Pathfinder... Recovered.

The pathfinder was recovered a few days ago, but I have been working so much that I have not had the time or the energy to write about what happened.

On Tuesday morning at about 2 am, as I was about to leave to go Microsoft for more work, my cell phone rang and I answered it, thinking that it was Lili.

It was the Seattle PD, and they asked if I had a Grey Pathfinder, which I replied that I used to have one. They said that they have recovered it and that it was located in West Seattle, near the Delridge projects. They also mentioned that I had the LOWJAC installed on the car (http://www.lojack.com), which I was not aware of because I had just purchased the car in the last couple of months.
For those of you who don't know what Lojack is, its a radio transmitter that is activated when you report your car as stolen. The police are the only ones that have access to this tranmitter and thieves can not find the Lojack on the vehicle because it is hidden in different places in each vehicle.

Once the vehicle is stolen, the car starts sending signals out of the car that are picked up by the police that have this installed in their cars. The "Auto Theft" division of the SPD was doing some casual drive through of the area when they came upon the signal, which led them to recover the car.

We arrived shortly after getting the car, the police had left the vehicle parked there-- and it was in good shape. The thief seems to have just stolen it and basically driven it home, before stopping off at a McDonalds for a cheeseburger. The next day he took the car out at noon and bought another 2 cheeseburgers, this time from Jack in the Box. (He left the wrappers in the car, with the reciepts.)
He did manage to steal a couple of things, such as my two newly purchased camping chairs, which were 6.99 each at walmart and a campstove and some other rather minor things, but all in all, I was lucky. Read more!

Pathfinder stolen during Harry Potter

Last weekend was a glorious weekend watching the wedding in the San Juans, this weekend was supposed to be nice and mellow, catch a movie or two before heading into my last two weeks of work at Microsoft before the break.
Instead, somoene decided to Steal the 1991 Pathfinder I just bought a month or so ago. It is certainly a bad time to do so, as if there is any good time to have our car stolen.

We were in Ballard, at the Bay Theatre, watching Harry Potter at the 6:55 showing. When we came out of the theatre, wholla, it was gone. Sad. We sat out in the rain for an hour waiting for the police or a cab to roll by and both happened by at the same time! We opted for the cab and filed a police report as soon as we got home.

I am now going to head out yet again and see if I can perhaps recover it somewhere around the Ballard area, but I am quite sure that it is quite feudal. I will be keeping an update here on my findings-- the whole process is quite interesting.



Last night when the police officer showed up, he basically said that it will probably be recovered within a week or so and that more than likely "the bad guys" will just drive it around to buy drugs, party in it, come down from their high and leave it somewhere with any valuables gone and damage to the vehicle.

Classy. I don't know where things change in someones life that they have to steal a car to go and buy drugs, I am just hoping that they are kind to that car-- it is in good shape and doesn't deserve some douchebag destroying it because he can!



Then the conversation with esurance, my insurance carrier was pleasant this morning. They said that there are several red flags about this incident and it will be investigated carefully. I felt like she was saying I was the criminal here...
Yes, I did just add insurance to the car, yes, I did just purchase it and recieve the title, but that does not make me a criminal!!


She also mentioned that they do not give the blue book value of the car, but moreso a percentage of the cash value of the vehicle and they wait 21 days before that process even starts. During that time, they will be investigating me to make sure that all of this is legitimate, which is total crap. They didn't investigate me all these months I have been making payments to support them!


GRRRRRR!!!!

Lessons to be learned in all of this, I am sure! I will keep updating this issue. Read more!

Megan and Fargo's Wedding...

Pictures taken from this weekends festivities....

Fargo and Megan Nelson

Read more!

...Update

...Jesus Christ, where oh where does the time go?




Again, its been awhile, but there is enough to report that I have decided to take some time out and write a bit about the past and how it relates to the future of things.
First off, I am in the process of FINALLY converting all of the photos from China to the web. Once this is complete, I will be sending a mail out and posting the link here on the blog for those of you that are interested in that. It has been a long time since I had first intended on posting the pictures, but technical changes have made it so that I can upload most of the content in an easy and straightforward manner.

