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Since I’ve been silent for a few weeks, I thought I’d also pipe up.  Various reasons for the radio silence….

• The new year often seems to bring out the worst in my inner workaholic — although I haven’t been in the office much on weekends, leaving the office at 5 has been… infrequent.
• My inner workaholic is also serving notice at home too — read a great motivational book about organizing, and I’m using it to manage my desktop both at home and at work.  As an example, for those of you that know my workflow, I’m down to emails in the single digits in my inbox and maybe twenty items on my desktop.  Yup, I can actually see my funny desktop.  We’ll see how long it lasts, but I’m pretty optimistic.
• We’ve actually been seeing people!  That’s a great reason to not post — seeing ‘em in real life and kicking their ass in Carcassone or holding their babies or watching them fly a bike 70 feet through the air… Real life — good!
• This might be a bit cryptic, but, the wife and I have put in a down payment on our next big expansion project.  Its a little bit… stressful… Its a pretty big expenditure for uncertain results.

Thanks for the good times January.  Bring on the rest of the year.

Weird ass shark.

yo there. a brief recap of my past six months:

• trina and i moved to buffalo. i’ll have pictures soon. see point #3.
• we bought a car, after the old one proved too costly to maintain and which bit the dust THE DAY BEFORE we were to pick up our new car from the dealer. i seem to be developing a history with cars.
• we got a digital camera for xmas. this will facilitate point #1, though ostensibly i should be working on this anyway because
• i just finished my photo website in which i display various pictures i have taken, and through which i shall endeavour to sell prints of said pictures to paying members of the public. this is, i believe, what you call “e-commerce”, though i am a little unclear, as i am new to this. if you kind slanty-folk would pass along this “url” to those owners of blank walls that might be improved by the hanging of such photographic accoutrements, i would be most appreciative indeed.

This is a bit old, but in the off chance you missed it I thought I’d post it here:

Since Lonnie’s been badgering me to put up some photos of our house, here they are!

The view when you walk out our front door, we live at sort of a T junction.

The view east on our street.

The view west on our street. Notice the ‘Say No To Water Charges’ graffiti. Even after the troubles have quieted they’re still vandalizing in a political way!

Our house. It’s the one with the green door, not the boarded up one you can barely see on the left.

Our spacious back yard, complete with 900 gallon oil tank. And fuzzy reflection of your’s truly.

The ‘guest’ bedroom.

Main room, looking back to the dining area.

Main room, looking toward living area. Notice that even though it’s bright out, you can tell it’s been raining recently.

The kitchen. No dishwasher yet, but we’ve got a clothes washing machine so that’s progress.

The master bedroom. For some reason I forgot to take the photo the first time, so this one was taken at night. Hence the darkness.

Finally, just to make things interesting, here’s our local mural. Not the most impressive in all Belfast, and I’ve never heard anything about the Ormeau Road Freedom Fighters outside of their sign, but it’s just down the road from us and seems to be looked after. If you look very very closely at this photo you might be able to spot it on the third building down, in front of the car. Note the red, white and blue paint, that means we’re in a non-papist community: no fenians here! Cept for me, so don’t tell anyone. And really, you gotta love ‘Frog Ye Ha.’ And no I don’t know what that means. Maybe they like the French.

I just thought I'd upload a few pics that we haven't had the time to upload.  A random selection of a few we like the best.

Sandra and the girls on new years eve

the Shuanxi river near our house

a very common sight in Taiwan

near where I'll be working.  what you see is the Grand Hotel in the background

 the beautiful Sandra - look mom she's wearing her birthday sweater

 the Taiwan flag flying proudly in front of Taipei 101

 Chang Kai Shek memorial hall park at night

 this is a load of crap that a guy has loaded onto his bike - another very common sight here

 Every temple here is intricately decorated like this.  Dragons are very auspicious (don't know if I spelled that right)

 a grave yard in the middle of the city.  All the grave markers face different directions depending on what direction is the best for the deceased person

 Southern Taiwan near Tainan.  A giant incinerater for burning your offerings to the gods

 the temple for the above mentioned incinerator.  This is where all the gods live.

 A few of the gods that live here.

 and the last installment for now.  Check back for updates.  There are so many great pics to choose from its hard - hope I don't repeat any. 

Sandra and I are just enjoying a lazy Saturday afternoon.  Actually we just got back from a run so I guess it's not that lazy.  Later we are going to take an MRT trip and go to Beitou Hotsprings and soak our bodies for a little while.  Tough life I know.  Soon to end though when I go back to work in February so I'm trying to enjoy the last of my time off.  Right now I'm off to try some of the local cuisine - a fryed chicken restaurant that is in on the main floor of our apartment building - haven't eaten there since we first moved in here so here goes wish me luck - it wasn't bad the first time - it's very Taiwanese. 

   Take care every one!!!!

Just cracked open a can a Guinness and there was no satisfying *whoosh* sound of the widget doing its magic. Shook the empty can, no widget at all! Checked the outside of the can, no widget advertised! Who would have thought of such a thing, non-widget canned Guinness! It’s like I’m drinking old man’s beer!

Not too shabby either…

Looking across English Bay to Kits and Point Grey.