This week we have a couple of near-misses shot with our dashcam. This clip consists of 2 sections I’ll explain the sections below:
In section one, you see us driving along and then encountering a truck doing something on the side of the road. The driver is stopping and apparently pulling over. I signalled and changed lanes to the left to avoid the obstacle. A car coming up behind me very fast (speeding) apparently did not like my changing lanes in front of him, and he showed his disapproval by honking his horn. Then, a little further down the road, he decided to “teach me a lesson” by passing me very close and driving recklessly. The clip continues and shows him trying to wreck his car further down the road by speeding and quickly jerking the wheel while changing lanes. I did learn a lesson: “You’re a moron.”
I thought it was time to show our readers the new car. But, the weather has been awful (hard to take photos in the rain) and our entire family has been sick with the flu for almost 2 weeks. So I’ve decided to do a short series on the new car to give me time to do more photography.
The new car is a Volkswagen Caddy Maxi. I’ve heard that this model is not available in the USA. I’m hoping our readers will let us know. The models are a bit confusing, but ours is a 7 seat 1.6 liter turbo diesel, with a 7 speed automatic transmission. For now I’m going to show you what it looks like in this installment, and later I’ll get into the technical details.
As some of you may might remember, Hui-chen and I bought a new car recently. We’ll be doing a story on that soon enough but one thing the new car came with is a dashcam. While driving, it silently records everything that happens in front of us. As sort of an experiment I thought I would highlight one of the idiotic things that happen to me while daily driving. If the response is good, this will become a regular feature as there certainly is enough material for a completely new blog on this topic alone! So, it is with great pleasure that we bring you this first dashcam video:
The red car cruises into the left lane just prior to reaching the intersection (0:08), where it proceeds to take a right turn and encroach right into my lane forcing me to slow and wait (0:14) (and honk my horn). At that intersection, there are double right-turn lanes and most of the drivers do not do what this guy did. The wide-angle lens takes away some of the drama but nevertheless I was not able to continue in my own lane without hitting this driver.
Be sure and let us know what you think of this new feature in the comments section.
Hello everyone! We’re back from the Lunar New Year in Kaohsiung. We apologize for being away for so long. What began as a simple 6 day visit ended up being more than 3 weeks long! In addition to the visit with the family, Hui-chen and I decided to go car shopping (never actually intending to buy anything, but just looking). After that I got sick for 5 days with an awful stomach flu. After I recovered from that, we decided to buy the car we had been looking at, and that process took several days! So, we’re back now and soon I’ll have an article about the new car, but now without any further delay are some photos from the Lunar New Year (but not necessarily about the Lunar New Year).
Let’s start this one off with one of my favorite photos of Phoenix:
As you can see, Phoenix can now lay on her stomach and hold her head up quite well. She was perfectly happy to lay on the bed and pose for photos!
This installment of TWIF is a combination of camera-rendered jpegs, and Lightroom manipulated Nikon raw files, as I am experimenting with shooting raw. It’s somewhat overkill for doing web work like our blog, but I’m having fun getting into the development aspect as I started out when I was 17 shooting Kodak tri-ex B&W film and making prints in my own darkroom. At any rate, enough of that and onto the photos!
Our regular readers will probably recognize this shot from downtown Hukou, where I went one day for lunch (before departing for Kaohsiung for the birth of our baby).
Hui-chen and I were traveling about a few weeks ago, and went to the Qingshei rest stop. This rest stop features an aquarium with some interesting fish and a few stingrays. One of these stingrays decided to put on a show for us. Here it is!
By now, everyone knows that we have a new camera – the Nikon D7000. What most people do not know is that I just returned from a week long business trip to Thailand. It was dark when we flew into Taiwan, but I was able to get some photos out the window. So, here they are, thanks to the engineers at Nikon and their wonderful creation, the D7000:
This was my first view of Kaohsiung as we approached Taiwan from the South-East.
This week was fun because I’ve been testing out the new camera. I don’t quite have things tweaked just the way I want them, but I’m getting close. Let’s take a look at some food we had this week, Nikon D7000 style!
We bought a new camera recently – the Nikon D7000. Our Nikon D80 is showing it’s age and it was time for an upgrade after 6 years. We tend to keep and use our equipment for a long time, so when we upgrade it makes sense for us to buy premium products that will last.
Send to Kindle
Kaminoge (3)
Carolyn (2)
Stefan (2)
John (1)
Paul (1)
Yu-Fen (1)