With that being said, it is still a lot of work to get it to where it is actually presentable to an audience. The pictures have to be named short descriptions on some of the favorites need to be highlighted-- all of this will eventually fit together in much the same way a tresure hunt or a puzzle all comes together.

It just takes some time to build.

So, do keep patient. I am going to be done with Microsoft on the 2nd of Aug, which is one more month until I finally have some time to work on some of the things I have always needed to do, like finish the book that comes out of all this blogging I have done in the last year!!


So, keep looking from more updates..! Read more!

Update...

So, yes, its here.
Another exciting blog posting where I have the opportunity to write something about what has been going on with the book or what exciting travelling I have been doing.

The reality is that I have been too busy to do much as of late. I have been enjoying what little time I have off from work to try to keep the house clean and think about going to the gym.


The reality is that the days are getting longer and I am looking for another job which doesn't leave my mind so frazzled after a day of work. Two months left on the contract until I have the chance to have a little free time to work on the blog and give the updates on the book.


Things are actually moving along well with the first round of editing, although as you can tell, I have missed the May deadline, which I was flexable on. At this point, I am trying to get it done when I have the chance to do it.


Its Memorial Day weekend and I am again at work here at Microsoft, where it is supposed to be deathly slow, but it isn't, so its back to work I go...

In the meantime, here is something for you to enjoy...

http://athome.harvard.edu/programs/cgc03/cgc03-1.html# Read more!

China not living up to its promises for Human Rights

China not keeping its word on human rights, report says
By Maureen Fan

The Washington Post

BEIJING -- The 2008 Olympic Games have become a catalyst for more repression in China, not less, according to an Amnesty International report released Sunday and aimed at pressuring the Beijing government a year before the start of the world's premier sporting event.

The 22-page report says China's illegal detention and imprisonment of activists and other measures have overshadowed some modest reforms, including how the Chinese legal system reviews death-penalty cases and the loosening of some restrictions on the foreign press.

To win its first Olympics bid, China promised in 2001 to improve human rights, increase environmental protections and address the city's traffic problems. The Games are expected to attract 500,000 visitors, including thousands of journalists, giving China a chance to showcase itself before a huge international audience.

In recent weeks, however, various groups have begun arguing that China has not done enough.

Last Wednesday, four American tourists were detained after unfurling a banner at a base camp on Mount Everest that read, "One World, One Dream, Free Tibet 2008," a play on the Beijing Olympics motto.

On the same day, French presidential candidate Segolene Royal said that if elected president, she would not rule out a boycott of the Olympics unless China used its influence with the government of Sudan to stop ongoing atrocities in the Darfur region. "All means must be used," she said. China, a veto-wielding member of the U.N. Security Council, has major oil investments in Sudan.

Furious Chinese officials have accused critics of trying to politicize the Games.

"We believe that it's against the goodwill of the people from all over the world to boycott or oppose Beijing's hosting of the 2008 Olympics with any excuse or political reasons," said Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao, who promised that China would host a distinguished Olympics "with its unique characteristics."

Amnesty International and others said the Olympics provide a rare opportunity to effect change in this image-conscious nation.

"It's only about a year to go and we don't see any genuine effort by the Chinese administration to improve human rights," said T. Kumar, advocacy director for Asia and the Pacific for Amnesty International. "The efforts they're taking are stopgap -- the public statement about extra review for the death penalty, the additional movement for international journalists. It's just enough to keep the criticism at bay."

Chinese authorities have been using the Olympics to round up those they consider potential troublemakers, including human-rights defenders, housing activists, lawyers and people attempting to report on human-rights violations, the Amnesty report said.

Referring to the warnings of public-security officials that they might force drug users into yearlong rehabilitation programs, the Amnesty report said, "Fears remain that these abusive systems are being used to detain petty criminals, vagrants, drug addicts and others in order to 'clean-up' Beijing ahead of the Olympics."

