Old School

Last month in early August, I visited my old school - the University of Washington in Seattle while my wife went shopping in the nearby shopping "village". It was great fun to stroll down memory lane and see all the changes and the classic old building that remain the same.

They are remodeling my old hall of economics.

Now - Why didn't they have that sign there
when I was going to school!?!

Classic old Denny Hall built in 1895 is the oldest university
building in Washington State.

Brand new William H. Gates Hall. named for not Bill Gates Jr. -
founder of Microsoft, but for his father class of 1950.

I expected a School of Computer Science...

Ah, the incoming freshmen take a tour of their new school.

A wedding party tours the campus to take some photos.

East of the University is a beautiful neighborhood with great

views and parks. These red scaly barked trees are native "Madronas".

A fancy house.. I imagine it belongs to a professor or someone.
Probably at least a million bucks right now.

Down the hill is a view of the "Sea Fair" on Lake Washington.
This neighborhood is pretty far from the action, but the Blue
Angel navy jets flying overhead were pretty cool.

- eot -

Some Nice Photos

While I was back in the states, my brother built a table for a "real" photographer in exchange for some professional shots of their work at the Grey's cabinet shop in Stanwood. I was gone the shoot, but I heard all about the experience and how the photographer spent about two hours lining up each shot with the lights and everything just so! Any little reflection or bright spots and he'd have to re-adjust and do another take. Wow, that is some real dedication! I regret I didn't go along to catch the process. Here are some samples of the photos:

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In the Woods, On the Beach

A few pictures from our recent trip back the USA.

You can't really tell from the picture -, but I'm driving a
small tractor here and the kids are in the back in a trailer.


Quack Quack - Some ducks on Lake Crescent.


Camping out on the Pacific Ocean .


The Beach at Sunset - look at all those drift logs.


This guy apparently really likes wine!

All is Well in the Land of the Setting Sun

Well, here I am back in Taiwan after 35 days in the USA. It was a glorious vacation filled with beautiful scenery, clean air and lots of partying. Of course with flying, eating out and partying, there is always a heavy tax to pay. Now I'm happy to say that I'm back to work full time, saving money and working on this ole blog again.

During my vacation, Craig took over editorial duties at the TPod. He did an awesome job and hopefully I can hire him on full time. Unfortunately, we had several serious problems with the hosting company and the server. While there was intermittent service during the period, two whole weeks of data were lost in early July - right at the beginning of my vacation! Hence, there is still missing data from the July tpod archive. I think I can piece most of the photos together from the daily email, but to say the least it was a pain in the rear. Although the server is now working for the meantime, I am actively searching for new hosting. I'm thinking about getting a server here in Taiwan so it will be much faster to reach.

That's all for now. I will follow up with a few photo essays in the next few weeks reporting on our trip.

Picture of the Day - One Year

How time flies! It's been just a little more than a year since we launched the Taiwan Picture of the Day on the FotoZon web site. In one year, a lot of interesting photos have been submitted. Many web sites, blogs and personal pages have put the picture online.

Among the developments over the past year:

• New Archive Section - I used a fancy "Light Room" javascript and a little programming to automate the menu and daily additions to the archive.
  
• FaceBook Applicaion - This was a fun and informative project to create an application on Facebook for users to show off the Taiwan P.O.D. on their profile pages - so far 884 have added the application since it was added to the official directory.
• Javascript Widget - Personally I like to use this application better than just the picture because the title and description change along with the picture each day. See it on the top of the right side menu on this blog.
  
• XML Feed - This was one of the easiest (and earliest) additions. This is a good way to see the new picture each day from the comfort of your Rss reader or email.
  
• Flickr Group - Making it easier for Flickr members to submit picture in consideration for the Picture of the Day.
  

What does the future hold? Well, when I find some spare time from cruising around looking for new contributions and helping decide which picture to select for the day, I have plans to add an application to Google Apps and a few other areas. If you have any ideas on improvements or other ways to further the project - Let me know!

Joe