Whereami

Finally, pictures!

Sorry, only a few for now. But if you sign up for Flickr, there could be more for you in the future. If you want a Flickr invite, send me an email and I'll send one out to you. (if you sign up you can add your comments to my pictures - for example: Hey Adam, how come you're all alone in most of your pictures? Or if you're Dave - Hey Bitch, how come there's no pictures of you eating sushi off of naked Asians?) To not sell out too hard - it is a really nice site (and business). However, it is still in beta. Hence I can't buy more capacity. Instead, due to a smart business move on their part, I have to get 5 friends to sign up first - and if I do, I'm rewarded with a 1 Gig account. Which would be perfect for me since that's about all the capacity I'll need for the whole trip. If you want me to send you an invite, just drop a note in the comments section. Thanks to those who've helped. And to those who haven't...(cough - Rummel)...well, you won't be getting any postcards. (which actually is the exact same treatment that I'm giving everyone - so it's not much of a punishment)

30 minutes for six freakin photos!

And I only added 12 :) Here they are. update: found a slightly faster connection - got about 20 new photos added today (up to around 70 in total) update #2: Added comments (and a link to some writing from Ben) here,

Flick-ing around

That time of the month again...for more photos!

For those who haven't really messed around with Flickr...not only can you add a title/description/comment to each picture but there's also something called a 'tag'. Get used to tags. They're gonna be everywhere soon (actually, they kind of already are).

Although they're similar to titles/descriptions/comments, tags are more often used like a keyword or category label. Tags help you find photos which have something in common. For example, here are some of my most popular tags:

Thailand
Water
(and you can compare for yourself which you like better - Bali or Cambodia)

Or see my complete list of tags.

How are other people using tags? Check out Flickr's 150 most popular (some of the biggies: cameraphone, japan, and even bali).

If you're interested in learning more about metadata (and who isn't?!), here's a good article about the +'s and -'s of open classification systems.

Thus concludes your lesson in tags. Enjoy.

Ctrl-Z is not an option

What have I done??!?!

Before
After

Chris, you might need to update the Bobbleheads :) Here's a less shocked (although kinda depressed looking) version.

Also, added 4 more pictures to Flickr.

update: I'll be damned...even though I promised not too, I've been caught in ricky's footsteps again.

They said it couldn't be done

But lo, I was able to fit a 3rd column (with pictures) on the blog. So now every time you visit the site, you'll see 15 images selected at random from my Flickr collection. Which means that if you visit the sight about 10 times you'll see all the pictures I have so far (whether you like it or not).

If you don't like them in random order, you can still see them chronologically posted at their usual location (which you can get to by clicking on the tiny "Sights Seen" link at the top). The latest batch are mostly of the Taj, but there are a few from Cambodia thrown in at the end.

Some favorites in extra large size (around 2MB in size so they'll take a few minutes to download):
The Taj up close
Reflection of the Taj
Close up of the walls
Alley in Delhi

What are you looking at??

That's what I imagine the camel on the left is asking during this picture. (click on it for a full-size version)

So far in India I'm two for two on arriving completely unplanned at the biggest festivals of the year. First Diwali in Delhi, and now the Camel Festival in Pushkar.

The festival has been one part market (how much does it cost to ship a camel to the US??), one part carnival (with, get this, more f-ing loud fireworks), and one thousand parts camel. They're everywhere and they're awesome. I wish I had a recording of the sounds they make, the way they chew their food, etc...I chose not to get a ride on one basically because if I couldn't race it, then I wanted no part of the uncomfortable looking hump. Elephants have a lot more natural padding. And even then, it wasn't an easy ride.

Other than that, here's about 20 more pictures of India (including some pretty cool night photos).

Attack of the hyperlinks

Been a lot less writing and a lot more photos lately...is that good or bad? See the whole collection here (recently broke the 200 photo mark!) or just browse through the latest highlights:

Just Feel Me! (more)
Trekking is Trekking (more)
Big rock, little Adam (thanks Ine)
Basketball overseas (more)
The locals (more)
Colorful buildings (more)
Big mountains (more)
New favorites

Random note: as all you tech-savy readers may have noticed, I recently started using Flickr's multi-tag browsing and it's been a pretty helpful feature for generating the 'more' links listed above.

Two fiddy

That's (bout) how many photos I now have on-line...New additions include some pics from my recent side-trip to Alexandria (aka Alex). They've got a pretty sweet library in Alex...it's amazing on the outside and even cooler on the inside...I can prove it if you look here.

Also, please look for the new link that was added to the top right of this page (in place of the welcome message). You'll find a quick and easy way to make a donation to the American Red Cross with the credit card you already have on file at Amazon.com

Piece of cake

Taking good photos in Istanbul is pretty darn easy. Whether it's walking the street at night, checking out the mosaics inside Aya Sophia, or shopping in the Grand Bazaar there's always something interesting to see.

And those aren't even my favorites.

As usual, all the rest here.