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MJ with the very first JTS JS-1P Plus condenser microphone.

I can do a review of this mic, but that may better be done on my studio website rather than this old blog.

Below is the video that I narrated, along with my good pal, Ian:

We just got back from an exciting trip to Thailand, where we went to places we’ve ever been before, seen new sights, and dealt with the coronavirus and Chinese tourists that surrounded us the entire time (yes, we wore masks nearly every minute outdoors).

I think that this trip might just be the thing for me to revitalize the blog!  In the meantime, if you’re interested in seeing our live streams from Thailand (and all the other ones too), please visit TaiwanLiveTV.

Please note that this is an experimental posting using Google Photos, since the future of Flickr is uncertain.  What is certain is that if I want to keep all the content on this blog, I’m going to have to pay Smugmug for hosting the photos, and there are something like 13,000 photos on this blog.

I’ve decided that I’m going to delete much of the older content and keep more recent content, as this blog is really no longer relevant as a travel blog, that is unless you want to see what Asia looked like 15 years ago, lol.  Please let me know your thoughts in the comments below.

I really like how Smugmug made this big deal in their email about the community, with this little gem:

“Let’s be candid. The strength of Flickr has always been you.”

Yes, please, let’s be candid.  “It’s all about money.  And it’s always been about money and nothing else whatsoever.”  Yahoo gave us 1TB for free, and I hosted all of my photos on this blog, there.  I had a Pro account for years but eventually didn’t need it with the unlimited storage.  Now that’s all changed.  I have over 14,000 photos on Flickr, and the vast majority of them are embedded in this website.  So, if I don’t upgrade and pay a yearly subscription, only the most recent 1,000 photos will be hosted, and I cannot upload any more photos without deleting previous ones.  That doesn’t sound very community oriented to me.

Recently I’ve been trying to decide if I even want to keep this blog up and running, as with all my new projects, I have less and less time for text blogging.  I just built a small 32 track digital recording studio and I have a new album underway.  I’m also live streaming, but I’ve even cut that down a bit.  I had meant to do some more blog posts but I haven’t found the time.  There are some interesting things that have been happening that I really should share, but by now my readership of this blog is probably non-existent.

For the record, I’m leaning towards the Pro account.  It’s pretty cheap, but I don’t like being held hostage.  These new owners didn’t even wait an entire year before they reversed the “we’re not going to change anything” line they fed us at the beginning…..

If you haven’t heard the news, Flickr has been acquired by SmugMug, a photo site.  What this means for the thousands of photos on this blog that are hosted at Flickr, I have no idea.  They may suddenly become unavailable.  If that actually happens, it would virtually destroy this blog as it is based entirely on photographs we’ve taken over a decade or more.  If I find out anything relevant I will be sure to inform you.  Thanks for your support!

Continuing with our series on the East Coast of Taiwan – I must apologize for the interval between these posts, but I’ve had issues.  Nevertheless, here is the last segment, and then we will show you some more amazing places such as Bali!

Virtually every visitor to Taiwan’s East Coast has a photo like this!

A little further up the coast, and we come to this point – also famous.

Eventually, we made our way to the lovely coastal town of Suao.

But we didn’t stop yet.  We had a particular destination in mind.

Phoenix really liked this crayon factory!

Along the way, we saw Turtle Island – which really does look like a turtle in the water!

Finally, we arrived at the Evergreen Resort in Jiaosi.

This is a hot springs resort, which are my favorite type!  This is the hot springs tub in our room!

I’ll show you a few other things about our room.

In the evening we went out to a local night market, under a bridge.

This is a shot of the outdoor swimming pool at the resort.

It is literally 3 floors up!  At the far right we see the kiddie pool.  That was a lot of fun for Phoenix because they filled it up with floating toys.

A shot out of our room.  We stayed 2 nights and it was very reasonable.

Time to leave the resort and get back on the road!

On the way back home we stopped by Toucheng Old Street.

This map shows the layout.

This is the name of the street.

As these so-called “old streets” in Taiwan go, this one had some very interesting and genuinely old buildings to look at.  They are mostly occupied as businesses or residences.

I like this: it’s a list of the major buildings of note.  Makes a lot of sense, and I wish all the old streets in Taiwan would do this.

There was a stage in the middle of this little lake, and it was setup for a concert.  We didn’t stay to attend the concert though.

This is some kind of residence and to my eye it looks a bit Japanese style.

The same residence, shot through a hole in the fence.

This sculpture is pretty clever.

This is a cute little panorama showing the major buildings in the area.

There are a few abandoned places that I poked my head into.  This is like going back in time!

