Chinese Engineering...

The Chinese Government continues to astound the world with its 21st Century engineering projects.
Completed today was a 22 mile long bridge across Hangzhou Bay linking Shanghai with the industrial city of Ningbo. This bridge over the open sea is expected to open a year from now and will shorten the road distance between the two cities from 250 miles to 50.If that doesn’t sound impressive to you consider this. The distance the new bridge covers is more than the distance across the English Channel between the UK and France.
A year ago the Chinese completed and opened a railroad between Qinghai Province and Lhasa, Tibet. This 2040 kilometer project was constructed mostly at an altitude between 4000 and 5000 meters ABOVE sea level. The average height of this railroad is 2.8 times higher than the city of Denver!
The Chinese also have announced plans to build a blacktopped highway up the side of Mt. Everest to the 16,699 foot elevation of the Tibetan base camp which potential mountain climbers operate from by the opening of the Olympics next summer. The stated purpose is so that the Olympic Torch Relay will have a Mt. Everest component.............View from the Everest end of the proposed highway

It is unclear exactly how they intend to do this to but they are expected to follow a preexisting traditional Tibetan path. The project according to the China News Agency will take 4 months.
No wonder the Russians want to build a 64 mile tunnel to Alaska..

Ruel Alden Smith...

Ruel Alden Smith
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Special Delivery..!

A package was delivered earlier than expected to Tampa late this afternoon.

His name is Alden and he weighed 5 lbs 9 ounces!

Congratulations to Amy and the Pirate!