Phoenix Tries Ice Cream
Video by MJ Klein
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Dashcam Video
Hui-chen suggested that I post this video. We were at Costco on Sunday and it was jammed full of people. Parking spaces were scarce, so naturally when I saw someone leaving, I stopped my car and put on my turn signal to indicate that I wanted the space. That is an internationally recognized practice. So, what do you do if a car comes along and the driver refuses to acknowledge your presence and tries to park in the space you want? This is exactly what happened. Let me give you a rundown of the video:
As the video starts, I’m driving in the parking lot. As I slow to a stop, you can see a man on the left side of the screen (near the support column) getting into his van. I instantly recognized this as a parking opportunity, so I stop and put on my left turn signal. At 17:07:55 you see his lights blink as he turns off his car alarm. By this point I’m waiting with my left turn signal on.At 17:08:16 another car passes me on the left, and goes on to park up ahead. At 17:08:30 another car passes me on the left, sees the van about to leave and pulls up ahead to wait for it. At around 17:08:40 he’s still stopped, so I honk my horn to indicate my presence and therefore my desire for that parking space, me having been there before he came along. So, how does he respond? By pulling further ahead and discharging his wife to walk over and “hold” the space for him. The van backs out and I pull in. The wife, standing there, looks at me incredulously. I roll down the window and she sees my face, and says “sorry” in English. Believe it or not, her husband ran over in a rage and started berating me for parking there when his wife was holding the space for him! Then the husband went off on a tirade, telling me that I had been waiting for another space and I was on the left side of the aisle (he denied passing me on the left to get to where he was). This guy and his wife were apparently totally obvilious to the fact that they passed me with my turn signal on! They even threatened to post their dashcam video on Facebook and Youtube. I’ve already posted my to Youtube and now the blog, so I hope to see their video soon, which will only show the fact that they are wrong!
But, You Be The Judge
Here is the video:
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The Giant Little Yellow Rubber Duck
Photos by MJ Klein
The Giant Little Yellow Rubber Duck has invaded Taiwan – and your favorite blogger was there to get photos!
Naturally we had to take Phoenix to see the duck. But don’t get me wrong – we didn’t make a special trip just to see the duck – we were in Kaohsiung visiting the family and it just so happens that the duck was just down the street. But why call it “The Giant Little Yellow Rubber Duck” you might ask? Well, that is a cross-cultural name I came up with.
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Thailand 2012, The Last Day
Photos by MJ Klein
Suddenly, I realized that I’ve taken so long to publish these installments, that it’s been over a year since the events happened! I owe you, Dear Reader, one more installment in this series, so here it is, finally!
I had the morning to myself so after relaxing in my room, I went out in search of some food. Across the street, I spied this meat grilling….
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Our Visit to Green World, Taiwan
Geotagged photos by MJ Klein
Recently we joined reader Stefan and his lovely wife and daughter for a visit to Taiwan’s Green World.
It was a perfect day for walking around: occasionally overcast with the sun not too strong.
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Hit By A Bus
Photos and video by MJ Klein
This morning, my wife and I were on the way to the highway exit when we stopped to get a few things at the local 7-11. I was driving, and I parked (our new) car on the side of the road in a legal space and turned on the flashers. My wife went to the store and I stayed in the car with Phoenix. After my wife returned, Phoenix wanted a bottle so Hui-chen began preparing the bottle when a bus struck our left mirror, virtually shearing it off.
This is the bus, after I honked my horn to induce him to pull over. The driver turned out to be unpleasurable to deal with.
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Attempted Robbery
Photos by MJ Klein
UPDATE: Please see the end of this article.
Our home has a 4th floor balcony, and we’ve written about stuff we’ve done up there before. The doorway onto the balcony is a set of sliding glass doors, and a single screen door. We keep the screen door closed so we can simply slide open the right-hand glass door to get some air circulation. So, naturally, when Hui-chen was up on the 4th floor and noticed the screen door was on the left side, she asked me about it. I told her that I hadn’t opened those doors in at least a week, and she told me that the screen door was not where it should be. It was at that point that I went and took a look.
There was an unknown set of footprints on our balcony! Obviously, someone had come down the stairs from our roof and had tried our sliding glass doors to see if they were unlocked! I got my Nikon D7000 and immediately started to document everything.
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Phoenix and Daddy Talking
Video my MJ Klein
Phoenix is very vocal these days, but she isn’t saying so many intelligible words just yet. Nevertheless, that doesn’t stop her from “communicating” with us, her parents! Click on the video below and hear Phoenix and I talking to each other.
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Family Resemblance
Image by MJ Klein
This image has been making the rounds on LINE and Facebook. I didn’t want our readers to miss it, so here it is for you:
That’s Daddy in the upper left, and Mommy in the upper right. The result of this mixture of DNA is shown below: Phoenix. I made this image using old photos and Lightroom. We hope you like it!
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Some Silly Phoenix Photos
Photos by MJ Klein
Baby Phoenix is now 9 months old. She prefers standing up to crawling, and she has said her first actual word: “bye-bye” while waving goodbye to me. In the meantime, Phoenix has continued to be a source of cute and funny photographs. I’d like to show some of them to you, just for fun. Some of my favorites were taken when she sat on my lap in front of the computer and I took a few snaps with some funny overlays. Here are the photos:
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