Looking down, I noticed these fish, embossed into the roadwork.  Nice!

We went 604km in total, on our East Taiwan trip!

Thanks for much for reading!  Be sure and leave us your comments below, and feel free to share this article.

It has been far too long since I last posted here.  In my defense, I got Type B influenza during the month of January, and the effects lasted well into February.  Basically, I’ve been out of sorts for about 2 months.  I did a 5-day course of Tamiflu and that helped me a great deal.

The title of this post should really be: “Quick USA Trip, Saved by iVideo!”

I made a quick trip to Royal Palm Beach to visit the Sear’s Institute for Anti Aging.  I had many state-of-the-art tests done to determine my overall health, and to determine my biological age.  More on that in a later post.

What this post is about, is what happened to me on my trip….

I took a flight from Taipei to Tokyo.  Then a flight from Tokyo to Dallas/Ft. Worth.  While eating dinner, my flight to Palm Beach International was cancelled!  The bad part is that it wasn’t automatically re-booked on their computer system.

I was far away from home.  I did not have a local SIM card for my mobile phone, and I had to call the airline to re-book, and also call the hotel, car rental and appointment to let them know my schedule had changed.  Spending that much time on the phone using a Taiwan SIM card would have cost a small fortune.  Fortunately, I had a Pocket Wi-Fi box, provided by iVideo.  Let me tell you – I would have been totally lost without that service!

When you rent the iVideo service, you get everything packaged in a convenient zipper case, like this.  Inside, you’ll find a charger with cable, the Wi-Fi box, and instructions.  It couldn’t be easier to use!

This is a mobile-phone shot of the Wi-Fi box itself.  One thing that I really appreciated is that the battery lasted for over 10 hours of use!  I was able to use my VoIP phone service on the internet connection provided by iVideo.  I was able to re-book my flight, call the appropriate people and let them know that I was going to arrive at a different time.

You need to know that my re-booked flight got cancelled too!  I spent another couple of hours on the phone re-booking the re-booked flight.  Finally, I arrived in Palm Beach International airport, a day late.

On my way back to Taiwan, I did a Live Stream on Youtube, from DWF airport:

In this video I talk about the iVideo service, and I show the contents of the zippered case, including the Wi-Fi box itself.

One of the viewers asked a very good question – what is the advantage of having a SIM card in a Wi-Fi box, over just having it installed in the phone.  On the above YouTube video, I replied to this question, and I’m going to reprint it here because it’s relevant:

Art thank you for asking such a good question. Depending on your circumstances, there may be no advantage at all.  But for me, when traveling, I always like to keep my home Sim card in my phone so anyone dialing my home number can still reach me in an emergency.  If your phone has dual Sim card slots then you can keep your home and roaming cards together in one phone. In my case, an SD card is taking up the second Sim card slot, so I need to do something else. The Wi-Fi box allows me to use Wi-Fi for Internet and still keep my home Sim card in my phone in case I need to get an emergency call from Taiwan. In addition to that, if I have others traveling with me, they can simply connect to the Wi-Fi also. This negates the necessity of each person getting their own roaming Sim card.   I cannot say this for certain, but others have suggested that using the Wi-Fi function on your mobile phone draws less battery power than using the mobile Internet function because the phone acts as the modem. When you use the Wi-Fi box, the box itself acts as the modem. My own experience tends to support that contention.  Another advantage of the Wi-Fi box is, you can place it near the window or a doorway where it can easily communicate with the mobile network, while propagating a Wi-Fi network that you can connect to deeper inside the building. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve done a livestream, where I left my Wi-Fi box at the front of the building where I knew I had good reception and then just walked around inside the building connected to Wi-Fi.

I want to thank iVideo for providing me their wonderful service on this trip – and it saved the day!  For those of you interested in renting a Pocket Wi-Fi box for the next trip to Taiwan, Japan, UK, other parts of Asia, or the USA, please use the code: THENHBUSHMAN for 10% off your first rental!  iVideo also offers international SIM cards with unlimited Internet.

Thanks for reading!  Please leave us your comments below!

Welcome to the second installment about our recent trip to East Taiwan.    There are a number of shots from the car, so please bear with us on this.

The skies were clear as we headed up to the area of Taroko Gorge.

Along the way there are some examples of aboriginal artwork.

This is the main gate to the Gorge.

A quick stop at the visitor center for a map, and we’re on our way.

This is typical topography of the gorge.

This road is pretty much constantly in repair dues to landslides.

A scenic overlook, were I did a live stream broadcast on Youtube (below)

In one area, there is a place where you can borrow a helmet for exploring where falling rocks are a hazard.

