IMG_0197.jpg
IMG_0197.jpg
Originally uploaded by jono1515.
Buddhist temple thing at Yangmingshan National Park
Monday, August 07, 2006
IMG_0206.jpg
IMG_0206.jpg
Originally uploaded by jono1515.
Buddhist temple thing at Yangmingshan National Park
Wednesday, August 02, 2006
IMG_0163.jpg
IMG_0163.jpg
Originally uploaded by jono1515.
This is a Buddhist Temple that is really close to one of the schools I teach at. There are smaller ones all over the place, like really all over. Most of them are just one room that's open to the street and people go in and burn incense. This is one of the bigger ones, but there's an even bigger one in downtown Taoyuan and as soon as they finish doing repair work on it, I'll put some pictures of it here too.
Sunday, July 30, 2006
Wednesday, July 26, 2006
IMG_0106.jpg
IMG_0106.jpg
Originally uploaded by jono1515.
This is the view from the balcony on the front of the dorm.
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
IMG_0113.jpg
IMG_0113.jpg
Originally uploaded by jono1515.
This is the school that I'm living at in Taiwan. I got here on Thursday last week, and I'm already teaching! Everything is so different here, I'll post more soon!
Sunday, July 16, 2006
Wednesday, July 05, 2006
tripeast018
tripeast018
Originally uploaded by jono1515.
This is one of the courtyards at the place we stayed in New Orleans.
Thursday, June 29, 2006
Back in New York
As usual, I'm a little slow to update this. The trip to New York across the South has been complete for a week and a half now. It was fantastic. Torrey and I left California like 2 and a half weeks ago. We drove down 395 along the eastern Sierra Nevadas and spent the first night in Joshua Tree National Park. That place is amazing. I'm still waiting to get my pictures back, but I'll put some up here as soon as I can. Then we drove across Arizona and New Mexico and stayed in El Paso. It is so unbelievably hot down there! The a/c in my car doesn't work so we had to have windows open to try and stay cool. It was about 110F in Arizona and it just felt like a hairdryer was blowing in the windows, didn't help much at all. Texas is a huge state and it took us two days to cross it. Most of it is pretty boring, the western part is just desert. We had planned staying in New Orleans for just Friday night, but decided after we got there that we'd take a break and spend two days there. It was a lot of fun, we stayed at a place in the French Quarter just around the corner from Bourbon Street. That place is like a never ending party, at night the close Bourbon Street to cars and it's just crazy. The food and music there is absolutely fantastic. That's definitely going to make my list of places to return to... which I should probably start actually making, I've been to a lot of places recently that I've really enjoyed. Anyway, after our break in New Orleans we were going to take 3 days to make it back to New York, but decided to just do it in 2 long days. We made it back to New York without any car trouble at all, despite my father giving it 50/50 chances of making it home.
I spent the rest of the week relaxing in Saratoga, and then went up to Montreal to visit my old housemate Phil for the weekend. That was a lot of fun, we managed to do the city in classic style as we would have back in college. It was good to see Phil, and Montreal was a great place to be for the weekend.
So now I have a little over a week before my family and I head out to Cape Cod for our annual vacation there. I'm looking forward to doing some serious fishing while we're out there, as well as time to relax on the beach. I'll only have like 2 days once I get back before I head over to Taiwan! I really can't wait for that. It's going to be so completely different from anything back here.
I'll post some pictures whenever I get them back.
Thursday, June 15, 2006
Those last few photos were taken on a camera I just got, just before I left Tahoe. That's right, I've left Tahoe. I'm on my way back to NY right now with Torrey. We're on our second day in Texas right now. I finished work a few weeks ago, I went to Vancouver for a weekend then my parents came out to visit last week in Tahoe and now my brother and I are driving back to NY across the South. We camped in Joshua Tree National Park the first night and that place is amazing. I've definitely got to go back for a longer stay. We're taking our time driving, tomorrow will be a short day and we'll spend the afternoon/night in New Orleans which should be sweet. We're going to stay in the French Quarter and we're looking forward to a good time. After that, it'll be 2 or 3 more days and we'll be back in NY. I'll have a few short weeks up there and then I'll be on my way to Taiwan! I got my visa a few days ago and booked my ticket. I'm really looking forward to it, it's going to be amazing. It's defintely going to be way too hot there though, it's been around 95-110F down here in the southwest but dry. From what I understand it's hotter in Taiwan and really humid. I can't imagine it being hotter than it has been here, but I'm looking forward to it regardless.
