Still Posting

I know there were those that felt that once we returned to the US that it would be the end for the blog. After all, how can you be “Dudleys Abroad” when you are in the US? I’ll tell you, we are still abroad. According to the dictionary,
a•broad (-brôd) adv. & adj.
1. Out of one's own country.
2. In a foreign country or countries.
3. Away from one's home.
4. In circulation; at large.
5. Covering a large area; widely
6. Not on target; in error.

Of course this doesn’t cover all of the definitions since we all know that broad can also mean a woman (as in, “She is one tough broad”), but I digress. Since we are “in circulation”, we’ll continue to be abroad until such time that we are no longer “in circulation” (which means that we have been cancelled like a stamp, taking the celestial dirt nap, going six feet under…you get the picture).

We have been back in country for almost 2 months now and things have been very hectic. Some things that seem simple in my mind aren’t so simple. Like what? How about buying a cellphone?
Tammy got to upgrade from her poor old jail broken iPhone 3 to the new and improved iPhone 4. This wasn’t much of a decision for her, we went to the AT&T store and she patiently watched me get bamboozled by all of the options while she waited for her turn to pounce on her phone. She has been counting down the days since her iPhone was having issues and could hardly wait to get back to the US and get that upgrade (oh, those wacky Apple people, always jumping on to the new stuff). It wasn’t even a question mark. Me, I have always just had the basic phones all of the time (it’s a phone right?). I may look like a techno-geek (“I want to roll with the gangstas but they all know that I’m white and nerdy”…Weird Al Yankovic) but I’ve never had anything but the basic phone. So, I got schooled in this phone, then this phone and then finally the “smart” phones (all I could think was “is a guy with a bro’stach invited to this party”). The young lady at the store was very nice and patient (as my wife laughed at me) while my head was spinning (I just want a phone…what’s a data plan anyhow?). Well, I ended up with a Blackberry (after all next year is 2012, the end of the world better live it up now). I was a lot leery of this new-fangled, fancy phone but after setting up my e-mail to be retrieved on my phone, it was the right choice. I can now text LMAO in less than 3 minutes with my Blackberry Torch! (Lookout world!) Having the e-mail has saved a lot of headaches and allowed for quick back-n-forth with documents and information, especially in discussions with our realtor & lending agent. I still don’t think I’ve scratched the surface of what it can do but I am on my way to being as tech-savvy as Al Gore (I’ll just have to limit the photo tweets of me in my skivvies).
How is this different than China? Well in China, you purchase a phone and a SIM Card and then pay ahead for minutes. I have noted in a very early blog that the Chinese are very particular about the phone numbers they get and will pay more for a “lucky number”. What is a lucky number….8. Remember, the Beijing Olympics started on August 8, 2008 (8/8/08), not a coincidence. An unlucky number is 4, why? Because it sounds like “si” which means death so many of the Chinese buildings are missing the floors that end with the number 4 (and also 13 because it’s unlucky in the US so they don’t want to take any chances). Once you buy the phone and get the number activated, you pay for the minutes you will use. When you run low, you get a text indicating you have less than ___ RMB remaining on your phone. You go to the store and add more money to the phone and that’s it. There’s no extra plans, no standard costs per month regardless if you make one call or 50 calls. It’s pay for use, but there are some hidden costs. Every time you receive a text, you pay. Guess who you get texts from all of the time….how about the cell phone company. So, basically it’s like a Go phone but you don’t just have the basic models like those phones. People pay for the latest and greatest gadgets and I don’t think I had ever seen so many people so focused on their phones but it is how they communicate. They can’t afford the laptops and such so the phone is the way they use QQ, surf the web, etc.

Let’s see, what else has happened since we got back. Oh yeah, the house. We were in our own version of House Hunters (House Hunters – Redneckville, not quite as popular as House Hunters International but it’s pretty similar but with flannel, coveralls and catfish). Yes, we had to find a place to live. We were currently living with my parents (we put the BOOM in boomrang kids) and as much as they “begged” us to stay (yeah right), we had to find our own place and get ourselves settled back into life in the US. We were lucky that my folks have a large enough house to accommodate us and that I have other siblings that could put us up so it could’ve been worse living in a motel all of that time. We started on July 6th and some 65+ houses later, we finally found a house that we could live with. We’ve been watching these house hunter shows on TLC and stuff and we see everyone goes through the same issues. Everyone wants the perfect house with everything but in the end, it comes down to what can you live without? I wanted a basement for my “man cave” but every house with a basement was in a bad location (either in the boonies or it would’ve doubled as the our safe room while waiting on the cops when the security system was tripped). I also wanted a yard, something where we could have some place for a garden and space between us and our neighbors. Again, a lot of homes with yards but the house was the problem. There was always something that sent us running for the door when we found a yard. [Side note: In the write up for one house, they actually wrote in that the owners shot a deer last year from their porch…now doesn’t that paint a pretty picture?]. We wanted a bonus room and that put a lot of homes out that we looked at. Some had the bonus room but everything else in the house suffered. This is a post in-and-of-itself with all of the different homes we have seen and the condition of some of the houses. It was an eye-opening experience to say the least (and maybe it’s better that I leave it there). It also provided us with a window into what buyers would look for when they walked into our house in GA. Although we did a ton of work on the house, replacing the carpeting throughout, replacing the vinyl flooring and painting…there are still other things that people look at when they walk through a home for the first time. Although the primary reason for the lack of a sale on the house is due to our price, it still doesn’t hurt to know what else people look for when purchasing a home. Our home was in good condition compared to what we saw around (like 3 dog night home where the basement had the enticing aroma of dog pee) but sometimes that isn’t good enough. People are driven by other things besides just the appearance of the home. It’s a lesson that might’ve helped us when putting the house on the market but we can’t change what has been done. Anyhow, we did okay considering we looked for about 1 month and saw over 65 homes. Perhaps you are wondering, “What put this house over the top?” Basically, it came down to schools. We found an IB school (same type as the school the kids went to in Suzhou) and that narrowed the scope to one school district and from that point, finding a house was easy (relatively).

Car. That’s right, we sold both of our vehicles when we left and now we have to replace them. Nothing better than adding back a car payment….YES!!!! Perhaps we would’ve been better served by keeping one vehicle but we didn’t so now we headed back out to find a car. Once again, the most hated professions….Politician (especially now, don’t forget that many are lawyers), Lawyer and Insurance Agent but we can’t forget those loveable car sales people. We experienced the standard bait-and-switch from the professionals at the Kia dealers (one word….sleazy). By the way, what happened to the affordable Kia’s? When we left, Kia was a car that was typically cheaper than other cars for the same size and similar model. Not so anymore, they’ve joined in with everyone else as far as price. We really didn’t like the people there (understatement) so we moved on the Hyundai and found two “good guys” that actually helped us out in the purchase of a car. The salesperson was knowledgeable and showed us the car from front to rear and explained everything in detail. Then came the test drive and pricing. Interesting enough, the manager is from Eagles Landing which is just down the road from Stockbridge. He was experiencing the same issues we were in our house hunt and he wanted to “take care of his people”. We got a good deal and were able to leave feeling good about the car. It has done well in the first weeks of ownership and we hope to drive it into the ground like our other cars.

These have been the big things we have done since our return. The kids have spent a ton of time with their grandparents making up for lost time while we were in China. I think they have now learned that Jacob and Warren can eat (and eat…and eat!). We’ve been busy and are ready for things to settle down a little. Once things settle down, we’ll get back to keeping the blog updated with fresh photos and stories of our departure from China and arrival back in the US.