This place is called Swallow Grotto, because of all the cute birds that next here.

I tried to do another live stream from this place (below), but there was no network signal.  So I just did a short recording in 4k.

The gorge is a lot smaller than people think so you can see the entire thing in 3 to 4 hours with stops for photos.

Gotta have a 7-11!

This temple was under construction, so no one was able to walk through it this time.

These QR codes can help you plan your visit.

There are men on this wall, repelling with climbing ropes and gear.  Not sure what they are doing but it looks like they are brings up some kind of supplies in bags.

Finally, it was time to go to our next destination….

Thank you for reading!  Please leave us your comments below!

Recently we went on a trip to Taiwan’s beautiful East Coast, with our 2 good friends Daniel and MacKenzie.  Please join with us in this multi-part series!

This is typical of the East Coast.  Taiwan has that turquoise blue water that looks so good in photos!

We stopped at a roadside photo opportunity.

Phoenix and Hui-chen take a selfie with that beautiful water behind them.

This is typical of what you might see on Taiwan’s East Coast.

Every visitor has a photograph pretty much just like this one!

Our first stop was this cool homestay place that featured some fun additions to the rooms – like this kid’s slide.  Phoenix was ecstatic about this slide!  We had shown it to her on the homestay website and she talked about it the whole way there!  The good news is that it did not disappoint!

Here she is climbing the stairs that leads to the loft and the slide….

Across this rope-and-plank bridge….

…. and down the slide!

This time with Elsa.  That’s her little bed behind, which she loved!

Our friend Daniel took a turn on it.

And so did Mommy!

Later that evening we went to the local permanent Night Market.

This place is really huge!

For those of you who can read Chinese, this is sort-of a racial slur for Western foreigners.  But it’s totally acceptable in Taiwan.

These are the beers on tap (never mind the poster “behind” lol!).

Here are the dishes we got.  The green vegetables are a local mountain variety.

Grilled fish.

Phoenix tries shooting some baskets.

This is a live stream video that I did from the Night Market.  Watch this video to get a feel of what it’s like to take a walk around this huge place!

The local air force base had some Mirage jets doing exercises the next morning.

This is the outside of the house.  The owner has tinkered it together over 6 years.  It really stands out and it’s quite nice inside.

The last shot of this installment.  This article is geotagged with the location of this homestay.

HC, Phoenix and I just got back from a wonderful trip to Bali!  Look for articles about that trip soon!  Thanks for reading!

The first actual sundog that I’ve ever seen in Taiwan – so I just had to share this with you!  This article is geotagged with the location and you can view it on our Geotagged Articles Map.

We haven’t done a post like this in ages!  Before Phoenix came along, HC and I used to BBQ down at the old place, Xiao Hui’s, and also at home.  Recently I wanted to have a nice cookout at home and HC agreed.  Actually, we did it 2 consecutive Fridays, and this post is a composite of those 2 evenings.  Phoenix loved it!

Per usual, we begin the story with charcoal burning….

While at the store shopping for foods to grill, we saw these interesting flavorings.  They are “BBQ Powder” which I’ve never heard of.  I don’t know if this is what we call “dry rub” in the Western world, or if this a sprinkle-on powder like pepper.

Phoenix is all ready for a nice BBQ.  She’s holding the bunny that we got in Neiwan several years ago.

We grill corn right in the husk.

This is about 1/2 way done.  The husk should be basically all blackened.

Next up, beef!

Poor Phoenix!  This is not a setup photo.  She put her bunny down and fell asleep waiting on the food!

More shots of the beef.

HC marinaded pork in yogurt.  It wasn’t what I was expecting, but it was good.

Because you can’t have too many shots of meat grilling!

Next up – oyster mushrooms!

The following Friday, we had a rainbow!

Mushrooms and meat together.

These are white bamboo shoots.  They cooked up very nicely.

This last shot is all craft beers (except the very top shelf of course).  Craft brewing has really taken off in Taiwan and there are literally dozens of different kinds to choose from.  Most of them that I’ve tried are good, and many of them feature local flavors such as lychee and longan.

Thanks for reading!  We’ll be back soon with another article because we just returned from East Taiwan!

Phoenix went on her first field trip with her kindergarten class.  Naturally, Mommy and I tagged along for the photo op (but we are not helicopter parents!).

In Chinese “red tree” means “mangrove” and the field trip was to a mangrove swamp area that featured an elevated walkway with some shelters.  It is actually an interesting place to take a walk.

I like how the mangrove trees form kind of a tunnel.  Phoenix loves tunnels and she liked this place a lot.

