set (the quilt is even stuffed with silk). Dinner (which was excellant) and back to the hotel afterwards.

Sept 22nd -
This was another free day for us and again we spent it shopping (With all the tours there is little time to go shopping except in the gift shops of the various attractions.) This time we went to Wangfujing Street (Walking Street) - one of the biggest shopping areas of Beijing. Unfortuantely it wasn’t really what we were looking for. It had all the high end stuff - Hermes, Rolex, things like that. We prefer the smaller shops.

Anyway - the clothes, silks, art, jade were all incredably cheap as compared to the states, but you have to know what you are looking for. There are more then a few fakes mixed in with the real deal.

Sept 23rd -
This was our busiest day. We started out with the Great Wall. It was fabulous… well except for the fact that it almost went completely vertical. Stair Stepper had nothing on this baby. And it wasn’t like all the steps were of uniform size either… nope - a step could be 4 inches or 1.5 feet high. I only went to the third watch tower… Jason went all the way up (he only turned around because the wall started going down and he didn’t want to climb back up later). Both of us had an incredable time there and now we can mark off visiting the Great Wall from our life’s TODO list.

After the Wall our legs were rubber. Luckily it was time for lunch. The food was pretty good and we got to check out the enamal ware factory that was next door… After that it was time to go to the Ming Tombs. Again - it was beautiful… and the few steps involved really burned in our legs . From there - on to the Jade factory. Here we were shown how to distinguish between the good stuff and the not so good stuff (did you know the good jade is hard enough to scratch glass?). We picked up something for Kayla there.

After that we were supposed to see a chinese acrobat show but the matinee viewing was cancelled for the evening show. So off we go to dinner (Peking Duck - Mmmm). Then back to see the evening show of the acrobats.

The show was very good (I have an AVI file someplace - have to find it and upload it). And I would recommend it to anyone going. By the time everything was done - it was ~20:30. Time to go back to the hotel and pack for our fly out tomorrow.

Sept 24th -
Eat breakfast - finish up any last minute packing and chill out… Lisa meets us at ~10AM to take us to the airport. They do things a little different there… immigration and customs goes first - before you even check into the flights. And you can only check into your flight during a designated time. Also the airlines are not grouped together (like a Continental counter). Instead you have to find the counter that will handle your flight (they airlines change out counters depending upon where the flight check-in will be which is in turn determined by when you are flying out). It was all a little odd - but you quickly figure things out. Once you are done checking in - it is just like any other airport in the world. It should be noted that we again had a few problems checking in (this time it was both of us though). Again we had to check in at Japan (where for a while they couldn’t find our reservations/tickets). Everything eventually was straightened out and we arrived home on Guam at ~1:50 AM. We arrived a little late since the plain had to be rerouted around a typhoon.

So there you have it - our entire trip in a nutshell. The hotel was nice but we had more then a few problems (like getting the computer in our room that was promised - took 3 days to get it. Never did get the extra pillows and towels, and the kitchenette was basically disconnected so the fridge and stove didn’t work). Minor stuff - but kinda irritating. If anyone would like to know our tourguide’s contact information I am more then happy to pass it on along with a very high recommendation.

Went to the the Great Wall at the Juyong Pass today. It was incredable! (Again I will be posting the pictures when we get back home.) I only walked to the third watch tower off of the main entry way. Doesn’t sound like much but it was about a 500 foot elevation and it was almost completely vertical. My husband decided to keep going and went to the 9th tower (about a 1500 foot elevation). All in all he went about 1.5 - 2 miles from the beginning. By the time we left we were both walking around on rubber legs.

I promise to tell you all about everything else we did while out here - but later - need to pack and get ready to fly out tomorrow. For now - later all.

Hey world! This is coming from Beijing, China. We are doing well and having a wonderful time. So far we have seen the Temple of Heaven, gone on a rickshaw ride through the small back streets behind the Forbidden City, walked through Forbidden City and marveled in awe at it, seen Tian’anmen Square with Chairman Mao’s Memorial Hall, the Parliment Building, and walked through the National Museum, been to a silk factory, and gone through a tea ceramony. We have gone shopping in the little back alleys and the major shopping center on Wangfujing Street. We have eaten some incredible (and not so incredable) food that has been familar (sweet and sour) and brand new (this incredable fish dish).

Through out it all our tour guide (Lisa) has been very informative, flexable with our idiosyncrecies, and cheerful to be around. Basically wonderful. We have tons of pictures but unfortuantely we will not be able to upload them until we get home. I promise not to dilly dally around when we get back.

Still to come… One of the highlights of the trip - The Great Wall of China. We will also be seeing the Ming tombs, a jade factory, and a Chinese acrobat troupe.

One thing I must admit to - this trip has been a lot less expensive then I thought it would be… everything here is easily affordable - from meals to clothes to silk, jade, pearls and other forms of jewelry and statuary.

Before you ask - yes our feet hurt. But it has been well worth it. We would do it all aver again - and I highly recommend it to everyone. See everyone when we get back home.

Google Blog Search

Another new toy by Google… noticed my blog isn’t listed on it though… hmm

Well the past couple of days have been outstanding. My husband surprised me with dozen red roses, a beautiful 3/4 carat solitare diamond ring (the whole wedding set is over 1 carat) and a proposal on bended knee to marry him again. He is incredable. Men - take note. Women - eat your heart out.

Red Cross Paying Hotel Bills for Thousands

I find this amazingly generous. Over 57,000 people will be helped by this. Staying in a Hotel for any length of time is expensive… Honestly I would of been impressed if they just did a subsidy for the hotels.

If you haven’t given to the Red Cross yet - Now is a good time.

I found this on accident and found it funny as hell. Amazing! Might even get the T-shirt.

Yeah - I use Chatzilla as my IRC tool. I like it - and have decided to finally get off my buttocks and look for a couple of plugins I want. I want to easily move between tabs (I keep 5 tabs open) so I started looking into the tabswitcher plugin for that. It works wonderfully and I highly recommend it.

I have also been looking for a spell checker for it lately (I am horrible at spelling) and have finally installed the gspell. It uses the Google API to check your string. I have to admit it works quite well. Only 1 problem - It is VERY slow. If you have ever been on an IRC channel you have probably noticed that things can happen pretty quickly - so the spell checker being slow is almost useless. I’ll probably keep it around (my Internet is running a little slow today - so maybe that is it) for a little to see how it works out over time. (Note - the API license string you are supposed to change - is in the source code of plugin you download.)

The only thing I had to do for both was to make sure they were both in the init.js file and that the init.js file autoloads (Preferences). Simple stuff.

So much for just taking a week on “Learning Perl” . I have to admit that it has been time well spent though. I am almost done with it (about 5 more chapters left) and feel much stronger in Perl. To say it is very different than any other language I have ever used is an understatement, but it is similar enough that I “think” I’m picking it up pretty well. Will finish those chapters and go back to trying the MUA. Wish me luck.

CNN.com - Democrats seek increased scrutiny of Roberts - Sep 5, 2005

I had no idea Rehnquist was dead… Holy crap that means Bush gets to seat 2 justices… OMG.