Jimactor’s China Vacation (Part 12)

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By Jimactor

Summary: We visited the local Rice/Noodle Factory.  Afterward we rode Cruise on Li River with Chinese buffet lunch on board.

We visited Giant Panda at Chongqing Zoo

In Memory of Madeline Marie Christensen

In Memory of Madeline Marie Christensen

Madeline in 1940’s 

Picture was taken in 1980’s 

The Family

 Scott (adopted son), Madleline (mother), Janet (foster daughter), Wayne (father)

December 15, 1924 - July 15, 2008

Madeline Marie Christensen passed away peacefully at home in Broomfield, Colorado, surrounded by her adopted son Scott Christensen. Madeline’s death was from natural causes. She was 83 years old.

Madeline was born and raised in Eaton, Colorado. All her life she attended Colorado School for the Deaf and Blind until 1945. Her maiden name was Duff. She met her sweetheart Wayne and got married in 1946. Many years later they took Scott and Janet as their children. Her husband died in 1988.  Her hobbies included cooking, baking the cookies, and quilting. Also she loved collecting the Adam and Eve dolls. She is survived by her adopted son Scott of Broomfield, foster daughter Janet of California, and relatives.

Services will be held on Friday, August 22 at 12:00 p.m. The location is at 500 South Christensen Ave, Eaton, Colorado.

Scott kindly requests that donations be made to Scott Christensen at Post Office Box 71, Broomfield, Colorado 80038.

Jimactor’s China Vacation (Part 11)

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By Jimactor

Summary: We went on a scenic motorboat trip up one of the tributaries of the Yangtze - either among the “little gorges” of the Daning River or the forests and cliffs of Shennong Stream.  Along the way, view local farms and people who work along the river.  Afterwards, cruise between the twelve mist-shrouded peaks of dramatic Wu George and beneath the over-handing cliffs of Qutang Gorge.

We enjoyed our final day of river crusing, with a stop at a small Yangtze River town where we can strolled and visited with the locals

Deaf Guy Battles with Bouncers

By Bug

“Who does that guy think he is, Matt Hamill? He’s totally out of control”, my Hearing friend Maximilian asked. There’s a lot of shouting in the background, and most of the people talking are British, with heavy accents, so that’s why they speak a little differently.  Maximilian wrote out a seconds count, then added what was said, by whom, when it was said. The main bouncer my friend labeled just “bouncer.” If there’s someone talking that was added after editing from the studio, he labeled it a “voiceover.” The commentator is also a “voiceover.” Maximilian thinks the commentator says the bouncer’s name is “Bungy” Must be some sort of nickname. We thank Maximilian that he was willing to interpret everything what this video said. Read below:
1 Bouncer: And uh, here we go, should come out about now.
2
3
4
5 Bouncer: Watch out fella
6
7Someone in crowd: Let him go!
8
9 Bouncer: come on fella, bloody hell!
10
11Bouncer: Fuck’s sake!
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14 Woman: He can’t hear you.
15 Someone in crowd clapping: WOOO!
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17Other Bouncer: He can’t hear you, he’s deaf
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24Woman: The bouncers were well out of order, they knew he were deaf, and they all just run at him.
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29 Woman: He can’t hear you, he’s deaf!
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31
32 Bouncer voiceover: yeah, he’s deaf, but does that still give him the right to carry on?
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38 Commentator: Bungy prides himself on being able to restrain difficult customers, and he’s going to have to put his training into effect tonight.
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45 Bouncer voiceover: He came through, and just like a wave, people were bing knocked out of the way.
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50 Bouncer voiceover: and he headbutted the glass door.
51
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53 Man in grey shirt: No woah woah woah
54 Bouncer voiceover: Then, he grabbed me bollocks and started squeezing and turning me bollocks.
55 *People in crowd and bouncer shouting indistinctly*
56 :Crowd shouting indistinctly:
57
58
59
60 Bouncer voice over: So, I had to stop him.
61
62
63
64 :Crowd shouting indistinctly:
65
66
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71
72
73 Bouncer: Yeah, you’ll get off me now, won’t you? Yeah.
74
75
76
77 :Crowd shouting indistinctly:
78
79
80
81 :Bouncer says something threatening but indistinct:
82
83 :Crowd shouting indistinctly:
84
85 Other Bouncer: Calm down
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88 Other bouncer: Look at me
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90 Many bouncers: calm down! Calm down!
91 Calm down! Calm down!
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93 Someone in crowd: Let go of him!
94 Calm down! Calm down!
95 Look at me!
96
97 Calm down! Calm down!
98Someone in crowd: Let him go!
99
100 Calm down!Calm down!
101:Crowd shouting indistinctly:
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Jimactor’s China Vacation (Part 10)