The report welcomed one official reform: the restoration of Supreme Court review of death-penalty cases. But Amnesty said it worried that a "limited paper review" would not expose human-rights violations such as police use of torture to obtain confessions.

Amnesty also took the International Olympic Committee to task for not living up to its stated commitment to act if it did not see progress on security, logistics or human rights.

IOC members have said they expect Beijing to keep its word. The organization, whose top leaders just returned from two weeks of meetings with the Chinese government in Beijing, said officials needed more time before commenting on the Amnesty report. Read more!

China and the US against prevention of global warming

U.S., China team up to water down climate report
By Michael Casey

The Associated Press

BANGKOK, Thailand — The United States and China want to water down a proposed plan for fighting climate change, arguing that action to reduce greenhouse gases will be more costly and time-consuming than scientists claim.

They also play down the benefits of reducing emissions, disputing recommendations by European governments that greenhouse gases be capped at around 445 parts per million in the air. The current level of greenhouse gases is about 430 ppm.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a United Nations network of 2,000 scientists, drew up the plan. Governments have spent the last few weeks reviewing the proposals and are meeting with the scientists this week to work out their differences.

The U.S. and Chinese comments, in documents reviewed by The Associated Press, are a precursor to what delegates expect will be a fight for much of the week to preserve the key conclusions of the draft IPCC report, which says emissions can be cut below current levels if the world shifts away from carbon-heavy fuels like coal, invests in energy efficiency and reforms the agriculture sector.

The plan must be unanimously approved by the 120-plus governments that participate, and all changes must be approved by the scientists. A spokesman for the U.S. delegation declined to discuss the American position until the final report Friday.

Two previous IPCC reports this year said unabated greenhouse gas emissions could drive global temperatures up as much as 11 degrees by 2100. Even a rise of 3.6 degrees could subject up to 2 billion people to water shortages by 2050 and threaten extinction for 20 percent to 30 percent of the world's species, the U.N. panel of scientists said.

Scientists have said global warming could increase the number of hungry in the world in 2080 by between 140 million and 1 billion by contributing to widespread droughts and flooding. Diseases like malaria, diarrhea and dengue fever could spread as temperatures rise and weather becomes increasingly erratic, affecting the poorest of the world's poor.

The third report says the world must quickly embrace a basket of technological options — already available and being developed — just to keep the temperature rise to 3.6 degrees.

But the United States wants to take a longer-term approach with mitigation measures, a position that will likely anger island nations and other developing countries already feeling the effects of climate change.

The U.S. wants language inserted into the report that says the cost of available current technologies to reduce emissions "could be unacceptably high" and calls for putting greater emphasis on "advanced technologies." Many of the latter, like carbon sequestration, are aimed at extending the use of coal.

"Mitigation efforts over the next two to three decades can reduce the rate of growth of greenhouse gas concentrations," the U.S. said. "However, development and commercialization of advanced technology and implementation of advanced practices will have a large bearing on long-term greenhouse gas concentrations."

The United States and China also dispute the economics in the report, which concludes that achieving the 445-534 ppm range might cost under 3 percent of global gross domestic product over two decades.

The report's conclusion compares favorably to global economic growth that has averaged almost 3 percent annually since 2000. The damage from unabated climate change, meanwhile, might eventually cost the global economy between 5 percent and 20 percent of GDP every year, according to a British government report last year.

The United States also raises concern that switching away from coal would be "bad for energy security," questions the benefits of fuel efficient cars and attempts to minimize the economic benefits of mitigation including job creation.

"The co-benefits of balance of trade improvement, wealth creation and employment" are not substantiated," it says. "The supposed benefits are, in most cases, merely a transfer between regions and sectors rather than a general acceleration in global growth. The mitigation policies will have costs and are unlikely to result in a win-win."

Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the climate change panel, wouldn't address the U.S. comments directly. But he said "every country" would have a chance to express its views and "ultimately its a balanced assessment of the science that will prevail."

