Archive for February, 2008
This entry was posted February 29th, 2008 and has 1 comment.
A report released today by the Pew Center on the States says that 1 in every 99.1 American adults are now incarcerated. That’s a total of 2,319,258 people in jail at the start of 2008. This makes the US by far the world’s leading incarcerator, whether you look at per capita or raw numbers. And for one more frightening statistic, the US spent more than 49 billion dollars in 2007 on our prison system.
Now, to bring it to a local level, here are some stats for Maryland. Of the 23,342 prisoners in Maryland, 70% are there for drug or drug-related offenses.
Continue reading 1 in 100 American Adults now in Prison
Posted in Chris Walbert
This entry was posted February 25th, 2008 and has no nomments.
Not only is Dustin Pfeifer a good friend of mine and a champion BSSC quarterback, but he is also an excellent web designer and developer. Dustin and I went to school together and also worked in the marketing department at our last company for about four years. During that time we worked on a lot of projects together, many of which I am still really proud of.
I left that company last April and in October, Dustin decided to work for himself full-time and focus on his company, Dustin Pfeifer Creative. He’s already done some great work that you can see on his brand new site, DustinPfeifer.com.
Continue reading The New and Improved DustinPfeifer.com
Posted in Baltimore, Chris Walbert, advertising, business, marketing, technology
This entry was posted February 21st, 2008 and has no nomments.
With my run on Tuesday night, I officially passed the 200-mile mark since I began running with Nike Plus. Now, I have run a few times without my iPod/Nike Plus, including the 13.1-mile half marathon. So in all actuality, I hit 200 at the end of 2007.
Officially hitting this milestone, however, gives me a good reason to talk about how great the Nike Plus system is and how much it has helped me stay motivated and continue to run.
Continue reading 200 Miles with Nike Plus
Posted in Chris Walbert, running
This entry was posted February 11th, 2008 and has 1 comment.
After a week in China, I arrived back in Baltimore on Friday evening. The trip was so much fun as well as being an amazing experience. This is a trip that I won’t soon forget.
So, now it’s back to normal life and back to work tomorrow. But for one last blog on the topic, I’ll share some of my favorite photos from the trip. Just click on the thumbnail to see the larger version.
There are more after the jump.
The full gallery of photos is now on Picasa.
Continue reading Home Sweet Baltimore
Posted in Baltimore, Chris Walbert, travel
This entry was posted February 7th, 2008 and has 1 comment.
Xin nein kuai le.
Last night we celebrated Chinese New Year and rang in 2008, the year of the rat. After journeying around the city all day we grabbed a quick bite to eat and then went out in search of people celebrating the new year. All through the city there were people walking around and setting off fireworks. We then stopped in the Hyatt bar that overlooks The Bund. We were up really high and had an awesome view of the river and all of the buildings surrounding it.
Continue reading Chinese New Year
Posted in China, Chris Walbert
This entry was posted February 7th, 2008 and has no nomments.
Tuesday was the first day that I could actually sleep in and get some much needed rest. We got kind of a late start on the day and since it was raining, we decided just to go get massages. This was the first professional massage I’ve ever gotten and it was definitely worth it.
After that we came home and hung out before going to dinner at Chrissy’s friends Mark and Natalie’s house. Dinner was excellent, but then their sixth and seventh grade sons destroyed us in Guitar Hero. Those kids can wail.
After dinner we headed to this cool jazz club called the Cotton Club. It was a nice little joint with live music. We weren’t there too terribly long, but had a good time regardless.
Continue reading More Fun in Shanghai
Posted in China, Chris Walbert
This entry was posted February 4th, 2008 and has 6 comments.
After the Great Wall, we visited the Summer Palace, Tiananmen Square, and went to a really cool local restaurant where we ate Beijing Duck and tons of food for a total of about $25. Then we went to the airport to head back to Shanghai. Again, the flight was delayed and we hung out in the airport for another 3 hours. I took a bunch of pictures and posted them here.
This morning, after watching the Super Bowl and almost losing all electricity at the apartment, we ventured back out into the streets. We visited the local DVD salesman, where I purchased seasons 1-4 of The Wire for 105 RMB, which equates to about $14. Then we went to the Oriental Pearl Tower, Yu Yuan, walked through a shikumen which is an old Chinese neighborhood with lots of street vendors, and then ate dinner at a Brazilian steak house in Jing An. Pictures from the first day in Shanghai can be seen here.
Continue reading Shanghai
Posted in China, Chris Walbert
This entry was posted February 3rd, 2008 and has 3 comments.
I forgot to introduce the fourth member of our group at the end of the last post. Chrissy’s friend Emily, who lives in Beijing, met us at the airport and accompanied us through the rest of our time in Beijing. Besides being a really nice person, it was also invaluable to have Emily with us since she speaks the language and could negotiate for us. I think she had a lot of fun also. She even learned how to tell a “That’s what she said” joke.
Saturday morning we took a bus about an hour outside of the city and arrived at The Great Wall of China. This was definitely one of the parts of the trip that I was looking forward to the most, and it did not disappoint. If you can’t tell from the pictures, it was really cold, I think somewhere around 15-20 degrees with a biting wind.
The view from the Wall was amazing. The wall was built on top of the highest parts of the mountains to give the Chinese protection against the Mongols by allowing them to defend themselves as well as attack their invaders.
Continue reading The Great Wall
Posted in China, Chris Walbert
This entry was posted February 3rd, 2008 and has 1 comment.
Ron and I left BWI Airport at 8:00 am Thursday morning. Every part of this trip got off to a late start. In Chicago we sat on the the runway for 2 hours waiting for them to de-ice the plane. The plane ride was actually not nearly as bad as I thought. I watched 2 movies, read a book and even snuck in a 5-hour nap thanks to some sleeping pills.
After 19 hours of traveling, we arrived in Shanghai and took the Maglev train to Chrissy’s apartment. After a quick showers and a meal, we left in the snow to go back to the airport.
The Shanghai Airport was jam packed full of people heading home for the upcoming New Year. Our flight was delayed for about 3 hours, so we found a place to take naps and waited. Then once we got on the plane, we waited for another hour or so while they de-iced the plane.
Continue reading Travel Day(s)
Posted in China, Chris Walbert