By Jimactor

Summary: We explored the Bund, a sweep of grand European-style architecture on the riverfront, most of it built in the early 20th century. We visited the 400-year-old Yu Yun Garden, an oasis of classical design, and toured Old Shanghai.

We toured the massive Three Gorges Dam project, then cruise upstream throught the dam’s locks into the Three Gorges themselves beginning with Xiling Gorge.

We watched Victorian Anna Fashion Show. Their crews models a variety of Chinese traditional costumes, from various regions and eras of China.

Deaf Jokes

The Invisible Handicap
A hearing man was fascinated with a deaf woman who was sitting in a bar. He decided to strike up a conversation with her by writing notes on a piece of paper. To his delight, she was friendly enough to write aback. They wrote back and forth for some time. Another man jumped into the conversation and began to write too. All three continued their conversation by writing. After a while, the deaf woman realized she was late for a commitment and told her new friends that she needed to leave. The two men waved good-bye and continued to write, not realizing that neither one of them was deaf.

Birds on a Telephone Line
A child asked his father why the birds on a telephone line were kind of jumpy while other birds on a different line were sitting quietly. After a moment of thinking, his father replied that that particular line was a TTY line, causing the birds to jump.

King Kong
On a hot summer day, many people were frolicking at a local beach until King Kong appeared on the scene. Seeing the huge ape, people began to scream and hustle off the beach, except for one lovely young lady. Unaware of all the commotion, the woman continued to sunbathe peacefully. Having scared everyone away, King Kong approached the only remaining person on the beach and scooped her in his hands. She was frightened and began to scream. King Kong tried to tell her how beautiful she was. She indicated that she was Deaf by pointing to her ears and shaking her head. King Kong was surprised to learn that she was Deaf, since he knew some sign language. He began to sign, “You are so beautiful. I want to marry you.” But in the process of signing “marry”, *King Kong smashed the girl into pieces.
*The sign for “marry” is one hand coming down and clasping the other.

Can you read?
After observing a Deaf person in a public place, a hearing man decided to approach him and find out if Deaf people are literate. He wrote “Can you read?” and handed the note to the deaf person. Disgusted with this kind of ignorance, the Deaf person wrote back, “No. Can you write?”

Deaf Tree
A lumberjack was busy working in the forest, chopping down trees. A responsible lumberjack, he would yell “Timber” each time a tree was felled. One day he came upon a tree that would not fall, no matter how hard he chopped or how loud he yelled. After consulting with his fellow lumberjacks, he decided to call a tree doctor. When the tree doctor examined the tree, his diagnosis was that the tree was Deaf and could not hear the signal “Timber”. The prescription was for the lumberjack to learn the manual alphabet. He mastered the alphabet and fingerspelled T I M B E R to the tree. Lo and behold, the tree began to fall.

Fookem’s vacation trip: Grand Canyon and Las Vegas

The road leds us to nowhere.

Photos by Fookem

The next day, we left in the early morning to visit Grand Canyon National Park. There was two arrows (left/right) sign which road you want to go. The left arrow said ‘South Rim’ and The right arrow said ‘North Rim’. I was not sure which one so I looked at the road map to double check. The South rim was an answer because it led us to Hoover Dam/Las Vegas.