It was low tide during our visit.

The teachers were pointing out various things to the children, who found the place fascinating.

Phoenix was wearing her cute straw hat.

This is what I wanted to show everyone.  I thought it was very cute how Phoenix was trying to be “cool” and coy by not actually looking at Mommy and Papa.  She stole lots of sideways glances and often had a smirk on her face, hehe.

Here she is, actually sneaking a glance just below the brim of her hat.

Trying to be cool….

Another shelter area.

The whole outing lasted about an hour, but the kids brought some cookies for a snack.

A teacher pointed out some small crabs.

This area of Xinfeng has quite a few wind turbine machines.

The ROC Air Force was doing some exercises that day, including some actual explosions of some kind.

Suddenly, it started raining (it had been cloudy all day so we suspected that it might rain).

Back on the bus and back to school!

Thanks for reading!

I just cannot believe how fast time is rushing by, and how long it was since our last post!  Many apologies.  We’ve been doing things, just not blogging on them.  So, this will be a composite post about everything that’s happened since our last post.  Here goes!

Our first photo is of Phoenix, of course.  She is 4-1/2 years old now and on a daily basis she reminds us just how cute and smart she really is.  This post will have several photos of her later on.

Next, we went to the home of our friend, Leo and did some Dutch oven cooking.  Below you can see the progress until the finished dish.

I went to my favorite bar and got a bottle of whisky from my favorite distiller – Glendronach.  This 16 year old platinum was astonishingly good!

The bar moved to a new location and remarkably has the same basic feel as the old place.

After the pub, I went to the Rueifong Night Market 瑞豐夜市 and did a live stream to YouTube.

I mounted my 360 degree camera on top of my gimbal, and recorded a 360 video of my visit to the night market.  If you haven’t seen 360 before, please check it out.  You can scroll around or tilt/pan your mobile device to look around inside the video.

I’ve actually been doing a lot of live streaming, mostly to my favorite platform, Brocast.  The Brocast web interface is not finished being upgraded at this time, but the app is frequently updated with bug fixes and new features implemented.

The next evening, the family took an open-top bus tour of Kaoshiung.  Initially I was kinda miffed at the woman who gave a running commentary during the entire time.  With all my years of experience in Taiwan, I should have known that would happen.  I did a multi-segment 360 video of this tour, starting here.  The HD format live stream is here.

Over Chinese New Year, Phoenix got to take her first ride on a horse, even.  However, I wasn’t even allowed to walk beside her and enjoy the moment.  You know, horses can be very dangerous and someone from New Hampshire couldn’t possibly know anything about that.

I have an app on my Samsung Galaxy S7edge, called ISS Detector.  I have the Pro version but even the free app detects the International Space Station, and Iridium flares.  This is a mobile-phone shot of an ISS flyby of Taiwan.  The short, bright streak is the ISS as seen by the naked eye.  Phoenix has seen the ISS many times as well as many flares from the Iridium satellites.  It’s been very educational for her.

Grandma gave Phoenix her old Samsung clam-shell mobile phone.  We removed (and recycled) the battery and now it’s one of her favorite toys.

Health-wise, a lot has been going on, and all of it is good.  I’ve lost a solid 6 KG of weight, and I’ve kept it off.  I’ve been fasting and losing weight as well as reversing diabetes.  I have successfully reversed the trend I was on, that is having what doctors call “pre diabetes.”  With a combination of exercise, diet (including fasting) and supplements, I’m in good shape.  I’m planning another series of 4-day fasts to lose another 5 KG. Now, dear reader, before you abandon this post to prepare to write me a comment about how losing weight by fasting is not a good practice, the weight will come back, etc. please read this.  I put my trike back on the road and I’ve been riding it.

My good friend, DaveInOsaka told me about this dish, “moo manau” and it is absolutely delicious!  I asked the local Thai lady if she could make it and this photo shows the results.

Riding with my good friend Ashish.

We took our good friends Daniel and MacKenzie to the Xiao Wulai waterfall area.

And, naturally, to Daxi on the way back home.

Big City mall, a favorite place for our family to visit.

We went to our friends wedding.  Please pardon these photos but I shot them in haste as Phoenix was dancing.  She discovered that if she spins, her dress billows out.

The last photo is of a large kite we purchased to use in Nanliao.  The kite’s long tail compensates for the tendency of strong winds to make the kite dive into the ground.  Nanliao is known for very high winds and the kite performed quite well considering.

Thank you for reading.  I have a few things in mind for some future posts, so please don’t give up on our blog just yet!  In the meantime, there are 12 years worth of accumulated experiences and travels.  Oh yes, we just won a new 2017 best blogs award!  Thanks everyone!

