Monday, January 31, 2011

Chinese New Year 2011 Video 3 of 4

Chinese New Year Video Clips part 1 of 2

My computer went on standby while uploading to YouTube so I was only able to get a couple up last night.

Here are the first few:








Two more longer clips are coming soon!

Chinese New Year 2011

We just returned from Victoria Park on Hong Kong Island, there was a massive celebration going on for Chinese New Year.  We wanted to check out all that was going on, there were tons of people and stalls selling all kinds of stuff.  Everything from octopus tentacles to Angry Birds stuffed toys and peach tree branches were available. 

I took a bunch of video of the Dragon Dances and Lion Dances that I'm uploading to Youtube right now, I'll post them tomorrow morning. Here are some pictures though






This dude is really luck with those pinwheels

Pinwheels for good luck

Lycee Packet art






Dragon (Back) Lions (Front)

Peach buds waiting to blossom on New Year's Day

Mini orange tree anyone?

One of a hundred flower stall, each more breathtaking than the last

Katy and I posing in front of the flowers

New Nepal Post and fort pictures

Day 11 in Nepal



Last Thursday I met Katy in Tung Chung for Lunch and after our Thai meal we went and explored an old nearby fort.
I forgot to upload the photos before, but I finally got to it now.





Saturday, January 29, 2011

A Little Change

I made a new twitter account just for this blog @DrBhk

I've been thinking about online privacy having a facebook, twitter, and a blog with my real name it made me pause.  I think I will try to post only DrBhk blog related stuff with the @DrBhk and have it show up on the front page here.

@NOLScgp will be protected personal tweets that the general public can't see.  If you really want to see them (whomever you are) just make a twitter account and follow me and I will (probably) approve you :)

This is just a test, if it doesn't work I'll change it back

DrB Nepal Day 9

http://drbnepal.blogspot.com/2010/02/day-9-february-7-2010-arrival.html

Thursday, January 27, 2011

DrB Nepal

New Nepal Post, Day 8

How to upload photos to Picasa

 For Karen and anyone else in NY that has a gmail account and wants to upload any pictures to send over


1) Go to www.picasa.google.com
2) Click on the "picasa web albums" link, you don't have to download the program unless you really want to, it does make things easier though
3)It will want you to make an account or something, just click create and continue
4) Next it may want to try to have you launch the Picasa Desktop application that you don't have, just cancel out of that.
5) Click on the "Upload"
6) Then it will ask you to Create a New Album, just fill in the information that you want to and hit continue
7) Then it will bring you to a place where you can choose up to 5 files to upload.  If you have more than that, the desktop application is probably better, but that's a different post all together.  I'll put in something at the end about it.

8) You then browse to your camera or a folder that has your pictures in it, select one and then click "start upload"
9) Wait a few minutes for it to finish

Now when you go to make a post in blogger, the little "insert image" box at the top of the Post Editor has a "Picasa Web Albums" option and you just go there and select all the photos you want it it puts them right in.

A basic rundown of Picasa Desktop
Download and install it, sign in (the same login as your Gmail account), select the import button at the top while your camera is plugged in to the USB, import your photos and then select the little slider that says "sync to web" then the confirmation box and your done.  Then go to Step 9 and make your post


Comment or email with any questions!

What I've been up to lately

Hello my family!

This may turn out to be a bunch of randomness, let's see......

Went to swing dancing last night with Katy, Jonathan, and Sarah, we went over a year ago and decided to go again, i think it will be a weekly thing which would be fun.

I had duck sausage and goat's cheese on my pizza last night

In the last 3 months these are the tracks that have been most popular for me according to Last.fm: (from most plays to least)
The Grascals – Sail Away Ladies
Alan Munde – Sail Away Ladies
John Hartford – Sail Away Ladies
Roger Whittaker – Christmas is Here Again
Doc Watson/Norman Blake/Tony Rice – Salt Creek
Carroll Best – Whiskey Before Breakfast
Phoenix – Armistice
Alison Krauss – Cluck Old Hen
Tony Trischka – Fisher's Hornpipe
Tony Trischka – Red Haired Boy
John Hartford – Fiddle Tune?
Jay Buckey – Sweet Georgia Brown
John Prine – Christmas In Prison
Tony Rice – Temperance Reel
Norman Blake – Texas Gales
Bill Keith – Cherokee Shuffle
Mumford & Sons – Little Lion Man
Grizzly Bear – Two Weeks
Alan Munde – Billy In The Lowground
Mumford & Sons – The Cave
Phoenix – Lisztomania
Phoenix – Lasso

Since December 1 these are the songs I've learned on banjo:

Whiskey Before Breakfast

I've been more involved with banjo hangout lately I've created two tabs and submitted them, I've been playing banjo since 2003, I think I can change my profile from "novice" to "purty good"

