China Rising

Ron left Wednesday on a two-week trip to China. He's accompanying a trade mission organized by Automation Alley, a Detroit area business group.

He will fly into Beijing and see the Great Wall of China first. Then he'll attend the 2nd World Eminence Chinese Business Association Congress. Then he'll spend a few days in Shanghai and tour General Motors' plant there.

After that, he'll take a high-speed train and airplane to Chongqing and tour a motorcycle company there. He'll take a bus to Chengu, visit an Intel Corp. microprocessor plant and a giant panda breeding research base.

On Nov. 12, he'll tour the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River. The next day he'll tour a Procter & Gamble plant in Guangzhou. He'll fly home on Nov. 15.

I did speak to him briefly on Thursday, soon after he landed in Beijing. Mostly he was fretting over the condition of his only suit (a U.S. Embassy event was planned for the next morning) and oohing over the fluffy slippers in his hotel room.

Ron is filing stories from China and you can read his articles and his blog at China Rising

Growl growl

Here's our little brown bear ready to go out on Halloween. He did an excellent job, tripping up to every house, knocking on the door, and calling "Trick or treat!" He even said "Thank you" and "Happy Halloween" most of the time.

Our street is on a hill, which meant three-quarters of the houses had four or five cement steps between the sidewalk and the walk leading to the front door. Very few of them were lit, which slowed us down considerably. After an hour Ron and I were exhausted from painstakingly helping Benny step by step. (Carrying him, of course was OUT of the question.) Next year I'm bringing a flashlight.