Being Matt Hallett

Jigna and Matt J. were in Panama recently. A friend showed them how to take photography of distant wildlife using a binocular and digital camera in combination. This sloth is just chillin.

When you have a dog with a beard, be sure to inspect for pills in peanut butter before calling it good.

Have fun… here are 472 favorites of our 5800 photos taken on this leg of our trip..

Take a look!

So, I have been a bit more than lax when it comes to blog posting our trip. Mainly this is because of the combination of lack of time and internet connection when at the ends of the earth. I have wrote a few posts, but have them saved on a different computer, and so will load them to the site at a different time. In a quick summary, Asayo and I have visited Hong Kong, Macau, Bangkok Thailand, Pattaya Thailand, and have tickets now for Angkor Wat Cambodia (Siam Reap), followed by a trip to Ko Phi Phi Thailand. After all that we’ll be on the way back to the states.

Asayo and I decided to get our open water certifications in scuba diving before our trip to Ko Phi Phi. Scott is going to come with us as this is one of the top 3 or 4 diving sites in the world, so we really can’t miss out on the opportunity. Today will be Asayo and I’s first class. We will have 2 days of training in Pattaya, then our trip to Cambodia, and our final day of training/certification when we are in Ko Phi Phi. We are really quite excited. Ko Phi Phi is where they filmed the movie “The Beach” with Leonardo DiCaprio. It is supposed to be quite beautiful.

We are having a tremendous time with Scott in Pattaya, getting to know all of his old haunts and friends here. It is an amazing lifestyle.

Missing everyone!

Wow. Really long flight. 14 hours. Longest for me since a Los Angeles to New Zealand as a kid. Flew over the middle of Alaska, Way into Siberia, then just above of North Korea to Beijing China, then staight South. Stange… Most flight to Asia for me usually hit the South of Alaska, then over Japan. Felt strange and a bit creepy to go so far inland. Looking down at the heart of Siberia made me realize in sad way that I’ll probably never go there. Not because I don’t want to, but because of how short life can be!

Anyways, we arrived safely and at our friends house. They live in one of the many tall buildings in Hong Kong with an outstanding view of the bay and the downtown building. I had forgotten that they all light up for a light show at night.

So far, we can only agree with the rumors and stereotypes of Hong Kong… Beautiful, tall, & friendly. Hong Kong won an award for the most impressive City skyline, and I can totally see why. Here are a couple of pictures/videos that I borrowed from the web.

Well we have our itinerary a bit more locked in. Below is a photo of how the trip currently stands. We are still working out the details of the Angkor Wat (Cambodia) and Phuket (Thailand) trips.. but the Hong Kong, Bangkok (Thailand), & Pattaya (Thailand) stops are locked in.

Here are a couple of photos that we hope to be experiencing in person soon…

Well, here it begins! Asayo and I have just finished spending the past couple of days getting completely ready for our trip to South East Asia. I think we helped the local corporate economy a great deal with our stops to Bartel Drug, Barnes & Nobel, REI, and places like that. I swear we will have spent more on our gear than we have on our tickets by the time we get out the door.

Speaking of nice travel purchases… I picked up a nice REI backpack on the recommendation of a friend (thanks Kabir!). After packing it, I have to say that I’m quite amazed with it’s functionality and portability… Here is a photo of the bag that I bought… I’m sure you’ll see many photos in the future of me with it strapped to my back. Currently it is weighing a total of 20lbs… the day pack/backpack, zips to the outside of the larger backpack. I have my Digital SLR and my mini-laptop in that mini-backpack and it looks like it will work well! There were fancier Osprey models, but they weren’t quite my style.. plus you have to root for the home team (REI) on occasion.

I thought this video was worth sharing, so I uploaded it. We heard an incredible racket outside, and after finding out what had happened, we had to take a video of it. She acts so nonchalant, it’s hilarious.

Asayo and I have taken some time off work and we are about to go travel around the globe a little. First stop is Hong Kong, followed by Thailand to visit our buddy Scott for a couple weeks.

Nate & I traveled around Pike’s place market on the 17th and practiced some photography. Mainly to learn more about basic photography concepts and take a few nice photos… we played with some silly zoom tricks too. Here is the result of our attempts.

20070117_SeattlePikesPlaceCameraShootWithNate

Spanish company today announded they had a process to turn Plankton into Oil (which could be used by Diesel vehicles). It’s quite preliminary, but promising. There has been talk of this for some time, but no particular group that said they could do it reproducibly.

More Info Here

Asayo and I had our house painted…. it’s looking really good now that’s it’s finished.. next I need to paint my lawn green.
These guys were really reasonable in price (2,800) and very very good in their work. ppccss.com is their site… I can recommend their subcontractor directly if you like.

That’s a cute picture Asayo took of Luna trying to get through some plastic sheeting.

20060725_HousePaintingIsCompleted_FilamonMarioAsayoMattLuna_ppccss

The biggest hole in the world… in Eastern Russia. Pretty much unbelievable. Was dug for diamonds.

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ok… top notch weekend. Helped Asayo jump from an airplane in Snohomish Washington. My two feet stayed firmly planted to the ground. According to my life plan, a sky diving trip is not on order for me. For Asayo, it’s a different story. She did fantastic!!! Watch the video, and see for yourself.

Asayo’s Jump (along with Matt Joe, Jigna Patel, Noriko Miyagi, Brian Nangle):

Another video from the same flight, but from Jigna’s Perspective:

Here is the video from the second set of friends: (Jeremiah Jester, Cheryl Hunter w/ daughter Dawn, and Sinae, a friend of John and Jungim):

They start jumping at about 4:22 seconds into the video.. You have to watch about 5:20 seconds, where the airplane just dives straight down after everyone jumps off. Amazing stuff!

Here are some of the photos from the trip… Some REALLY top notch photography by the professionals there at Snohomish. Round1 is Asayo, Jigna, Matt Joe, Norika, and Ryan. Round2 is Cheryl Hunter and her daughter Dawn, Jeremiah Jester, and a good friend of John Bostwicks.

ALL THE PHOTOS!

I thought this was a good article about how to be aware of people’s perception of you. In both business and in life.

I have been waiting for this for my whole paypal life….. no more socially difficult bill splitting problems… pay people immediately and safely with your cell phone and paypal accounts…. uses a combination of text messaging and cell phone call backs and pin codes…

Ok… They try to explain the craziness of quantum physics through the use of a cute simple cartoon. It works really really well except for one problem, you might be able to comprehend the example, but not understand why… so it just drives you crazy… makes you kind of empathethic with scientists who have to deal with this every day…

Quiz time! Can you guess which name is a Star Wars Character or for a new Web 2.0 start up company?

Too funny!

I have tried out MANY, MANY extensions… These are the firefox extensions that I just can NOT live without. In decreasing order of importance….

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