"The science certainly provides a lot of compelling reasons for action," Pachauri said. "But what action and when is what the government will have to decide." Read more!

China warned on global warming effects

BEIJING, China (Reuters) -- Global warming could devastate China's development, the nation's first official survey of climate change warns, while insisting economic growth must come before greenhouse gas cuts.

Hotter average global temperatures fueled by greenhouse gases mean that different regions of China are likely to suffer spreading deserts, worsening droughts and floods, shrinking glaciers and rising seas, the National Climate Change Assessment states.

This environmental upheaval could derail the ruling Communist Party's plans for sustainable development, a copy of the report obtained by Reuters says.

"Climatic warming may have serious consequences for our environment of survival as China's economic sectors, such as agriculture and coastal regions, suffer grave negative effects," the report states.

Fast-industrializing China could overtake the United States as the world's top emitter of human-generated greenhouse gases as early as this year, and Beijing faces rising international calls to accept mandatory caps on carbon dioxide emissions from factories, fields and vehicles.

But underscoring China's commitment to achieving prosperity even as it braces for climate change, the report rejects emissions limits as unfair and economically dangerous, citing what it says are uncertainties about global warming.

"If we prematurely assume responsibilities for mandatory greenhouse gas emissions reductions, the direct consequence will be to constrain China's current energy and manufacturing industries and weaken the competitiveness of Chinese products in international and even domestic markets," it says.

The 400-page report was written over several years by experts and officials from dozens of ministries and agencies, representing China's first official response to global warming.

With its mixture of dire warnings and caveats, it bears the markings of bureaucratic bargaining.

China was one of a few countries that challenged claims about global warming presented in a draft report at a U.N. climate change meeting in Brussels earlier this month. That report was approved after some claims were softened and passages removed.

China's own national report says "uncertainties over climate change issues" justify rejecting international limits on greenhouse gas emissions.

Disasters
But other parts of the report assert that the country's brittle environment will be severely tested by climate change.

By the end of the century, glaciers on the Qinghai-Tibet highlands that feed the Yangtze river could shrink by two thirds. Further downstream, increasingly intense rainfall could "spark mud and landslides and other geological disasters" around the massive Three Gorges Dam.

Coastal cities will need to build or strengthen barriers to ward off rising sea levels.

Unless steps are taken, water scarcity and increasingly extreme weather could reduce nationwide crop production by up to 10 percent by 2030. Wheat, rice and corn growing capacity could fall by up to 37 percent in the second half of the century.

"If we do not take any actions, climate change will seriously damage China's long-term grain security," the report states.

China has repeatedly ruled out accepting mandatory international emissions limits, saying that rich countries are responsible for the accumulation of greenhouse gases and should not look to poorer countries for a way out.

"For a considerable time to come, developing the economy and improving people's lives remains the country's primary task," the report says. Read more!

China aims to further tame Web

BEIJING, China (Reuters) -- Chinese President Hu Jintao on Monday launched a campaign to rid the country's sprawling Internet of "unhealthy" content and make it a springboard for Communist Party doctrine, state television reported.

With Hu presiding, the Communist Party Politburo -- its 24-member inner council -- discussed cleaning up the Internet, state television reported. The meeting promised to place the often unruly medium more firmly under propaganda controls.

"Development and administration of Internet culture must stick to the direction of socialist advanced culture, adhere to correct propaganda guidance," said a summary of the meeting read on the news broadcast.

"Internet cultural units must conscientiously take on the responsibility of encouraging development of a system of core socialist values."

The meeting was far from the first time China has sought to rein in the Internet. In January, Hu made a similar call to "purify" it, and there have been many such calls before.

But the announcement indicated that Hu wants ever tighter controls as he braces for a series of political hurdles and seeks to govern a generation of young Chinese for whom Mao Zedong's socialist revolution is a hazy history lesson.

"Consolidate the guiding status of Marxism in the ideological sphere," the party meeting urged, calling for more Marxist education on the Internet.

