A storm's abrewin'!

Guess what the kids have tomorrow? A "typhoon day". And to think, they were sad because they wouldn't be getting any snow days for a while.

It's your birthday! Go MKR! It's your birthday!

Look what mom gave me for my birthday! (well, it's either indulge a little now or go crazy later!) And, besides, it's the last year of single digits!

MKR and our friend Jessica. (she gave her the bear)

The first song CMR is learning? Smoke on the Water...how's that for classic rock?

This is MKR's way of getting around the mall! And she gave me a lift too. It plays music and there are different animals to choose from.(We're partial to the panda)

Feeling Bohemian

"Who are all these strange ghosts rooted to the silly little adventure of earth with me?"-

Jack Kerouac

I took this from the car on a hazy day, but until I can get one at night when it looks really spectacular, it's still worth posting. This is the world's tallest building (at present) Taipei 101-101 floors. It has the world's fastest elevator which will take you from the 5th floor to the 89th in 37.5 seconds! Your ears actually pop as you ride up. I can only imagine what it must be like at the top. It has a 365 degree view of Taipei. It's supposed to look like a bamboo plant with each new growth sprouting from the old. I think it looks a bit like Chinese take-out boxes stacked on top of one another, but that aside, it's something to see. The observation floor is taller than the Empire State Building! Now everyone say..Wow! Okay, lesson over.

On a clear day, you can see forever...

Taking the audio tour while her brother looks out into the world!

To a great degree, this is so true. Thanks for the quote MEM

To be a tourist is to escape accountability. Errors and failings don't cling to you the way they do back home. You're able to drift across continents and languages, suspending the operation of sound thought. Tourism is the march of stupidity. You're expected to be stupid. The entire mechanism of the host country is geared to travelers acting stupidly. You walk around dazed, squinting into fold-out maps. You don't know how to talk to people, how to get anywhere, what the money means, what time it is, what to eat or how to eat it. Being stupid is the pattern, the level and the norm. You can exist on this level for weeks and months without reprimand or dire consequence. Together with thousands, you are granted immunities and broad freedoms. You are an army of fools, wearing bright polyesters, riding camels, taking pictures of each other, haggard, dysenteric, thirsty. There is nothing to think about but the next shapeless event.

Don Delillo

Originally uploaded by B!.

Life is short, don't waste time worrying about what people think of you. Hold on to the ones that care, in the end they will be the only ones there.

I see it in my head....

A Wanderer's Song

A wind's in the heart of me, a fire's in my heels,
I am tired of brick and stone and rumbling wagon-wheels;
I hunger for the sea's edge, the limit of the land,
Where the wild old Atlantic is shouting on the sand.

Oh I'll be going, leaving the noises of the street,
To where a lifting foresail-foot is yanking at the sheet;
To a windy, tossing anchorage where yawls and ketches ride,
Oh I'll be going, going, until meet the tide.

And first I'll heat the sea-wind, the mewing of the gulls,
The clucking, sucking of the sea about the rusty hulls,
The songs and the capstan at the hooker warping out,
And then the heart of me'll know I'm there or thereabout.

Oh I am sick of brick and stone, the heart of me is sick,
For windy green, unquiet sea, the realm of Moby Dick;
And I'll be going,going, from the roaring wheels,
For a wind's in the heart of me, a fire's in my heels.

John Masefield

To My Friend in Peru

Originally uploaded by B!.

You are not the child of the people you call mother and father, but their fellow-adventurer on a bright journey to understand the things that are.

Originally uploaded by B!.

Love me when I least deserve it, because that's when I really need it.

School started Thursday!

Originally uploaded by B!.

Waiting for the bus

Originally uploaded by B!.

Check out this bus!

Originally uploaded by B!.

They get to ride up top! Cool!

Must be the Locale

Originally uploaded by B!.

Flow with whatever is happening and let your mind be free. Stay centered by accepting whatever you are doing. This is the ultimate.
Chuang Tzu

My Spidey Senses Are Tingling...

You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you'll discover will be wonderful. What you'll discover is yourself.

Originally uploaded by B!.

After Parting
Oh I have sown my love so wide
That he will find it everywhere;
It will awake him in the night,
It will enfold him in the air.

I set my shadow in his sight
And I have winged it with desire,
That it may be a cloud by day
And in the night a shaft of fire.

Originally uploaded by B!.

Kindness is more than deeds. It is an attitude, an expression, a look, a touch. It is anything that lifts another person.

Feeding fish and turtles at our apartment.

Hanging out by the pond (timer pic, we're a little stunned)

Originally uploaded by B!.

Nothing is worth more than this day.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Good luck in Canada Jackie & Chris, eh!