On one of my last days in the States recently, Jim's parents surprised us with Thanksgiving lunch.
It was wonderful with all the trimmings and you can see all the food they prepared and brought to Randi's house . . . turkey, dressing, casseroles, pie . . . all my favorites.
Here we are enjoying all that delicious food together.
Our holiday celebrations change from year to year now. This year, Thanksgiving could be a Thursday like most other Thursdays in Belgium.
But Thanksgiving Day and our wedding anniversary are one and the same this year making it not just an ordinary Thursday - at least in Belgium. I've had 32 years with the greatest guy I know. Honestly. And at least 32 years of wonderful Thanksgivings to remember!
Although Ross is 5000 miles to our east and Randi and the rest of our family are 5000 miles to our west, we all have so very much to be grateful for.
The Oxford American Dictionary chooses a word every year as "word of the year".
I remember all those above and actually knew what they meant or where they originated at the time, but this year, when I read the "word of the year", I realized again that I'm out of touch.
This year's winner is GIF.
What?
Don't know what that stands for? It has apparently been around for about 25 years and means "graphic interchange format". It was a noun, but now it's also a verb sort of like google. Which, by the way, was never chosen as a "word of the year"?!
Oh, that's because it was chosen as "word of the decade". Well, that's more like it.
I would have thought the "word of the year" might have been meme or maybe zeitgeist.
Google it.
According to wikipedia, a GIF is:
The Graphics Interchange Format (GIF; /ˈdʒɪf/ or /ˈɡɪf/) is a bitmap image format that was introduced by CompuServe in 1987[1] and has since come into widespread usage on the World Wide Web due to its wide support and portability. The format supports up to 8 bits per pixel thus allowing a single image to reference a palette of up to 256 distinct colors. The colors are chosen from the 24-bit RGB color space. It also supports animations and allows a separate palette of 256 colors for each frame. The color limitation makes the GIF format unsuitable for reproducing color photographs and other images with continuous color, but it is well-suited for simpler images such as graphics or logos with solid areas of color.
GIF images are compressed using the Lempel-Ziv-Welch (LZW) lossless data compression technique to reduce the file size without degrading the visual quality. This compression technique was patented in 1985. Controversy over the licensing agreement between the patent holder, Unisys, and CompuServe in 1994 spurred the development of the Portable Network Graphics (PNG) standard. All the relevant patents have now expired.
Now you know what a GIF is. Or like me, you still don't.
So, a picture (or video) is worth a thousand words. I think this is one example of a GIF.
And I think this is one example of an animated GIF.
Then click on any of the Maru videos because they will make you smile.
Not to be confused in any way with North Korea, South Korea is officially known as the Republic of Korea.
No, it's not a third world country. It's anything but.
In fact it is a very technologically advanced country with about 50 million people, very densely populated - more than 10 times the global average.
Seoul is the largest city and the capital with nearly 10 million people - about a million and a half more than New York City!
South Korea is a democracy with three branches and a constitution similar to ours, but unlike the U.S., more than 99% of its inhabitants are of Korean origin.
Nearly half the population are non-religious with the rest being about equal Buddhist or Christian. Korean society is strongly influenced by Confucianism with its core as humanism.
Humanism is the body of philosophies and ethical perspectives that emphasize the value of human beings, individually and collectively, and generally place more importance on rational thought than on strict faith.
Not sure where South Korea is? Near the top right of this map - in purple - by Japan. Or in other words, 5,000 miles from Belgium and 7,000 miles from Texas/Louisiana.
Children in South Korea learn to speak English from their 3rd year of elementary school through high school and there are about 22,000 English teachers in the country.
And back to "technologically advanced" . . . South Korea is the world's first country to bring high-speed fibre-optic broadband internet access to every primary and secondary school nation-wide. Using this infrastructure, the country has developed the first Digital Textbooks in the world, which will be distributed for free to every primary and secondary school nation-wide by 2013.
Education in South Korea is considered crucial for success and it seems their dedication to this end is evident in their OECD - PISA rankings. More on OECD-PISA later.