Photos from our trip back to NY will be up after I get film developed!
Sunday, May 28, 2006
really almost done now
I just saw the title of my last post and had to laugh. I'm still working. I've really had it now. We should have been done two days ago. There has been a lot of sitting around, and I don't just mean me. These past two days it's like everyone is just sitting around. And I can't figure out what in the hell we're all waiting for. We were supposed to test the well two days ago, then it was Saturday morning. Nothing at all happened Saturday morning, at all. So then it was going to be yesterday afternoon and I was going to have to come back out to take some samples because the guy working opposite me hasn't done that in 20 years. I figured no big deal, I'll go to the house get a quick nap and when he calls I'll come back out. I woke up around 6pm and was wondering if I missed the call, I sleep pretty heavy and have gotten good at ignoring the telemarketers that call during the day while I'm sleeping. So after a few phone calls I find out that I hadn't missed the call and that they weren't going to test the well until 6am today (Sunday). Whatever, I figured I'd go to sleep and come out to work at midnight for my shift and sit around until the test. The test will only take an hour or so to run once they are ready. Well it's 6am and they haven't even started to get ready for it. They spent the night cleaning the rig instead. So help me, if they don't get to it this morning I'm going to lose it. I've heard stories of people going crazy after a long job like this and the last few days just keep dragging on and on for one more day and then one more day. I'm getting there right now. I've gotten to that point where I don't even care if I get paid for another day, really I just want to get the hell out of here. If they don't test on my shift, I'm going to have to come back out this afternoon for it. And then I want to rig our crap down and leave. What's even more annoying is that this is the only job our company has right now, so we have at least 3 other guys that could be here rather than me. But I guess when you're the one leaving the company, your priorities come last... make sure all the guys that will be around getting screwed all summer are at least happy going into it.
Just four more hours of work... spread out over the past 3 days.
Monday, May 22, 2006
almost done!
Just a few more days now. We should be finished the middle of this week. The well is finally producing some steam and people are getting worried that something will go wrong if we mess around too much. I'm thrilled, I can't wait to get out of here, I've been in Cobb for all together way too long right now.
I've been lifting weights a lot lately. Well, a lot more than not lifting weights... It gives me something to do. I've run out of pretty much anything else to do, and have found that I'm going to bed earlier and earlier each day (like around 1-1:30pm rather than 3-3:30pm) and as a result I'm getting up earlier before work each night. So about a month ago I started to lift weights before leaving for work each night. I've never been a fan for working out in the morning (and night is my morning right now...) because I'm tired and what-not. It hasn't been that hard though, the motivating part that is. It wakes me up too, which is nice. By the time I get to work I've been up for 2 hours and I've already worked out. I feel energized, which actually isn't a great thing because there's nothing to do with the energy once I get to work. But, I feel good. I'm just worried about keeping disciplined when I finish work and am on vacation! I have way more time to excersize but I find that I don't have any discipline for that sort of thing on vacation. Either way, I feel like I've finally gotten some use out the weights I bought and have been dragging around with me everywhere I go.
