Western New Year's

Happy New Year!

The Western New Years is not as important as the Chinese New Years in Taiwan. This year is was a 4 day weekend from Saturday to Tuesday. Because Monday was not an official holiday, school children and salaried workers had to makeup that day by doing two half days on previous Saturdays.

It was a busy four days, with lots of family visits, outtings and dinners. Kind of just like Chinese New Years. This year, Chinese New Years is on February 10th and the holidays go for about 9 days from weekend to weekend.

My Arduino Project

Being close to home these past two month has been given me time to work on my linear actuator project. Most of the wiring has been done under magnifying glasses but an amazing about of wiring is actually done with the touch of the fingers without the eyes. I've written up the results on my web page.

  https://sites.google.com/site/essmike

Here are some pictures of it: 

 

I seem to be using my blog and web page to deposit the details of what I've done. (I wish I had been writing something this summer so that I might be able to narrow down when my eyes started going bad.)

I've done as much as I could here in Taiwan, most of my tools and materials are in Seattle.

Taipei Weather

 The weather this past month has been crazy. Last year when we arrived at the beginning of December it was cold and raining and we got colds. But this year the weather has been more variable with hot days up to 30 degrees C(86F) and a windy cold snap of less than 10 degrees C( < 50F). The wind chill brings it down even more, but for those on motorcycles there's another 30 mph contributing to the wind chill. Now I understand why some motorcyclists are dressed as if it's going to snow. It actually has snowed on some of the high mountains in Taiwan.

Here's part of the equipment for a prepared bicycle rider. It would be hard to bicycle with an umbrella, both hands on the handle bars is necessary. I think this bike also has the electrical assist engine.

 

While out in Ilan(the Lee family ancestral home), I ran into this cute Muslim girl.

Actually, many women from Indonesia have come to Taiwan to work as health care workers. As the Taiwan population grows older there is more need for these workers and the Indonesians have brought their religion to Taiwan.
  
My Eyes

Everything is going well, the gas bubble is no longer in my right eye. I've almost used up the eye drops. Now we just wait until January 31st when I have a meeting with the doctor.

At one of the family dinner over the New Year's, I spoke with a cousin who is studying to be a veterinary. He said that eye cells regenerate slowly so waiting a month seems reasonable.