We entered the Grand Canyon National Park, we saw the rock tower. We quickly parked the car in the parking lot. We went inside and walked upstairs to the top of the rock tower to see huge the Grand Canyon.

It was so beautiful and awesome. The weather was perfect!

We drove and visited the Hoover Dam. We saw a huge dam! We walked and looked around the dam. It was nice sightseeing.

The side of Hoover Dam

Beautiful view from top of Hoover Dam

Palm tree?

The weather was sunny and so hot! The temperature was 111 at 6pm. Imagine that?

We drove to Las Vegas which was about 20 minutes away from Hoover Dam.

The famous sign

We stayed at the Circus Circus Hotel for two nights. CHAMP! Anyway, we rested a few hours in the hotel room and decided to cruise around the city of Las Vegas durning the night to get idea what it looked like. Interesting! The next morning, we woke up early. We decided and walked a long way to see many cool buildings until late afternoon.

The replica of Statue of Liberty

The replica of Eiffel Tower

The world of Coca Cola (Coca Cola Store)

‘My M&M color’ (M&M’s World store)

My favorite drink and candy, perfect for me to visit both the same time!

A beautiful fountain.

Hole in a sock: priceless

We survived through the hot weather! We really enjoyed it. In our opinion, Las Vegas is a place for adults, not kids.

To be continued….

My “First” Silly Video

By Bug

Just wanted to play with my new camcorder. My friend Fookem challenged me to make a silly video. He thought that I would not show “myself” in the public. I told him that I can do if I want. He called me “chicken(bleep)! Now, who’s a winner? ME! LOL! 

Having a bad day? If ya need some laughs? No problem…go and get the popcorn then sit back and relax while watching this nonsense video that I made. 

Jimactor’s China Vacation (Part 9)

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By Jimactor

Summary: We went to the Shanghai local restaurant with silk Embroidery Gallery Then went to famous Shanghai Silk Factory

Silk and its Stories:

Tea, porcelain and silk are the three commerical contributions the Chinese made to the world.  Legend has it that Luo Zhu, wife of Yellow Emperor, was taking a nap under a mulberry tree and a silk worm dropped into her tea cup,  she woke up to find out the silk thread dissolved by hot tea; and she saw the worms spinning thread on the tree.  Then she taught people how to raise silk worms and weave sillk.  Recent archeological discoveries prove that history of silk weaving dates back to the Neolithic Period some 4,000 years ago.  As early as 2,000 years ago, silk has become one of government monopolies for foreign trade.  To maintain the monopoly, for some centuries smuggling of silk worms carried death penalty, til one of the princesses of Tang Dynasty was married to a king in central Asia, she hid some silk eggs in her crown to avoid the check, thus brought the secret out of the country.

During the Han Dynasty, Emperor Wudi sent two envoys headed by Zhangqian to the west to seek an ally to defeat the Huns, silk among the gifts to the various kings or tribe leaders; the journey was military failure, the ally was never formed; but of great cultural success, it began the trade between Chinese and west countries.  Merchants traveled back and forth between Xi’an, capital of the empire, and Europe taking Chinese silk out and bringing many other goods into China.  This trade route was later to be known as “the Silk Road”.For centuries China has been taking the lead in production and variety. As early as in Tang Dynasty, silk was categorized into over 40 different kinds.  However, last century saw a total decline of Chinese silk industry; Italy, France and Japan were catching up with China, and at the beginning of this country, Japan has surpassed China as the number one in the world.

Since the People’s Republic, Chinese silk industry has been revived. And from 1970’s, China regained its place as the largest silk producing country.  At present, China produces 60% of world raw silk; it exports 90% of world total raw silk; and its export of silk fabrics accounts for 50% of world silk trade volume.  Up to 1992, all provinces except Tibet and Qinghai have set up silk industry; and there are 1506 silk factories nationwide which employ over 800,000 stuffs.

Coastal region is still the silk producing center in China.  Cities such as Suzhou, Wuxi and Hangzhou are top three silk producers.

