Category: International
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Autumn Through the Kitchen Window
One of the joys I love most about traveling to Vancouver is that the weather is so often radically different. I love enjoying what makes each season special a bit longer. In spring, it’s cooler up north so the snow hangs on the mountain peaks just a little bit longer. During the summer, Vancouver’s air…
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Swedish Meatballs
Looking at the map, my dilemma was clear. I had two great options both in opposite directions from one another. To make the decision harder, I didn’t really have a good sense of how quickly I could travel through the countryside. Norway generally has an 80 km/h (50 mph) speed limit. I was expecting an…
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Norway: Out on the farm
I’ve long been a fan of Navigon, a navigation app for iPhone and Android. The benefit to using Navigon over Google Maps is that all of the maps are preloaded on the phone. You don’t need cellular data for directions. In general, Navigon worked flawlessly once you get beyond it’s weird UI paradigms. I also…
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Off to Norway
I fulfilled a dream today. I remember in middle school social studies class learning about the world and all of the different places in it. Much like every kid in America, we covered the world in chapters with each culture being a week or two in school. Three chapters resonated with me: Australia, the Nordics,…
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Banff National Park
My last few days in Canada were to be spent at Banff National Park. Banff was about 90 minutes to the west of Calgary up in the mountains. I was hoping that the elevation would give some relief from the heat. Bummed that I had lost my phone at the rodeo, I pulled out the…
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2013 Ponoka Stampede: Buckin’ Horses
Modern rodeo has 2 events that involve bucking horses: saddle bronc riding and bareback riding. The 2 events differ in how the cowboy rides a horse. In saddle bronc riding there’s a substantial, special saddle that the cowboys can use while riding the horse. In bareback, as you can infer, the cowboy is just about…
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2013 Ponoka Stampede: Steer Wrestling
Steer wrestling is an event where two cowboys on horseback chase after a steer. One of the cowboys dismounts his horse and wrestles the steer to the ground. Both the steers and the horses are running at a pretty good clip so it’s an event of careful timing and execution. Out of the gate the…
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2013 Ponoka Stampede: Bull Riding & Wild Pony
I will say I had fun with this lens! The 70 – 200 f/2 .8 lens is a beast but when tuned, it takes great photos. I was struggling with how to set up the camera to balance depth of field, ISO, and shutter speed to get crisp photos that weren’t grainy. Looking in all…
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Getting to the Ponoka Stampede
After a day during Edmonton it was time to get into rural Alberta. If anything became clear over the next couple of days Alberta is more Texas than Texas. I was really surprised how far into the valley Edmonton really was. It definitely sits out on the wide-open plain. Ponoka is about 75 minutes south…
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Northward Ho!
Getting up to 4:30 AM sucks anyway you cut it. The early morning flight saves me from going back to San Francisco to then go back to Calgary. The plan seemed simple enough: fly to Calgary, get a rental car, and drive to Edmonton. We boarded the plane in Austin on time but after about…
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danradigan.com.tw
Taiwan felt more like Asia to me. The whole point of this trip was to come to Taiwan for work. We had some clients that needed training on the latest version of software. I was scheduled to be here for 5 days. Since I got in late on a Sunday night, I was not as…
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Mass Transit Done Right
The part about Hong Kong that has really imprinted upon me the most is the density of the city. Each of the subway stations I’ve been in there were people coming and going in mass. Trains would arrive at least every few minutes at the slowest rate and every minute at peak. In contrast CalTrain…
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Day 4: Hong Kong
By this point in the trip I was feeling pretty adept at rolling around Hong Kong. It was day 4 and I had the morning to poke around the area that was closest to my hotel. I strolled into the market and bought some fruit for breakfast. Since I was in Asia, Asian pears were…
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Day 3: Hong Kong
I slept hard last night. I guess I didn’t really realize how much we had done yesterday. I’ve been reading a book that was recommended to me by a friend of a friend called Cowboys, Angels, and Armageddon. I’ve been reading as part of my time on vacation. I’m usually not an avid reader but…
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Day 2: Hong Kong
Today I woke up well rested after a long day traveling. Extreme time changes seem to be unpredictable for me. Moving the clock forward 16 hours has it’s effect on me, but in general, the process has been much smoother than I had expected. Now that I’m here I really have no idea what I’d…
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Day 1: Hong Kong
I’ve never been to Asia. San Francisco was the closest to Asia that I’ve ever been aside from the occasional outing to the Chinese restaurant as a kid. When the opportunity arose to travel out to Taiwan for work, I jumped on it. With a bit of crowd sourcing on where to go, the masses…