UPDATE: 2/2/2017:  Our sister site has a Youtube channel with some 360 content you might enjoy!  Please take a look.

Recently I bought an LG 360 camera to experiment with.  360 cameras take photos literally 360 degrees in a sphere around the environment with the camera in the center.  The LG is inexpensive but actually quite good and allows one to see if they’d like to get into 360 without spending a fortune.  The following are 2 videos from YouTube.  No matter how you view these videos, mobile app, web interface – even embedded in this blog, the videos are scrollable, so have a look around!

Flickr fully supports 360, so if you’d like to see the full effect, please click on the photos and view them on Flickr, where they are pannable:

I’m moving in the direction of a weekly show on a platform called Brocast.com, with the possibility of streaming my own show on my own website, TaiwanLiveTV.  I don’t think I want to embed the talk show broadcasts here, although some content like the GT-R in my neighborhood fit right in line with my usual content on this blog, so I will continue to embed relevant stuff from live streams here on the blog.

Things certainly have changed in the last year!  I remember when this blog won Best Taiwan Blog a few years in a row.  Recently, a Taiwan blogger made a list of prominent Taiwan blogs, asking if there were any blogs he might have missed.  This blog wasn’t on the list.  He doesn’t know about it.  I’m not going to let this blog die out entirely, and I do have some new interesting photography to show you in the near future.  In the meantime, I’m experimenting with infused rum and I’ll let you know how that’s going in a future post.  Thanks for reading!

In this episode, MJ takes us to the new Magic Touch sushi restaurant in Zhubei.  These automated delivery system restaurants are a Japanese import, and we love them in Taiwan!

Below the broadcast are some still photos you can check out for better detail.
For important information on viewing replays, please refer to this.

I’ve been drinking Kirkland Caribbean Spiced Rum from Costco here in Taiwan, ever since it became available.  I love it!  But, suddenly, without warning or explanation, it’s gone!  But, browsing the aisles of Costco reveals lots of other liquors, and it’s my contention that even fewer people drink these!

This is Bacardi Carta Blanca.  As the name implies, it’s a white rum.  It’s colorless.  It also happens to be flavorless, and it’s only use is to add alcohol content to some kind of drink that doesn’t depend upon adding flavor from this rum.  I hate this stuff.

When is the last time you saw a Taiwanese person drink tequila?  How about never!  But wait:

They have no less than three kinds of tequila!  Who is Taiwan is drinking this stuff?  No one I know, or ever heard of!  Try and find a Mexican restaurant nearby and then tell me how much sense this makes!

Look, here are 2 kinds of vodka!  Again, who????

They even got 2 kinds of gin!  But, out of the 2 types of rum they had, they discontinued the only one with any flavor!  Costco Taiwan, you did a bad thing by discontinuing the Caribbean Spiced Rum!

UPDATE: 8/16: HC called the boss of the company, and he saw the video.  He was very apologetic and told HC that he spoke to the driver about this incident.  The driver apologized to the boss and asked the boss to apologize to us.  So, I’m editing the text to replace the word “idiot” with “driver” since he apologized.

Yes folks, yet another local delivery driver cut me off on the road, and made me slam on my brakes in order to not hit him!  Do me a favor please, and leave them a nice message on their Facebook page after you view the video.  My wife and kid were with me and thank goodness I was aware enough to be able to avoid a crash.  Take note at the end, how the driver just hops out of the truck cab to deliver his package, as if nothing happened.  Enjoy!

Recently, a new business came to our neighborhood, and the owner drives a 2010 Nissan GT-R.  I asked him if I could show his car on a live internet broadcast, and he said yes.  It turns out that this is the same GT-R that I’ve been seeing around town as evidenced by these photos on Flickr.  Below is the Periscope broadcast.

TaiwanLive.TV

You can comment on replays of course, and we welcome your input.  Please bear with us for the time being as we are not only bringing in new content, we are tweaking the user experience.  Looking forward to seeing you over at Taiwan Live!

I love airshows!  Who doesn’t?  So when Hui-chen told me that there was going to be an airshow at the Xinzhu Airforce Base, we just had to go!  Here are the highlights of our experience.  You can find the entire collection of photos on Flickr.

We decided to park our car and take a shuttle bus to the base.  We arrived around 7:30 am, which we thought was early enough.  But by that time there was already a line going all around this park.

We stood in line quite some time before we could finally board a bus.  It seemed to us that there weren’t enough buses for the number of people.

On the final leg of the wait….