Today I went to countrytabs.com to look at a John Hartford song, spent 5 minutes looking for my password to login, then found out that the tab was incorrect.  Then I found out that I could NOT right click or copy and paste the tab so I could make it better.  I disabled javascript on the page, turns out the tab is a .jpg image, which I saved to my computer.  I didn't feel like typing in the words so I uploaded it to a free online OCR service. I copied the resulting text into LibreOffice and switched it to Courier New to so that letter spacing will remain equal.  Then I sat down and tabbed out the chords myself, when I was done I went to Ultimate-Guitar.com and submitted the tab so that many other people can benefit from it.  They will also be able to right click and copy it how ever they want to and even change keys.  They also won't need to log in to see it.  All this made me realize I have a wealth of John Hartford songs with chords that I should put on there.

I've rediscovered Bob Black as a banjo player

The Session is pretty great for fiddle tunes that I can then turn into banjo tunes

That's about all I have in my brain right now

Actually, one more thing, a year after building my desktop I think I've finally figured out why it would sometimes crash when I plugged in a USB drive, I removed the stupid thin metal cutout in the back that i think was shorting out on the computer case and then re-shorting (or something) when the usb touched the case and the motherboard at the same time

Monday, January 24, 2011

Massive Nepal Post is up

http://drbnepal.blogspot.com/2010/02/day-5-february-3-2010-excusion.html

Christmas Time in Hong Kong



I picked up the box of gifts sent from New York today.  We opened them as soon as Katy and Jonathan got home.  We want to thank everyone for their awesome gifts!

The quote of the night; as the poopin' penguin was all wound up and released on the table,
Jonathan, "Its head fell off!!"
He ducks down to grab it off the floor
Katy, "It's pooping everywhere!!"

 Here is a semi-reenactment of what transpired....



And here are some other assorted pictures of our night......









Thursday, January 20, 2011

Oh How Far I've Come

The quality of these pictures are almost painful, the developing place in Lander was really low tech and gave me a crappy photo CD.  I'll have to scan the pictures if I ever find them again.  Oh digital photography how I love thee.


Rescued my pictures from Webshots

I was looking back at my old NOLS photos that I had posted on Webshots.com about 6 years ago.  I realized how awful that site was and how feature-less and not very user friendly it was compared to Picasa.  They require you to use their software to download your OWN photos, which I reluctantly did.  However, they limit you to only downloading one of your albums, luckily I only had two on there.  I used the terrible software to get my 56 NOLS pictures back on my computer, then quickly uninstalled it. 

I did a google search and found this Greasemonkey script that allowed me to download all of the Webshots photos that I wanted (fancy that?!?!).  I just deleted the albums I had on their site, they don't allow you to delete your account (sounds about right doesn't it?)

My photos are being uploaded to Picasa right now, i'll post the links when they are done

DrB Nepal

Another post is up

http://drbnepal.blogspot.com/2010/02/day-3-february-1-2010-kathmandu.html

Also take a look at these spices
Asafoetida
Fennel
Garam Masala
Gram Flour

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

A new blog

It will only be for my Nepal stuff.  I just created it so I can start uploading my trip journal and pictures from my Nepal trip last year and I'll share the link with Khem and all his friends too.

http://drbnepal.blogspot.com/

First Post is up
http://drbnepal.blogspot.com/2011/01/day-1-january-30-2010-hong-kong-to.html 
.
.
.
.
.
..

Sunday, January 16, 2011

Sunday Music Jam

Went to the Hong Kong Folk Society's monthly jam at The Canny Man, Katy and Ruth came.  We ended up playing for about 5 hours.  I guess it was about 16 musicians total.  Katy was gracious enough to take some photos.

After hearing about zero degree temperatures in NY this morning I'm thankful I can still wear T-shirts most of the time.


"Yea, that's right, I don't even need to look when I'm soloing..."


Here's (from left to right) Worth, Tony, Jon, and Tanya



First time in about a year and a half I've put any photos up on facebook, after ripping all my others off and out of Zuckerberg's clutches.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2121567&id=44805355&l=8e5001989d

Friday, January 7, 2011

New Music

Here are some clips from our last session, they came out pretty well, some are a bit rusty. We didn't have our mandolin player there too. I was able to play an old Gibson 5-string conversion, which isn't done justice in these recordings.

Swallowtail Jig


The Reconciliation


Forked Deer


Cherokee Shuffle


St. Anne's Reel


Down Yonder


Sail Away Ladies


Red Haired Boy


Angeline The Baker


Whiskey Before Breakfast


Ragtime Annie


Sweet Georgia Brown

Lookee that

Just realized I have over 300 posts, that's pretty good... Things slow lately, I do have music from the band that is uploading to Dropbox right now, but I will have to get the links and players ready tomorrow as I am going to sleep now.