The Communist Party is preparing for a congress later this year that is set to give Hu another five-year term and open the way for him to choose eventual successors. In 2008, Beijing hosts the Olympic Games, when the party's economic achievements will be on display, along with its political and media controls.

In 2006, China's Internet users grew by 26 million, or 23.4 percent, year on year, to reach 137 million, Chinese authorities have estimated.

That lucrative market has attracted big investors such as Google and Yahoo. They have been criticized by some rights groups for bowing to China's censors.

The one-party government already wields a vast system of filters and censorship that blocks the majority of users from sites offering uncensored opinion and news. But even in China, news of official misdeeds and dissident opinion has been able to travel fast through online bulletin boards and blogs.

Authorities have also launched repeated crackdowns on pornography and salacious content. The latest campaign against porn and "rumor-spreading" was announced earlier this month.

The meeting also announced that schools and sports groups would be encouraged to use healthy competition as a way to shape youth, the report said.

"Sports plays an irreplaceable role in the formation of young people's thinking and character, mental development and aesthetic formation," the meeting declared. Read more!

Also, please check out

www.timhogg.blogspot.com

for more non-travel blog information. Now that the book is really underway, there will not be much posting to this site, except for new information directly related to the progress of Not So Red. Read more!

writing...

Just wanted to put out a short update.
I have been working hard on the book, the editing of the blog is finished and the entries have been cataloged and edited. Its quite a process, but I am aiming for 10 pages a day, three days a week, thats 30 pages a week at a minimum. I am trying to have the first draft completed by June 15th, with the final draft ready for the end of summer.
The initial publication will be self published and hopefully sent off to publishers, who will then set up a royalty package... :) but I will not be holding my breath for that.
The main need for publication is purely selfish. I want to be able to tell the stories of the true Chinese, not just in the places that are westernized and covered by the western media. I want the opportunity to express the views of China from my perspective before the Chinese government begin the propoganda parade for the Beijing Olympics next summer. This gives me one year.
Please stay tuned, I will be adding bits of content for review... Read more!

Update

Where do the days go?
Since arriving back in Seattle, the days have flown by. Work is work, as it always is. Long and taxing work that doesn't leave me with much energy at the end of the day. Three months or so left on the contract and although my free time is flying by, the time that I spend here do not.
In my free time I am spending a lot of it looking for something else to do, something else to occupy my time, sending lots of resumes out there and not getting much of a response.
I am working on the book, as much as I can stand it. The goal of May to have the first draft finished is still not accomplished, but the projected date of publication for next year in time for the Beijing Olympics.

In other news, Lili and I are discussing plans for the upcoming wedding, mostly trying to figure out how we are going to make it work with immigration. It would appear that it is now illegal to come to this country on a tourist visa and then get married while you are here on this Visa. Now, you have to come on a specific "fiancee Visa" which is only for three months. In that three month window, you must complete the wedding and have started on the immigration procedures for the green card.

So, its another complication from Writing.... Read more!

Back..

Its good to be home again. Not that I didnt have a great time in Europe, but the more I travel, the more I look forward to coming back home to the place where I can simply relax in my own space. Now, it would just be nice if Lili could join me. :)

First, click on the Prague engagement links again, I was finally able to upload all of those pics, but I haven't had the time to go through and edit them. I will be uploading and marking the pics in the next week, so you know what your looking at.

The trip home was shitty, and I am going to tell you that you should not fly delta internationally or across the country. They suck. I will never knowingly fly with them ever again. I was laid over in Atlanta for 8 hours, all their flights were overbooked by 10 people and they wouldnt reroute through different cities to make the pressure lessen. Stupid people who just didn't care. It was simillar going out to Germany as well.
For 545.00 roundtrip, I guess I can't really complain all that much...

More sooner than later. Read more!

Prague Engagement!!!

Prague Engagement!!!