Once we got on board, Phoenix was a lot happier than she was just standing around….  Now onto the show!

From the dropoff point, there was rather a long walk for a kid, but we managed to get to the base and though the gate as you see here in the distance.  In the meantime, aircraft of all sorts were flying overhead, so we didn’t miss the entire show.

The base had lots of vintage aircraft on display.

I have to admit, that given my personal experience with the ROC Air Force, I was feeling a bit emotional.  But that feeling soon passed as I walked around, photographing all the cool planes.

I wish I could have been up there to take photos!

Now, onto what people really want to see!  Here is an F-16 going through it’s paces.

The sound was incredible, and Phoenix covered her ears several times!

As cool as the F-16 was, the Mirage stole the show!

The pilot, obviously very well trained and experienced, did some very cool maneuvers for the crowd, which often burst into applause.

My favorite shot of the day, the pilot did a very close flyby for us.  Thank you!

Here we see the Mirage pilot exiting the aircraft.

This guy is a rockstar.  In the USA, the crowd would never be allowed to come up to the plane like that and photograph the pilot so close.  One of the reasons I’m enjoying life in Taiwan.

Of course, I did have to deal with stuff like this while photographing….  Oh well.

Finally we had enough, and worked our way back to the bus stop.  But the show wasn’t over yet, as evidenced by this photo, taken while standing in line for the bus.  Overall, I very enjoyable experience.  I suggest that you take a look at the Flickr photo album and check out the rest of the photos.

Thanks for reading!  Please leave us your comments below, and be sure to share using the icons on the right!

Video by MJ Klein

Another video shot while testing the new Zhiyun Z1 Smooth C mobile phone stabilizer.  From the video description: I used a 140 degree wide angle lens on a Samsung Galaxy S4, and zoomed the focal length to narrow the field enough to eliminate the motor on the right side of the frame.  This is unprocessed raw video straight from the mobile device with no post processing from Youtube.

Looking forward to your comments below!  Thanks for viewing.

In this video, I’m using a 180 degree fisheye clip-on lens with the Galaxy S4 mounted on the Z1 Smooth stabilizer. I’ve zoomed out just enough to remove the motor from the right side of the frame. With the zoom at this level, there is a very interesting look to the video, with the center looking almost normal, and the fisheye effect becoming more pronounced towards the edges.

There is no post-processing except color and contrast adjustments in Lightroom.

Please let me know what you think of this experimental video!  Thanks for watching!

Photos by MJ Klein

It’s been a long time since I rode my recumbent trike.  This ride article is also going to feature an update on my health, just to be complete.

This is what she looks like today.

My Health

The topic of my health has been an ongoing debate in some ways, whether I’m in good health, or something is seriously wrong with me.  Let me explain….  I regularly exercise, either on my stationary semi-recumbent bike, or lifting weights.  Normally, I do one or the other, or both, 2 times a week.  Normally I have no difficulty with either exercise.  In the past, my heart rate was excessively fast and I took a beta blocker for about 6 years.  I’m happy to say that with the exception of 2 or 3 times, I’ve been off the beta blocker since January 20th of this year.  My heart used to race whenever I ate, and often this made me reluctant to eat some meals because I just didn’t want to deal with that issue.  Nowadays, I am able to eat with a normal reaction.

The other problem that I have is dropped heart beats.  Anyone who has experienced these can tell you how uncomfortable this is!  When I’m resting and my heart rate slows down, I tend to get dropped beats.  This is caused by a premature triggering of the heart beat, which is out of sync, so the heart just doesn’t beat that time.  I’ve been suffering from situations where it does this every-other-beat for 10 or 15 seconds at a time!  Sometimes, it’s so bad that I get light-headed and I have to sit or lay down so I don’t fall down.  Fortunately there is medication that helps with this problem.  Finding the right combination of medications is an unpleasant experience, as I recently changed medications to find one that works better.  That particular one was not effective and I spent an entire weekend with dropped beats every few minutes.

One doctor suggested that I check into the hospital for tests.  I did that towards the end of August.  Repeated tests found nothing wrong with my heart – in fact the doctor could find nothing wrong with me at all.  The tests included a check for tumors of the adrenal glands, which can cause similar problems to what I’ve been experiencing.  My heart is good and strong.  My EKG records show no damage or degeneration and are perfectly normal except during dropped beats.  My cardiologist told me to “ignore the dropped beats” as they cause no damage and mean nothing bad.  But I can assure you, that is much easier said than done!