Wednesday, May 17, 2006
Details
I'm becoming increasingly frustrated at work with the lack of interest in any sort of detail about the rock formations we drill in. There are a few main broad sweepingly generalized rock types we find here. The big three seem to be Greywacke, Argillite and Greenstone. Now, these are really just types of rock and can easily be broken down further. For example, we officially log 3 types of greywacke, and this is still broadly over-simplified. Occasionally (not nearly as often as you'd think) I'm asked what we're drilling in. Usually it's either the driller or the company man asking. I'll start to tell them something like 80% greywacke and 20% argillite, and then I try to explain that there's this much type 1 and this much type 2 greywacke or if it's mostly argillite I'll start to describe it a little. The truth is, they don't care beyond greywacke and argillite. That's all they want to know. And I could understand the driller not really caring about any details, but the guy in charge? He should want to know at least a few details. I could show anyone how to tell between greywacke and argillite in less than a minute, you can tell from a glance how much of each of those you have. You should see how much detail we actually put on the logs, and no one cares. No one is even going to ever look at these samples we're saving for them ever again. Why even bother? You start to try to explain any of the details to anyone and their eyes gloss over. From what I understand, the project geologist (who only comes out like once a week) doesn't even know the difference between the three broad types of greywacke. I've only met him in passing, but it seems to me that if anyone knows the rocks here, that guy should. What if we had some completely incompetent geologist logging here? The project geologist would just take his word for everything! Scary thought, and even scarier is that no one cares. Oh well, I guess it just means less stress for me with no one really picking through the details.
Tuesday, May 16, 2006
Just when I thought things were good
I went for a drive today, thought I'd take some pictures because it was a really nice day. I almost got where I was heading when I shifted gears and the clutch pedal didn't come back up. I was lucky that there was a place right there to pull over on the windy road I was on. So I checked to see if I had lost enough fluid to be pulling air into the lines, and I hadn't. So I'm thinking, that's strange. I then tried pumping the clutch pedal by hand and saw hydraulic fluid running down the pedal inside the car, not something I wanted to see or expected to see. So I called my dad who said it's most likely the master cylinder for the clutch. So the good news is that I was only about 15 miles away from where I had my clutch work done last summer and I could drive there by starting in second and driving the whole way there in second. Lucky for me, I managed to get into 3rd so I wouldn't be holding up all sorts of traffic, but I got so excited to get into 3rd that I accidentally stepped all the way down on the clutch. I managed to take off my seatbelt and reach down and pull it back up without having to pull over or anything.
So, the car is in the shop and I have another crappy rental car (a Chevy Aveo or something... I don't even really know, I just know it's total crap) for the next few days. In other news, I was offered a sizeable raise to stay on with my current job rather than go to Taiwan. I of course turned it down as I've made a commitment to go, and I really don't want to be doing this job anymore. I'd already had the conversation with my boss about whether or not more money would make a difference in me staying longer or not and I told him then that no it really didn't make a difference. It just feels like salt in the wound to have my car break down an hour after turning down a raise. Oh well, things could be worse! I could have had to pay the $400 the mechanic's supplier quoted us for the master cylinder, he agreed to let me buy the part else-where (www.bavauto.com) for $55 instead.
Tuesday, May 09, 2006
Picture_4
Picture_4
Originally uploaded by jono1515.
There is a fan shaped tree on the top of this hill and I notice it every single time I drive from Cobb down to Middletown. Last spring I was driving this route everyday down to Santa Rosa, and I for some reason noticed it every day and still do whenever I drive by.
Picture_13
Picture_13
Originally uploaded by jono1515.
I wish this hawk had come out sharper, but I'm surprised it came out at all... I took this without a tripod with a 200mm lens with a shutter speed of like 1/125 of a second.
Monday, May 08, 2006
IMG_0013
IMG_0013
Originally uploaded by jono1515.
These two b&w pictures were taken with my digital camera, I had accidentally left the ISO at 400 so they both came out really noisy. They looked absolutely terrible, but I thought they might look a little better b&w, the noise would make them look like they were taken on grainy black and white film. I boosted the contrast and think they look ok now, not great, but good enough that I didn't delete them. And it also prompted me to buy some b&w film for my other camera. I'd put more of my film pictures up, but I send the film out to get developed and it gets sent back to my house in Tahoe developed with prints and I haven't been home in 3 weeks so I'll have a bunch (hopefully!) of film photos to put up when I get off this job!
Wednesday, May 03, 2006
The Big Here Quiz
Ok, So I'm at work and bored again, what else is new...