The latest PISA report available has Shanghai, China ranked 1st in math, reading and science! But South Korea isn't far behind. Here's how Belgium, the U.S., and South Korea stacked up globally:
Math ranking 1 Shanghai, China 2 Singapore 3 Hong Kong 4 South Korea 5 Taiwan 6 Finland 7 Liechtenstein 8 Switzerland 9 Japan 10 Canada 11 Netherlands 12 Macao 13 New Zealand 14 Belgium 15 Australia 16 Germany 17 Estonia 18 Iceland 19 Denmark 20 Slovenia 21 Norway 22 France 23 Slovakia 24 Austria 25 Poland 26 Sweden 27 Czech Republic 28 United Kingdom 29 Hungary 30 Luxembourg 30 Ireland 30 Portugal 30 U.S. 31 Italy . . . total 63 countries
Reading ranking 1 Shanghai, China 2 South Korea 3 Finland 4 Hong Kong 5 Canada 6 New Zealand 7 Japan 8 Australia 9 Netherlands 10 Belgium 11 Norway 12 Estonia 13 Switzerland 14 Poland 15 Iceland 16 U.S. 17 Leichtenstein . . . total 63 countries
Science ranking 1 Shanghai - 1st 2 Finland 3 Hong Kong 4 Singapore 5 Japan 6 South Korea 7 New Zealand 8 Canada 9 Estonia 10 Australia 11 Macao 12 Netherlands 13 Germany 14 Liechtenstein 15 Taiwan 16 Switzerland 17 United Kingdom 18 Ireland 19 Poland 19 Belgium 20 Hungary 21 U.S. 22 Slovenia . . . total 63 countries
So, why all the interest in South Korea? Because today, we drove to Amsterdam and put Ross on a plane bound for Seoul.
Because for the next year, in a city southwest of Seoul called Dangjin-si, he's going to be one of those English teachers!
If you'd like to know more about South Korea, here's a great series of videos produced in 2011 by the History Channel. Just click on the link below, then click "Play All" near the top left.
Today is the birthday of John Phillip Sousa (1854 - 1932) and of course, that all important day in 1990 when Arsenio Hall got a star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame.
But it's probably best known as U.S. Election Day!
Although I'm 5,000 miles away from a U.S. voting booth, I've kept up with some of the election coverage this time around. I'm not registered to vote nor have I ever been. "So, you have no right to complain." I couldn't agree more. In my opinion, I'm not qualified to make such an important decision and, turns out, our Founding Fathers pretty much agreed. Hence, the Electoral College.
If you don't completely understand the EC . . . you may still be asking yourself if your vote will make a difference - for President, of course.
If you're in one of those "swing states", then probably yes. If you're not, it may still be worth it for the local stuff.
I found this fun "interactive election" tool in an article from The Guardian newspaper. You input information and it predicts the chances of your vote making a difference in the election.
You may like to try it. I'll put a link at the bottom. Here are my results.
Starting off with 100
I clicked "female" and it went to 53.
I clicked "college" and I'm down to 23%.
I clicked my age range which got me to 9.
The I clicked "white" and I'm down to a 7% chance.
And here's where it all went to hell. Clicking TEXAS!
Yes, being from Texas means my vote has 0% chance of determining the election.
Actually, that's no surprise. Here are the 3 states I've ever lived in:
Louisiana, Texas and Arkansas.
And it's been the same for the last decade . . .
In 2012
In 2008
In 2004
In 2000
The good news is that the Presidential election isn't the only thing on the Texas ballot. There are judges, justices, senators, representatives, and commissioners (none of whom I know a thing about) so you informed voters - get out there and vote!
And for all you "swing state" voters (not including Ohio), please go vote because as indicated in the following videos, these are the people who may be deciding our future.
Disclaimer: The fact that these people are pro-Romney and anti-Obama is missing the point. It's the fact that these people are actually real! And they vote.
If the links below don't work, it's worth it to go to YouTube and search New Left Media Ohio Romney Rally.
Scary, huh. If you'd like to hear more . . .
Unfortunately this guy did not attend and interview at the Obama Ohio Rally. I would have liked to see a comparison.
Then again, maybe not.
Oh, and if you're interested in the "interactive election" tool in The Guardian newspaper - click HERE. And if you want to know how it works, there's a link for that too on the interactive page.
This is my cell phone. A BlackBerry. I've had it now for 3 years. You may find this hard to believe, but this is my second BlackBerry. Ever know those people who will do the same thing over and over expecting a different outcome? That's me.
Sadly, I went straight from the Motorola flip phone to a BlackBerry. I went completely past the Razr and completely skipped the iPhone craze and here I am today - one of the few who are still trying to get on the internet with this P O S.
Luckily I only email and text from this thing. I keep an Atlas in my purse.
According to an article I read recently in the NYTimes, the U.S. market on these black sheep is down from 50% to less than 5% in just 3 years! And RIM (the company that makes them) had a $753 million loss in the first 6 months of this year while they profited $1 billion just last year.
Blockbuster, Sears, Kodak?
Here's the full and entertaining article . . .
The BlackBerry as Black Sheep By NICOLE PERLROTH Published: October 15, 2012
Rachel Crosby speaks about her BlackBerry phone the way someone might speak of an embarrassing relative.
“I’m ashamed of it,” said Ms. Crosby, a Los Angeles sales representative who said she had stopped pulling out her BlackBerry at cocktail parties and conferences. In meetings, she says she hides her BlackBerry beneath her iPad for fear clients will see it and judge her.