**CLICK ON THE PIC**

The one time that I have a ton of pics to upload and send, the google tool is not working. So, here are the pictures that I was able to get loaded... As you might know, Lili and I got engaged yesterday, overlooking the beautiful skyline of Prague. Needless to say, we are enjoying our time together. This will be the last update until I get back as there is a ton of stuff to do before I leave on Sunday. We are leaving Prague today and headed back to Cologne. Just three more days on this whirlwind trip....
Crazy. Read more!

Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp

Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp

These pictures are a lot more somber than the other ones. They were taken at Sachensenhausen Camp, on the outskirts of Berlin. It was built by prisoners of another, more harsh concentration camp that was located in Bavaria. Prisoners were made to travel here to this camp and build it. This was the primary location of where Himmler was posted out of. There were a ton of experiments that went on here using prisoners and it was the main area where people were held that were political opponents to the third reich. They estimate that more than 50,000 people were killed here and there remains are simply scattered throughout the grounds.
The weather was quite horrible at the time, so there is a limited number of photos. Read more!

Berlin Day Two

These shots are from our second day in Berlin. Read more!

Berlin pics Part One

Berlin Day One

As per usual, click on the picture above and it will connect you to the google photos site, where you can view all of the photos from the trip.
We have arrived in Prague last night, another spectacular city in Europe. We were in Dresdan yesterday, which was the city that was hit the hardest by the allies in WWII. I will upload some great photos from there as soon as I can, but for now, enjoy all that we got to see in Berlin, which actually is only a fraction of all that there is to see in Berlin. Read more!

In Berlin

We arrived in Berlin in the afternoon yesterday, via Lili's little yellow Renault. The drive from Koln to Berlin took about six hours, two of which I drove on the famous Autobahn speedway. I was a little unnerved at the driving habits of the Germans at first, but I think most of that was directly attributed to the looseness of the steering in the car. I am not used to such flexibility in the steering, which made for a few nervous moments behind the wheel.
The cars move at a good click, and they pay attention to the policy which used to exist in the states that the far left hand side is the speeding and passing lane and the two right lanes are for more traffic volumes. This makes things much easier to handle. You really have to pay attention when moving in and out of the speed lane as cars can be traveling upwards of 200kg a hour... but even if you do seem to make a mistake, the people don't give you the finger or are aggressive in any way, they may simply give a courtesy honk and move on...
As we arrived in Berlin, our moods improved greatly. The city itself is by far the biggest that we have been in thus far. I am not even sure what part of town we are staying in, but its a hostel, which is still 50 bucks a night for a private room. The area looks a bit dodgy, but then again, most of the town looks dodgy, but its Berlin! I don't really expect to not see many parts of town that don't have a slightly rundown look to them. Graffiti is a major problem all over Germany and I wonder why they don't prosecute these people for their "art". People need to begin to speak out against this shit, but Lili tells me that they do try to do what they can, but they are sneaky fuckers!! (I should also mention that it was a problem in Holland as well, and I expect to see it in Prague.) I remember that the Berlin wall, when it was brought down years ago, it was also covered in graffiti as well.
The hostel is located inside of an old former factory it would seem, called Die Fabrik. I am not sure if I love it just yet, but it seems semi quiet, but the silence is almost a bit weird.
I have a lot of thoughts of the war these days. Faint echoes from the courtyard of men shouting in German make me think of that horrible time in European history. Today we will make our way to Checkpoint Charlie and possibly to the concentration camp where Anne Frank was murdered. We are talking about going to Auschwitz, but I think that Dresdan is a more viable option. Dresdan has always had a lot of meaning for me as it is where Slaughter Haus 5 is set...
So it goes.... Read more!

Dave and Tim Köln EWerk

Here are the pictures from last nights show with Dave and Tim. Check out www.youtube.com/hoggenstein
for the videos, which I am trying to post as time allows. Currently, there are thee great versions online and ready for your consumption.

Dave and Tim Koln EWerk

Read more!

Amsterdam

Well, Amsterdam was just awesome.
Stories and stuff are to follow...
For now, here are the pics for you to enjoy. Simply click on the pic to see all of the pics from Amsterdam.

Cheers....

Amsterdam

Read more!