My Protanopic Life

Today I had a social meeting with a co-worker who lost his brother to cancer a few years ago. We talked about how you never really get over it, and getting over it is not something you want to do. You learn to live your life with this new hole …

Farewell Yahoo Messenger. I never liked Yahoo Messenger much, but it is where I met my wife Tien, so it's...

You don't have to research HDR much to find the common questions about how best to process a single image into an HDR. Some people suggest taking the photo and running it straight through Photomatix, letting it do all the legwork. Others suggest taking the image into...

If you want to see how many photos your camera has taken, take a photo and upload it to Flickr, then look at the EXIF data. The "Image Number" field is the number of shutter actuations of the camera body that took the photo. This is a useful piece of …

Since I haven't been traveling, it's been a long time since I've actually written on my blog. Right now I'm sitting on my front steps in Chinatown, SF, sipping on cognac and waiting for my wife to come home with the key to our front door.

I've been working back …

WarzauWynn posted a photo:

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A lot of the days in Binh Hoa blur together with very little highlights. Most of the time is spent playing Wii, PvZ and Marble Mixer, going out for coffee and tea, and laying around in the heat drinking fresh fruit juice. This is how most of the time was …

Because our flight had been changed and was no leaving that night, we had another day to kill, so we took no care to wake up early on June 2nd. Tien was craving bao cake so we went and got that for breakfast, and of course coffee. While we were …

Since we had bought our tickets for June 2nd, June 1st was an open day to do anything. We spent the morning being lazy but eventually made it out to enjoy the city. Read More

After the previous days excursions, May 31 was a somewhat sore day. I actually wasn't as sore as I was expecting though, which was nice. Tien and I were thinking about finding more things to do on Cat Ba Island, but instead we decided to head home. We chose this …

May 30th was another rainy morning on Cat Ba Island. My hair was getting longer than I liked so I decided to shave my head, but when I went to use my electric razor the battery was practically dead. To top it off, I soon found out I had killed …

On the morning of May 28th our alarm failed to go off, or at least we didn't hear it, but I somehow managed to wake up about 15 minutes before our bus arrived. We hurriedly packed and got downstairs with just a few minutes to spare. Tien tried to find …

On the morning of May 27 we woke up, rented a motorbike and immediately got lost in old town Hanoi. We got really lost too, and didn't find our way back to the lake for about an hour or two. When we finally did we stopped for breakfast. I had …

On May 24th Tien and I woke up with a plan to head to Saigon. We booked a bus for 3pm and spent the morning playing more Wii and PvZ. We played PvZ all the way until the bus to Saigon was right outside Thu's house honking its horn waiting …

On May 22, Tien's uncle rented a bus and a bunch of us drove over to where Tien's cousin has just built a house. Many members of Tien's family were gathering to remember the anniversary of the death of Tien's grandmother. We grabbed breakfast in LX on the way and …

On May 20 Tien and I woke up on the island of Phu Quoc, went downstairs for breakfast and then took the moto out to have a look around the town. We bought a proper swimsuit for her, some sunscreen, and tried to find me a helmet, which is a …

The morning of May 18 we woke up with no power and again made plans again to go to Ha Tien beach. We went to LX to have lunch and surf the net and check out the bus station schedule.

We passed a white man with a white trimmed beard …

On May 14 Tien and I went to the market for breakfast. Her family had moved their shop one door down to the entryway where the food stalls are. Hanging in their shop was a shirt that said "Chicago holiday in member recruitment we require oral...

On May 12 Tien and I got an early breakfast and decided to walk down to the river. It looked nicer on the map than it actually was, due to construction and heavy traffic, but it was nice all the same. We ran into an Australian couple and asked them …

On the flight to Saigon I sat next to a nice Vietnamese man from Canada who was going home to visit family. We didn't talk a whole lot, but he did mention that Saigon is different every time he goes back, always expanding and always building. He'd grown up in …

Friday, May 7th was my last day working my contract at GWOS. I had thought my contract ended a week earlier, and had bought a plane ticket for that timeframe. That detail was an oversight on my part, and it cost me nearly the price of a plane ticket just …

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It's a month into 2010 and my focus in life is moving away from the dazzle of travel back to the grind. Along with it, I'm moving the focus of this blog away from travel and into what I had originally planned for it, primarily photography and its current surrounding …

On Nov 22nd we woke up in the familiar Ruby Star, pretty much a third home by this time. My stomach was a little bit upset, probably from the meds, but it was better than the alternative.

The last time we were in town I had seen a building I …

Nov 24th was my last day in Vietnam in 2009. My stomach was a little upset, probably from some meds I was still taking for my lingering strep throat, which echoed from my last trip home to the USA.