The BlackBerry was once proudly carried by the high-powered and the elite, but those who still hold one today say the device has become a magnet for mockery and derision from those with iPhones and the latest Android phones. Research in Motion may still be successful selling BlackBerrys in countries like India and Indonesia, but in the United States the company is clinging to less than 5 percent of the smartphone market — down from a dominating 50 percent just three years ago. The company’s future all depends on a much-delayed new phone coming next year; meanwhile RIM recorded a net loss of $753 million in the first half of the year compared with a profit of more than $1 billion a year earlier.
Among the latest signs of the loss of cachet: One of the first steps Marissa Mayer took as Yahoo’s newly appointed chief executive to remake the company’s stodgy image was to trade in employees’ BlackBerrys for iPhones and Androids. BlackBerrys may still linger in Washington, Wall Street and the legal profession, but in Silicon Valley they are as rare as a necktie.
As the list shrinks of friends who once regularly communicated using BlackBerry’s private messaging service, called BBM, many a BlackBerry owner will not mince words about how they feel about their phone.
“I want to take a bat to it,” Ms. Crosby said, after waiting for her phone’s browser to load for the third minute, only to watch the battery die. “You can’t do anything with it. You’re supposed to, but it’s all a big lie.”
The cultural divide between BlackBerry loyalists and everyone else has only grown more extreme over the last year as companies that previously issued employees BlackBerrys — and only BlackBerrys — have started surrendering to employee demands for iPhones and Android-powered smartphones.
Goldman Sachs recently gave its employees the option to use an iPhone. Covington & Burling, a major law firm, did the same at the urging of associates. Even the White House, which used the BlackBerry for security reasons, recently started supporting the iPhone. (Some staff members suspect that decision was influenced by President Obama, who now prefers his iPad for national security briefings. A spokesman for the White House declined to comment.)
Out in the world, the insults continue. Victoria Gossage, a 28-year-old hedge fund marketer, said she recently attended a work retreat at Piping Rock Club, an upscale country club in Locust Valley, N.Y., and asked the concierge for a phone charger. “First he said, ‘Sure.’ Then he saw my phone and — in this disgusted tone — said, ‘Oh no, no, not for that.’ ”
“You get used to that kind of rejection,” she said.
“BlackBerry users are like Myspace users,” sneers Craig Robert Smith, a Los Angeles musician. “They probably still chat on AOL Instant Messenger.”
BlackBerry outcasts say that, increasingly, they suffer from shame and public humiliation as they watch their counterparts mingle on social networking apps that are not available to them, take higher-resolution photos, and effortlessly navigate streets — and the Internet — with better GPS and faster browsing. More indignity comes in having to outsource tasks like getting directions, booking travel, making restaurant reservations and looking up sports scores to their exasperated iPhone and Android-carting partners, friends and colleagues.
“I feel absolutely helpless,” said Ms. Gossage. “You’re constantly watching people do all these things on their phones and all I have going for me is my family’s group BBM chats.”
Ryan Hutto, a director at a San Francisco health information company, said he frequently depended on others, often his wife, for music playlists, navigation and sports scores. “After two or three questions, people start to get irritated,” Mr. Hutto said.
His wife, Shannon Hutto, says with a sigh: “Anytime we go anywhere, I always have to pull up the map. If we’re searching for a restaurant, I pull up the Yelp app. If we need a reservation, I pull up OpenTable. I kind of feel like his personal assistant.”
Still, a few BlackBerry users say they’re sticking with the device, mainly because of the BlackBerry’s efficient, physical keyboard. “I use my BlackBerry by choice,” said Lance Fenton, a 32-year-old investor who frequently travels and needs to send e-mails from the road. “I can’t type e-mails on touch-screen phones.”
Mr. Fenton said he could not wrap his head around iPhone fever. “I constantly ask people, ‘What is so great about it?’ and they have these nonsensical answers,” he said. “Someone told me I’m missing out on some app that maps their ski runs. I ski four days a year. On the road, I don’t need a ski app.”
RIM’s most recent efforts to hold on to loyal customers, as well as software developers building apps for its next generation of phones scheduled to be available next year, have elicited universal cringes. In a recent promotional video, Alec Saunders, RIM’s vice president for developer relations, is shown belting out a rock song titled “Devs, BlackBerry Is Going to Keep on Loving You,” a riff on the 1981 power ballad by REO Speedwagon “Keep on Loving You.”
“This is the sign of a desperate company,” said Nick Mindel, a 26-year-old investment analyst. “Come on, BlackBerry, I always had some faith, but you just lost a customer. Frankly, I don’t think they can afford to lose many more.”
After eight years with a BlackBerry, Mr. Mindel said he just joined the wait list for the iPhone 5. When it arrives, he said, "I’m considering removing my BlackBerry battery, pouring in cement, and using the BlackBerry as an actual paperweight.”
Uh, good luck with that. Somebody owes REO Speedwagon an apology.