LIFE CYCLE OF THE SILK COCOON

It takes a silk cocoon approximately 35-40 days to complete its life cycle.  The four stages of the life cycle are: egg, worm, pupa and moth.  The eggs of silk cocoons are hatched at the temperature of 25-26 degree Celsius (77-79 Fahrenheit), the hatching takes about two days.  Once the worms come out, cocoon farmers will put tender and juicy mulberry leaves beside those worms and they immediately start eating; farmers have to supply leaves every couple of hours as the worms eat 24 hours non stop for 5 days.  In the meantime, the size of the worm grows extremely fast.  After 5 days the worm stop eating and sleep for 1-2 days, and they shed off the old skin.  Then they start eating again for another 5 days and go into the second dormancy and shed off old skin; and this will be repeated total four times, they the worm is 30 days old, it could be as long as 3 inches and then it reaches the stage of pupa.  Then it stop eating and start spinning thread to wrap itself inside; a worm raised in spring time could spin thread as long as 1200 meters while a summer worm only 800.  After two days, the pupa becomes moth and bites through the cocoon.  The moth only lives 2-4 days, it mates and lays 300-400 eggs.

5.4 Magnitude Earthquake Rattles Southern California.

By Bug

At 11:42a.m. on Tuesday, July 29th, 5.4 magnitude earthquake rattled Southern California. One minute later I got an email from my Deaf friend named Gary as “NuttyGuy”, his first message was ” We had a jolt! Earthquake!”. He and his son felt the shaking so they ran outside. They are okay.

A few minutes later I got another email from my old high school friend Elaine. She wrote, “We just had an earthquake, it shook really hard. I’m shaking in fear…it hit Chino Hills 5.8. ” She is scared to go out for workout at gym. She decided not to go.

At Mt. San Antonio College (Mt.SAC) had cancelled all afternoon and evening classes because of an earthquake. It is a well known college to the Deaf Communities because they have many Deaf and Hard of Hearing students attending for many years. Also, they have the sign language interpreter program. it is located at Walnut not far from Chino Hills where an earthquake hit. Two students suffered minor injuries and as many as 40 buildings sustained damage when Tuesday’s temblor rolled through the campus of Mt.Sac. Nobody said if the injuried students are DHH or Hearing. All classes will open today.

A Deaf teacher Marie from Mt. Sac and South Hills high school sent her wireless email saying that she was on the way home and felt it which she thought it was the wind. She said, ” I was on 71 freeway I felt it but I thought it was the wind. One min later I got home. Neighbor came over told me just had earthquake! Dogs barked so much when I got home one minute after. House was fine…found a small stuffed animal that fell. I have felt no aftershocks so far ….”

Another DHH teacher Karen was in Irvine and said that she got the text messages from her fiance and kids saying they ‘re having an earthquake and a few seconds later her students and aide felt it. “Our building got two slight cracks. OMG! it was strong and felt like a wave.”

My mother was at home when it happened. She called through myiprelay and left her message to my sidekick. She said, ” Hi Eric. This is your mother calling. We just had a big earthquake here in Southern California. I am ok but so far they said it was a 5.8 and it was nerve wracking it seemed like it took quite a big but I was able to get out of my chair and get to a door way and it was still shaking so I think there must have been some pretty good damage around because it expanded quite large uh the only uh my stuff shook but the only thing that it broke my beautiful was those uh remember those glass flowers that I purchased one by one qq it threw them to the floor as far as I am donderned that was the only thing damaged  talk to u soon …….”

The strongest earthquake to strike a populated area of Southern California in more than a decade rattled windows and chandellers, made buildings away and sent people running into the streets yesterday. But there were no immediate reports of serious injuries or major damage.  If the earthquake happens, if inside, stay inside. Many people are injured at entrances of building by falling debris. 

To learn more about the earthquake and the safety rules, check out: http://bepreparedcalifornia.ca.gov/EPO/BeInformed/NaturalDisasters/Earthquakes.htm