Tien's sisters had prepared some gifts for my family and it …

Friday, Nov 20th, I woke early to a very rainy and stormy morning. Having less than a week left I decided to go ahead and figure out my plan for when I arrived back in America. Some of my friends were online since it was evening in the USA, and …

On the morning of November 19th I was just as sick as I had been the previous day, and my throat hurt just a little bit worse. We spent the morning laying around surfing the internet and being generally lazy. The weather was still a little stormy too, pretty much …

The winds howled through the cracks of the door and windows of our hotel room all night and the next morning was very breezy. I spent a large portion of the morning catching up on all the internet stuff I'd missed during my offline stay in Mui Ne. Most notably …

Tuesday morning we woke up with the intent to go to some white sand dunes that were about 20km north. We got breakfast at a place just up the road on our way. There was a modeling show on TV and I was watching it to see what gear the …

I dreamed about Sarah Palin doing art projects for President Obama while he was busy running all over Washington DC trying to escape the secret service because they were holding him back from doing the things he wanted to do. I woke up with Doe-A-Dear stuck in my...

Sunday morning when I woke up I noticed a recurring morning phenomenon; stiff ankles. I thought about how I should probably stay more active to avoid that displeasure.

Right after waking up Tien called a bus service and found a bus going to Saigon at 9:30. Thu got us …

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We woke up at 6am on Friday to get a head start on the floating market which only lasts the morning. When we fetched our motorbike from the valet there was a tiny blob of bird crap on my seat. Only after trying to flick it off and getting it …

Thursday I woke up in pain from the events of the previous day. My foot was definitely bruised in a few places and the cut was dry. My sandals are pretty soft though and did a great job of easing the pain.

Back at the market for breakfast Tien and …

We planned to go hiking on Mt. Cam on Wednesday. It's a long way to get there, so we had planned to wake up at 5am. I rarely sleep well before having to wake up early, and this was no different. I wasn't watching the clock though, since that doesn't …

Sunday morning was warm and glorious. Eating breakfast outside was a treat that morning. We hung around the hotel until a van came to pick us up at 12:30 and take us off to our bus. We had expected the van to arrive sooner and give us time to …

Saturday morning Da Lat was colder than it was the previous day. I couldn't tell if it was going to clear up or pour down rain on us. Regardless, Tien and I decided to rent a scooter for the day and go explore the town.

A man who worked at …

Friday morning I woke up to the delightful news that all but one of the files on my corrupt hard disk had been recovered and I knew I had that file, a photo from last new year, back in america.

Tien and I went outside and had breakfast on the …

Thursday morning when I woke up the first thing I did was plug in my dead hard disk to see if it had yet another life. Luckily it did and I put my laptop to work backing up my photos and music.

When Tien woke up we went next door …

Tuesday morning at breakfast Tien's mom brought over a young boy who was big for his age. His older sister showed up soon afterwards and we all ate some snacks. They were Tiens cousins and I recognized their father from our engagement party when he came to pick them up …

While the tragic mystery of my corrupt hard disk was unfolding I made progress with other technology. A new version of Blackra1n had come out that allowed me to upgrade my iPhone from 3.0.1 to 3.1.2 and jailbreak it. This was the simplest iPhone jailbreak ever …

Friday we woke up and did some internet stuff. I was catching up on a lot of Internet in the morning. Tien got me a breakfast sandwich and made me a banana and strawberry smoothie. What a lucky guy I am, my fiance bringing me food at my computer!

Tien …

Wednesday we got breakfast at a new place. It was in the tourist area in Pham Ngu Lao and had a menu in English, French and Vietnamese. We both ordered orange juice that was fresh squeezed and not sweetened. Its natural flavor was delicious and a nice contrast to the …

On Monday, Tien and I decided to find a new breakfast place. We walked several blocks through the heart of the tourist area at Pham Ngu Lao and found a lot of places that looked overpriced and inauthentic. I honestly don't like things to be too touristy, so when I …

On Sunday, my first morning back in Vietnam, Tien and I went to our old breakfast place. It was OK, but honestly it's lost its sentimental value with the realization that it's not that great of a restaurant. It is very convenient though. After breakfast we went back to the …

My...

It's been a long time since I've written anything, mainly because I haven't been traveling. Read More

By the time Monday morning rolled around I had slept away over half of my weekend while doped up on NyQuil and Imodium. I was finally starting to feel better on Monday, so much so that I decided I was well enough to drive to CO. I think I may …

Friday I woke up sick as a dog in Rob's place. I had full on flu symptoms on top of the ongoing digestive problems and was not a happy camper. I slept well though, amazingly. I took a shower and played online a little while Rob kept sleeping. I decided …