Taiwan P.O.D. Flickr Group

Well, it is now easier than ever for members of FlickR to add some pictures to the Taiwan Picture of the Day due to the new group we've created. Thanks to the idea from Craig, now it is easy to add pictures to the group to be considered for the Taiwan Daily Pic. It is quite a bit of work to keep the project maintained and make sure there is a fresh picture everyday to display on the various blogs, websites and facebook..., but due to this new Flickr group making it easier to submit new pictures for existing members, there is now a new pool of great quality pics to choose from.

Check out the group here - Taiwan P.O.D. Candidates

Other News....

Getty Images is for sale - Got a spare Billion USD$ give or take a half? Make a bid for the pre-eminent purveyor of images for media.

Taiwan Guide Links - Thanks to the perennially interesting David for keeping us up to date on the happenings in Taiwan and for the link to our little old web site.

Back from Japan

Well, we're back from Japan for a quick vacation in January for one week. We had an absolutely fabulous time! It's amazing to know that Japan is supposedly not experiencing the best economy now. Everything seemed to be fine, and it is a great country. There were so many well dressed Japanese running around in their suits so busy - it's hard to imagine they've been in a pro-longed economic slump over the past 17 years and were experiencing the lowest stock market in several years while we were there... Tokyo was so busy, and the countryside around Hakone was absolutely beautiful. We lucked out on the weather as it was raining when we arrived, and raining when we left, but sunny in between. Even though we only caught a misty view of Mt. Fuji, we had a great time especially while we were not shopping in Tokyo, and instead were enjoying the country-side and hot springs around Hakone.

2007 in Review

Another year in the bag and its been an eventful one! I suppose the obvious thing is to list all the accomplishments and events for the year. However, first I will dedicate this post to our trusty guard man - Mr. Jhang - in the picture in the left. He'll be "forced" into retirement at the end of this year because the building we live in wants to go with a youth movement - like under 55 years old! His hobby is studying English so he would be sure to quiz me every time I went outside. We spent some quality time last night on his very last night shift while he was showing me a long letter he wrote to presidential hopeful Ma-Ying-Jeou. He's also the one who introduced us to our apartment here in Yuanlin. I nick-named him "Mr. Clean" because he was always cleaning up the guard office, watering the flowers and sweeping the sidewalks. What a guy - we'll miss seeing him.

Year 2007 in Review

* My biggest accomplishment this year was launching the FotoZon online photo galleries web site. It's hard to believe that it was only just this year in March when I re-registered the domain name and set up the web site. It's become a time-consuming but rewarding hobby. It's also one of the main reasons for starting up this blog.

* The second online accomplishment this year was the launch of the Taiwan Picture of the Day. It is doing pretty well and getting some great links, reviews and presentations. I've been steadily adding more features and increasing the distribution of this feature.

* Last week I got reviewed at my main employer and had to come up with a list of accomplishments for the year. I told them I had learned a lot of new skills including Javascript, CSS, php and facebook. Of course I didn't mention that most of them were for my own projects.

* Some general stuff that happened during the year:
- Our little daughter learned to walk in February and now she's learning to talk.
- Learned how (mostly how not to) invest in the stock market .
- Saw the president of Taiwan
- Went on a trip back to Seattle in July just in time to see fireworks
- Experienced Crazy Chinese New Year Traveling to North Taiwan
- Met a lot of new friends here in Taiwan.
- Rekindled my interest in photography.

Thanks for visiting and I leave you with a few of my favorite shots from the year:

Sweater Scooter Near Tainan


Jiu Fen Skinny Market Street


Ghost Month Burners


Giant Buddha near ChangHua


Taichung Night Shot


Enough blogging! Time to go out and get plastered!

Take care - and we'll see you next year.

Joseph Gray

Schmap and the New World Wide Web

I'm feeling older these days... like the world has passed me by. All sorts of new-fangled web applications are coming out these days, and I'm not sure if I can keep up. Recently I was selected on Flickr to have one of my photos featured in "Schmaps". This new-fangled web site has all kinds of stuff on it with a mish-mash of maps and photos and events and who knows what.. Nevertheless, I'm proud my photo of the fireworks shot from my knee at Gasworks Park was selected. It's not the one on the left, although I think that one is actually not too bad. I should have set up hours ahead of time with a tripod like a guy in the front of us. Mabye next year, although I wonder who they are going to find to sponsor the fireworks next summer since Washington Mutual is having so many problems with the massive credit explosion.

Anyways, back to the Schmapp... it seems to be an interesting outfit in some sort of beta pre-launch and they have some interesting tidbits about some of the various sites, mostly on the west coast USA for now. Here's a widget I downloaded from their site and you can see my http://www.schmap.com/seattle/events_fremont/#r=none&mapview=Map&tab=Places&p=196207&topleft=47.65182,-122.33662&bottomright=47.6417,-122.33063&i=196207_14.jpg (I took off this link because they removed their link to my Flickr page!) -- picture of the Seattle Fireworks there too.

*** UPDATE January 21, 2008 ***
For some reason, all of the links and attributions previously on the Schmapp Site have disappeared! I'm not sure if it is deliberate or an "accidental programming change". However, I have contacted them through Flickr and I hope they fix it as soon as possible. Otherwise, I plan on contacting Flickr to Complain about this abuse and try to get them banned.

Ok, there you have it... Somehow I made that widget using their web site. However, it's just another one of those technological advances where I am just going with the flow. Here's the photo that got me into this mess in the first place:

Lotto Fever!

I got to find a new investment strategy, because this buying lottery tickets is not working out so well. Yesterday, five lucky people in Taiwan split the massive jackpot of 1.2 Billion NT Dollars. This little gambler in the picture still has hope that his ticket will win. Of course, our tickets were not even close.

I had quite a lot of fun taking pictures at the luckiest lottery shop in our home town of Yuanlin. There were so many good shots, it was almost tough to pare it down to 13 of the best. I hope you enjoy as much as I did taking them. I was almost ready to leave and I passed the traffic light, but something told me I should turn back and get a few more shots. I told myself "No Regrets" and I'm glad I did, including the one you see there to the left. Of course it was almost a spectacle there, despite my low profile, so I leave you with this posed picture on the motor scooter.