I am taking a new combination of medications that seem to be working very well.  I’ve also increased my exercise level and that helps too.  My heart does not drop beats when it’s under load, so exercise keeps them down during and for some time after the exertion.   One of the things I had in mind was to get my trike back in good running order (after sitting for several years without being ridden), and today was my first real shakedown ride.

My Trike

I had a few problems mainly due to neglect.  My front derailleur was stuck and wouldn’t shift.  Some lubrication on the derailleur itself and the cable freed it up and now it shifts perfectly.  I had to do some mounting of new components to update the trike, and now it seems in good working order.  Let’s take a look at some photos and I’ll explain them in detail below:

Notice the pink canister on the left steering handle.  That’s pepper spray for aggressive dogs.  I’m currently sourcing a more forceful spray.  Also notice the alloy rear wheel and Topeak rack and bag on the rear.

I’ve upgraded to Baoch front lighting.  This light is extremely bright.

I’m riding with the lights on at all times to increase visibility.  The Baoch light is so bright that you can’t look directly at it.

This is the cockpit view of my current setup.  Let’s check out the details:

The Artifice trike comes with accessories holder bars on both sides – very convenient.  This is the left side and we have a mirror, removable fender, GPS, water bottle cage and air pump all mounted on this left bar.  As you can see, I’ve drilled some holes in the bar for some past things I’ve mounted but have now removed.

Center, is the Baoch light, with the cable leading down to the battery pack strapped to the boom (more on that later), and mobile phone holder (more on that too).

Right side, we see the outside mirror, a clip to hold a small bag for things like keys and change (current whereabouts unknown), removable fender, the Airzound air horn, water bottle cage with a bottle of water, and the air horn airtank in front.

The Artifice trike came with this cool bracket that mounts on the boom tower and holds the light.

This is the Topeak mobile phone mount.  Notice the Baoch battery back strapped to the boom just above the mobile phone mount.  The mobile phone fits into a case that very securely attaches to the mount with a slide rack.

This is the mobile phone mount with the phone removed so you can see the detail.  The phone case slides right on with a solid “snap.”

Topeak rack and pannier bag (which can hold my camera securely).

Finally, the rear of the trike, showing the Cateye rear light.

Below is the map of where I rode today.  It was a quick 6km circuit where I got to push the speed and do some turns.  The trike is ready for longer distance rides!

Thanks for reading.  Be sure to leave us your comments below!

Photos by MJ Klein

I’ve been going up on the roof of our home during the “golden hour” and shooting the incredible sky we have here.

I like how the clouds closest to the sun cast shadows on those behind.

This shot in particular looks golden from the sun.

More shadow.

I’ll leave you with this vertical panorama of an interesting cloud formation.  I highly recommend shooting in the golden hour.

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There really hasn’t been much going on with us lately.  That’s why there hasn’t been an update for several weeks.  Nevertheless, I have to put something on the blog, so I’ll do a composite post about what we’ve been doing, even though it’s not really very interesting.  Hopefully the photos will be interesting.  The following photos are representative of what’s on our photostream on Flickr.  To see the other photos in the photostream, just click on this link.

Btw, we do have a typhoon bearing down on us.  We should start to feel the effects by Friday night.

This turned out to be one of my favorite photos of Phoenix, playing with her bubble gun.

Our friends Van and Shonda performing at a local coffee shop.  Phoenix loves music and she was dancing.

I took a few HDR photos at the Qingshuei rest stop on Taiwan’s Highway #3.

Phoenix has been building “houses” out of Lego Duplo blocks.  She’s only 2 years and 8 months old (at the time of this photo) but her designs are quite complex.  Notice the toy Nissan GT-R on the table.  The GT-R is her favorite car (that’s my girl!).

Phoenix posing with her house she built for Mommy & Papa.

Waiting for our food at the Taichung THSR station.

Another day, another park, playing with a bubble gun (she has 2 of them).

On Saturday nights, the Hakka Cultural Center in Zhubei has movies they show outdoors.  Prior to the movie, they have entertainers performing.

Tonight’s movie is “Cinderella.”

I took Phoenix for a walk through the Hukou Day Market, downtown.

On the inside of the marketplace, I took a few more HDR photos.

This last HDR photo was taken in downtown Hukou.  This store is so dark inside that I didn’t notice the people in the office until I processed this photo into an HDR composite!

Thanks for reading.  We hope you’ll take time to visit our Flickr Photostream and view the rest of the photos surrounding these.

“HDR” means “high dynamic range.”  If we were talking about audio, it would mean that there is a wide range between the softest and loudest sounds.  In photography, it means there is a wide range between light and dark.

