Bolder Boulder and Boulder Creek Festival

We learned today that the Bolder Boulder, the second largest organized 10K in the United States, leaves from about two blocks west of our new place. So, we went out on our bicycles, took pictures, and then got a bunch of free stuff from the Boulder Creek Festival. (We win, Karli!)

And now for something completely different

We've created a new blog that will track our experiences relating to China. Keep track of our impending trip, and our time in China, by visiting that website.

New Digs

Here are a few photos of our new place in Boulder. We put all of our stuff in storage and moved into this furnished place. We will be at this address until August 15, when the owner comes back from her summer in South America and we head off on our next adventure in Beijing.

Memorial Day Weekend in Boulder

Today Micah and I treated ourselves to brunch at a restaurant in Boulder called "The Kitchen Cafe". It was delicious. Afterwards we went for a walk around town and took a few photos at a community garden.

Graduation photos

More Pet Pics

Below is another picture of Wadi, the new family dog back at the farm in Kansas. Below that is a picture of Naavah, our cat, who is on temporary loan to the Roenbaughs while we head off to China for a year. As Katie's dad put it, "our new animals have made us laugh more often." Us too.

Wadi's First Retrieve

Here's Bill's new dog. It's bred into them.

Katie's Tornado Pics

Katie went home to help clean up from the tornadoes that ravaged central Kansas. Here's pictures from around the local community, as well as the day she spent as a volunteer in Greensburg.

Tornado media

Here's three storm chaser videos, the first of the Greensburg F5 on Friday, the second of the tornado that went through Radium last night, and third taken last night at an unknown location. A fourth video from Saturday of a funnel outside Great Bend is also available.







Jeff Gammons, a storm videographer, has some good maps on his website that track the storms, as well as links to other photography and videos. The Lope has some photography that captures Greensburg before the storm.

75 more, and not just in Greensburg

Based on the family's morning damage survey, it looks like a funnel dropped down in the middle of Trousdale, and then popped back up as it headed north-east through Edwards County, passing directly over Grandma Joy's house before it dropped back down and headed into Macksville. Several roofs were ripped off of houses in Trousdale, and all of the windows in the church blew out. But there's another round of storms scheduled for tonight, so we're not out of the woods yet.

Here's some pictures of the Grizzells' house, just north of the Roenbaughs in Stafford County, which was hit Friday night:




Some media outlets are stating that at least 75 tornadoes were reported last night. President Bush and Governor Sebelius both declared Kiowa county a disaster area, entitling Greensburg and surrounding communities to relief. But the Presidential declaration assumes that the tornadoes simply stopped at the Kiowa county border. They did not.

Twisters, Take Two

There's more trouble brewing in Kansas tonight. At 8:05 MST, another tornado touched down near Katie's family, this time 2.5 miles due west of the Roenbaughs, and a half-mile west of Grandma Joy's house. Everyone is physically fine, and the houses still have roofs. But the golf ball-sized hail accompanying the tornadoes probably did their thing to the crops, there's wide-spread flooding across south-west Kansas, and the surrounding community needs help. We'll post more as we hear more, but it looks like the tornadoes are dying down for now, even if a severe weather alert remains in effect until 4 AM tomorrow morning.

If you're looking for good coverage, KWCH has live video on their website, KSN has some decent video coverage too, and the National Weather Service has live radar. (Java required for the NWS site)

Kansas Tornado

Katie's parents called at 1:30 CT last night about the tornadoes. To get a sense of the devastation, here's a few links to stories about Greensburg (pictured above), about 20 miles southwest from the Roenbaughs.

• Wichita Eagle
  
• KAKE Article and Videos
• KSN Article and Videos
• KUSA Article and Videos
  
• ABC 33/40 Weather Blog
  

At times as wide as 1.5 miles in diameter, the Greensburg tornado headed north/north east and came as close as 1.5 miles west of Grandma Joy's house. A second tornado followed a parallel path four miles east of the Roenbaugh's house, which is 2.5 miles straight east from Grandma Joy's. In other words, the Roenbaugh's house was right between two tornadoes that passed four miles east and four miles west of them with 100 m.p.h. winds.

All family is safe and accounted for, but many friends and members of the community sustained significant damage from the storm. One neighbor, of the Giles family, was killed. Aunt Barb was on call at the Pratt Medical Center when they started bringing people in. Our thoughts and prayers are with them all, and with northern neighbors that are due for another round.

Tsinghua

This week, Tsinghua University also accepted us to their LL.M. program, but we're sticking with Peking, based in part on Will's advice. Now to find an apartment...

Apartment-hunting in Beijing is proving more difficult than one might think. We've been scouring the following websites looking for options:

• Craigslist: Beijing
• That's Beijing: Apartments for Rent
• SinoHousing.com
  

...but we've come up with nothing. We think that Peking will help us out, but we really have no idea. So if you're reading this and you have experience in such matters, drop us a line.

The other question is: what exactly will we rent? According to China Law Blog, the state owns the land a building sits on, and a natural-born or legal Chinese person can own the fixtures on the land. But the state places limits on how long the fixtures (read: buildings) can sit on the land, which creates a bit of uncertainty. So, in essence, we'll be leasing property that the state can, theoretically, yank at any time. And, to make matters more interesting, leases are considered simple contracts, and not any kind of interest in the land itself, like in the U.S. In other words, we will be learning Chinese law before we even arrive in Beijing.

Civil Clinic Wins Award

The Bolder Bar Association awarded the members of the CU Legal Aid Clinic an award for our pro bono service. Together the six of us amassed a huge amout of legal aid hours. From left to right this is Julia Kneeland, me (Katie Schwalb), James Lyman, Sarah Quicksall, Emela Buljko, Mark Loy, and Professor Norman Aaronson.

The cases I helped with included divorce cases, social security benefits cases, and asylum cases.

Emela and I also won individual awards for outstanding commitment to legal aid clients. This pretty much means that we spent most of our days this semester in the clinic.

Fascinating

The Virginia Tech massacre continues to dominate news coverage in the United States. The U.S. media has yet to pick up on an interesting little tidbit about how the Chinese media reacted to initial reports that the shooter was from China. Danwei has more.

I will love him and hug him and pet him and squeeze him and I will pet him and pet him and I will take him home and call him [insert name here]

Without the family puppy fiend in tow, we went to a breeder to pick out a new lab for Katie's dad. Jenny can still share in the fun if she wants, at least by proxy. To get a sense of what [Insert name here] will look like, here's some photos of his mom and dad.

[Insert name here] goes home to Kansas on May 13th.

Outdoor Kittie

With our departure for China impending, we dropped our cat off with her "grandparents" in Kansas a few weeks ago. Evidently part of the deal was that, by moving to Kansas, Naavah would earn her keep by hunting mice. Step one is learning to prowl outside without getting run over by anything...

The rest of the pics are of the Roenbaugh/Cudney Easter celebration. Enjoy!

Don't be confused

Someone else bought our old domain.

We're In

Peking U., here we come!!

Tariffs on Chinese paper

Today's New York Times has an article on the Unites States' response to Chinese paper subsidies. Perhaps I am the only one, but it seems a little disingenuous for the U.S. to levy tariffs in response to illegal subsidies when we have done the same with cotton subsidies, among other things.