Hodge-podge

A few things for you today:

1. There are some new photos and video available for you on Flikr.  The new material includes the complete complement of photos from our visit to Winter Wonderland this past week (which I gave you a teaser to yesterday).

2.  The tsunami seems to have been a bust here. (Which is good, of course!)  Nobody really seemed to have been all that concerned about it, but apparently it came ashore here in Taiwan at about 2PM local time (several hours ago as I write this).  No impact at all.  The fireworks going off right outside my window upset me much more than the tsunami non-event.

3.  I've tried to integrate some audio into the blog via a service called AudioBoo. (Did you see / listen to the post yesterday?)  From time to time, I think it will be good to speak some stuff (instead of taking the time to write it all out), post it along with some photos, and let that be good.  What do you think?

4.  It's been some time since I posted any of John's artwork, so let me give you his latest Sunday School creation:

He's also been doing some watercolor painting (in addition to painting the lantern for his school's lantern festival contest), something I think he didn't really do much until Aunt Maxine came to visit over Christmastime.  He really likes to paint - thanks Maxine!  I'll get a picture of his "art gallery" where we have his paintings hung up at soon.

GJS

Yesterday's pics - Tokyo Disneyland

John with his new friend

OK, I've discovered a work-around for my non-ability to access Flikr - it's Picasa, Google's photo sharing service.  In fact, all the photos I upload to the blog (for use for various posts, like the one above) are already there, but this is the first time I've actually used Picasa itself for uploading photos.  Why were the uploaded photos already on Picasa?  Well, it's quite simple - Blogger, the blogging service that I use for Garblog, is a Google entity, and so is Picasa.  They work together.  Flikr belongs to Yahoo, so it is not as compatible as two services that belong to the same giant company.

At any rate, here are the photos from yesterday:

Tokyo Disneyland

Yesterday we did Tokyo Disneyland and it was a lot of fun.  Today was the sister theme park, one that is unique in the Disney pantheon, called Tokyo DisneySea.  While the Disneyland park here is essentially the same as the one you can visit in Anaheim or Orlando, there is but one version of the DisneySea park, and you have to travel to Tokyo to see it.  Reportedly, it was the most expensive theme park ever built, and the fastest to reach 10 million visitors (just over 300 days).  I got this info about the parks from Wikipedia.

Today's pics to follow soon...I must be slipping, I took far less than 100 photos in a full day at the park! (yesterday was over 100 in half a day)

GJS

Small photo upload

Hello again.  Just wanted to let you know a small photo upload is now taking place – only about 60 pics this time, so it shouldn’t take long.  I just want to “clear the books” before leaving on the trip, and you are the benefactor!  All are pics / video from around Kaohsiung.  And one video is the one you have all been waiting for – me doing laundry!  In fact, I only took that particular video to test out the new “GorillaPod” camera tripod I got for Christmas (which, by the way, is a great gift!  Thanks Beth! Uh, I mean Santa Claus!).

 

Pics will be found here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/gjsamps/

 

Enjoy!

 

GJS

Globetrotting

Well, for all intents and purposes, the first semester at NSYSU is over and we are on the cusp of our first trip since moving to Taiwan.  Tomorrow (Tuesday) we are heading to Tokyo for about a week and then on to Kyoto, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki before heading across to South Korea.  Will spend a week or so there, primarily in and around Seoul.  Really looking forward to this trip in every way except for - the weather.  Gonna be cold in Japan and Korea!  Been spoiled by the super-comfortable temperatures here in Southern Taiwan.  For instance, today it's 77 degrees F and sunny in Kaohsiung, and it looks like the temps in the places we will soon be visiting range from the mid 30's to the low 50's. (Daytime temps - will be quiet a bit colder once the sun goes down, I am sure.)

I hope to do quite a lot of photo-taking in the next 3 weeks, and I really hope that I am able to share some of these with you here as we go - it will be much better that way than if I end up waiting until we are back here in February to upload some pics.  I plan to make heavy use of Flikr and may even try to use YouTube to get some videos on here.  Stay tuned for more!

If you are in Japan or South Korea, we hope to see you soon!

GJS

Kaohsiung's Central Park last week

Kaohsiung's Central Park last week, originally uploaded by gardahsam.

It was a nice day.

GJS

Second time's a charm

Ready for New Year's near Taipei 101! (look familiar?)

Hello all...was able to complete the photo upload today. Still not quite sure why it stalled out yesterday, but no matter. The result is that now there are nearly 2000 (!) visual media items for you to enjoy at my Flikr page.

Some may wonder why I post so many photos, why not sort and sift a bit more? I have a couple answers to this: 1. I believe in the "people's war" theory of photos - that is, win through overwhelming numbers (I should hope you will be able to find something you like amidst the many, many options!); and (b) well, simply because I can. Digital photography enables me, as well as the the limitless upload capacity (when the "pipes" are working as they should be, anyhow) afforded to my by my Flikr account (not free, but not terrible expensive either).

Enjoy!

GJS

Houston, we have a problem

Be on the lookout for the notorious "George Washington" Bandit!

I think I may have overwhelmed Flikr with my attempted upload today. Perhaps the daily upload capacity per person tops out around 2 GB, for that's about all I was able to force through the "pipes" thus far, despite repeated attempts to get the rest to go. Perhaps I will try again later tonight or tomorrow. At any rate, about 350 new items were uploaded, including all the video (these comprise the most voluminous portion of the media). Like I said, I will try to get the other 600 or so photos up later. Hope this tides you over!

GJS

It's Time

"Flikr Ops" are about to commence. I am not done with my papers and such (mentioned last time) but it's time for a break. Plus, I don't want these photos to not be uploaded by the time we head out on our semester break, because quite frankly I hope to take at least another thousand or so pictures on the trip!

These pictures encompass the whole of December 2009, which includes some stuff from my school, Christmas, New Year's, Patrick and Maxine's visit, and so forth. Uploading will commence shortly, and I expect it will take no less than an hour (maybe longer) to complete.

"Teaser" photo included above. More to come!

GJS

Crunch Time

Don't think I've forgotten about you, faithful reader - I have lots for you! But now the end of my first semester of study draws near, and that means, of course, finals. I have no exams, but instead a pair of presentations (this week) and four (4) papers due next week, one for each class I am taking. What this means to you, dear reader, is that you will have to be patient and wait to see the nearly 1000* new photos that will be uploaded to Flikr at sometime in the not-too-distant future. Meanwhile, I shall be hard astudy.

GJS

*With a few days left in 2009, I remarked to Patrick that I though I could make it to 1000 photos on the month (December 2009 - hey, it was the holidays! -a period of increased photo-ness, right?). At the time I was at about 750. Patrick, Maxine and I went to Taipei for the New Year, and I was on track for 1000, with visits to the Taipei 101 observatory, the Sun Yat-sen Memorial, and the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial, but my camera's battery gave out before my "shutter eye" did. I managed a few anemic pics of the fireworks from Taipei 101 before it gave way completely just moments after midnight, and sure enough, once I got home to see where I ended up, the verdict was...999!!! Alas, I this number was before I "culled the flock" a bit and got rid of the blatantly blurry or just plain no good shots (there are always at least a few - thank goodness for digital photography, I'll just take more pictures!) So I ended the month at about 950 pics. Again, these will be uploaded to Flikr sometime soon - don't worry, I'll give you the heads-up when this is happening to you can check for new photos. When that happens, it will essentially *double* the number of photos I have on Flikr, all for you, dear reader.