Let’s start with this photo.  This looks like an ordinary photo taken inside a car of the Taiwan High Speed Rail.  It looks perfectly exposed with rich colors and nothing too dark or too light.  But notice the window at the far right.  There is detail visible out the window, which would normally be entirely washed out.  This is an example of a HDR photo, where the details are preserved in the highlights plus the shadows.

I took this shot in my neighborhood.  You can see details of the buildings outside in broad daylight, and yet you can still see details inside on the signs under the roof.

This HDR photo is interesting because it was shot almost directly into the sun, and yet you can see deep details of the buildings along the sides. Notice too, that the sky is not washed out.  This is only possible with an HDR photo.

In this photo, the sun is very bright on the left side of the frame, and yet there is detail in deep shadow in the middle of the buildings.  I could have made it even brighter in the shadow areas if I wanted to, because there is enough range in the HDR photo to play around with.  Again, there is nice sky detail, and I did not use a graduated filter on any of these photos.

There are a few more HDR photos in my newly-created HDR photo album on Flickr.

How do you make an HDR photo?  That’s a good question.  Some cameras have an HDR function so that all you have to do is shoot the photo.  I have 2 Nikon cameras that do not have an HDR function.  I made these HRD photos out of 3 individual shots per photo and merged them with software.  For these photos in this article, I used my Nikon D7000 and “bracketed” the photos – that is, I shot a normally-exposed photo, and under-exposed photo, and an over-exposed photo, and merged them into a single image with software..  Normally I shoot my D7000 with the exposure compensation set for -0.3 because I feel that Nikon cameras over-expose shots and lose detail.  I have my bracketing function set to 2 f-stops above and below normal.  So when I turn bracketing on, and shoot three photos, the normal shot is exposed at -0.3 and then the under and over-exposed shots are -2 and +2 stops from the starting point of -.03.  I hope you follow what I mean!  To combine and process these photos, I used Lightroom 6 (standalone version).  I should do a separate article on Lr 6 because I’m very disappointed with this version but that’s another story.

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This is Kaohsiung at night, from our hotel window.  This article features photos taken over 2 days.  Let’s go for a walk around….

The hallway in our hotel as we walk to the elevator from our room.

This ridiculously high ISO photograph of our hotel shows just how dirty my sensor is (I should say “was.”).  I bought a cleaning kit and got rid of all but one very stubborn piece of gunk on the low-pass filter.  But, back to the story….

When I first got the D7000 I was excited by the prospect of very high ISO night time shots.  That is until I found out how really high ISO photos are virtually useless.  The magenta really comes out in the shadows and the noise is really high.  Yes I realize I can reduce the noise in Lightroom, and believe it or not, this is reduced.  But too much noise reduction makes the photos look soft.  So, I’ve decided that since I have an optically stabilized lens, the highest ISO I want to use is 6400.

This is a pedestrian crossing tunnel under a street.

A Catholic church near the Love River (which is actually a canal).

We decided to eat at a place beside the Love River.  Hui-chen is deep in thought while Phoenix thinks about food.

I was pleased to discover that this place has Beer Lao.

First up, stir fried cabbage, as only Taiwanese chefs can do.

Taiwan clams, with garlic – one of my favorites!

“3 cup” chicken  三杯雞.

Now this is my favorite – deep fried oysters.

Grilled mackerel.

Beef fried rice.

This is the place where we ate, which is famous for lots of NT$100 dishes.

The Love River.  There is always something going on here.

On this evening there was some kind of light show, with fire too.

This being the time of the Lantern Festival, there were lots of things lit up.

Phoenix posing with whatever this thing is….

The far side of the river (canal, actually).

Yamaha had a mock-up of a giant scooter.

The view from the bridge.

On the other side, we bought Phoenix this little LED lantern.  You can see how happy it made her.  This is one of my favorite shots of her because of her expression.

2 shots of The Ambassador Hotel, where we had our wedding reception.

The iconic dragon thing beside the river.

Back at our hotel, Hello Kitty was on display and Phoenix wanted a photo with her and Mommy together.

Kaohsiung is a dynamic city at night.

Phoenix loves these little rides.

Hmmmm, what are we having for dinner?

Seaweed and tofu,

duck meat and wonton soup,

noodles and duck meat soup.

Overview shot – everything was really good!

One of the coolest buildings all lit up with LEDs.

This house is decorated with graffiti.

Another shot of our hotel.

A taxi with a rear spoiler.

Hui-chen and Phoenix enjoy some “dohua” with red beans.

This is the restaurant’s logo.  Look familiar?

Our last shot as we walk back to our hotel.  I really like walking around Kaohsiung at night!

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