I found this today. Its a quiz to see how much you know about where you live. It has to do with watersheds and natural processes, so I figured with my background I should do alright. Out of 30 questions I got about 11 right, maybe 4 or 5 half right and had no clue on the rest. I should add that I did the quiz with where I am right now in mind, not my home in Tahoe... Although since I've only been there for a little over half a year I probably would only do marginally better. Anyway, it really made me think about how little I know about these places. Some of the questions I got right should be a given considering the work I'm doing here, but they still made me think. It gives you an awareness for the environment and how much we can take it for granted and how easy it can be to overlook it and the consequences our lives have on it.
By the way, the cool tools website is a great place to kill some time if you're ever bored... unfortunately, I've already read pretty much everything there. But it's very interesting, as is the rest of the Kevin Kelly website outside of the cool tools section. And the cool tools are pretty damn cool.
I also did something about the logistical side of my photography and realized that I'm spending a lot of money on film and processing. In fact, I have spent enough over the past half a year to have purchased a digital SLR camera. If I had a digital SLR I would no longer pay for film or processing, just to print the pictures I think are best. And as it stands right now I end up spending extra getting decent sized prints of my favorites so that's a cost I have now anyway. Of course this is a terrible time to be thinking of spending $600 on an entry level digital SLR because I'm trying to save as much money as I can before I quit my job and go to Taiwan. Also, I have about 10 rolls of film that I haven't used yet which should last me a few months... except that I'm going to be driving across the country and doing a lot of travelling which will inspire me to burn through film like crazy. So I'm torn. And I really like my film camera, I just don't like pouring money into film. Damn it!
Tuesday, May 02, 2006
Monday, May 01, 2006
Long nights
I am so not going to miss these long boring nights. It's 1am, I've been at work for an hour and a half right now. They finally started drilling yesterday morning so there is finally some work to be done. Or I thought there would be... we drilled like 50 feet on my shift yesterday. I got to look at 5 samples. That was the highlight of like the past week of work for me. So far tonight, I haven't done anything. They're drilling 6 feet an hour. I don't have anything to do, and I don't just mean as far as work is concerned. I really don't have anything to do right now. I have 3 books with me and I've read 2 of them, the last one is short but it's making me think too much. I've read all the news online and that's getting real old because every night it's the same depressing news. I haven't really been able to sleep much since I came back to work for this job. I'm working the night shift and haven't been able to get into the swing of sleeping during the day. I stopped trying to sleep late after the first day because it was just a waste of time, so now I get up and lift some weights because there isn't anything else to do. I've worked my way through a bunch of movies and I'm starting to ration them because it's looking like I'll be here for another two weeks. Right now two weeks seems like an eternity to me. I want to go home! I am not going to miss this job, one more month and I'll be done for good. I think one of the only reasons I lasted this long was because I wasn't here in Cobb the whole time. Mammoth was a nice place to spend the summer, and in the fall I was only here for a week tops and then got to go home. This winter I've been doing these short jobs in Cobb and it's been nice to go home in between, but if I had to go on any longer I'd go nuts. There just isn't anything to do here. There are some trails to hike on but there isn't any good scenery and honestly I just don't have time to go on long hikes. I get out of work and try to get to sleep around 2pm. That leaves me 2 hours to do anything, and I need to eat "dinner" in that time, so I try not to hike for more than an hour. You can't get far in an hour, I did 3 miles the other day but I felt like I was really hauling ass to get back to my car within an hour. And despite the nice weather it still isn't a very good hike, no rewarding view at the top or anything. Tomorrow I'm going to see if I can find a decent route over in the forest to run a 2 mile loop. I really don't like running on trails though. I miss the route I used to run up in Portland, it had a good mix of hills and flat ground. Maybe I'll move back to Portland when I get back from Taiwan. I really liked it there, I just didn't know anyone because I was hardly ever there for more than a few days. I wish it were closer to the ocean, that's about the only thing about Portland I wish were different.
Friday, April 28, 2006
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