Photoshop CS6 Beta

I am excited to inform you that you can now download the beta for Photoshop CS6. Don't have to spend a dime or wait for it to be released check out the software for free. It's taking me about 8 hours to download though, but its worth the wait. Get it Here. The beta will expire May 31st though.

Ollie the Bar

This is a short clip from skating in Tainan a few weeks back. enjoy


filmed by Michael Mcdonald

Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern in Taiwan

Check out this video from the Travel Channel about Taiwanese food and culture. I have been many of the places he is showing and have eaten many of the foods but in my opinion he is being way to polite. The food he comes in contact with, isn't something you have to search hard for, I very easily come in contact with it everyday and have tried lots of it.

Zodiac - Mouse (aliah) Mountain

Little Temple along the path

We kinda missed a month out of our Zodiac mountain a month thing because of conflicting schedules but plan to hit two next time. We headed up to Mouse Mountain. It was a long drive up.  We stopped at a house for some help, the lady let us park our car in her driveway, she also excitedly showed us picture of a snow fall there some years back.

The top of the mountain is covered in tea farms. Lots of the tea that is drank everyday come from here.

(picture below) Not sure why, but back in the small town was a lot of idol worship happening today.

Dakeng, Taiwan Monkeys

Today we canceled the English classes and went for a hike in Dakeng. The stairs were horrendous trying to climb. The whole trail you were walking on small logs hoping you won't twist your ankle. I don't think there was one section of the climb where I could step on dirt.

The photo above is where most people decided to give up and turn around. Only 4 of us ended up going to the end. On the way back down we ran into a bunch of monks. On TV they seem all holy and spiritual, but its hard not to laugh when you see them do cute poses for a picture.

Towards the bottom of the hill we ran into a bunch of monkeys making there way across the path. I was able to get so close to them I could touch them if I wanted too. But chose not to out of lack of knowledge of what their reaction might be.

Tainan Skate Trip Part 4

Homer - Fs Noseslide

After getting stitches we headed back out to skate. The rest of the day we hit up this ledge before heading home back to Taichung.

(photo: John filming Chris - gap over bs lip in a line)

John - bs 180

Michael - switch fs flip attempts

 Many times throughout the day we would get small crowds gathering to watch us skate.

John - fs 5-0

Tainan Skate Trip Part 3

Checkin at the Hospital after I smashed my chin on the ground skating. 6 stitches, only 10 mins long, $300NT ($10US), than back to skating.

Tainan Skate Trip Part 2

The next morning we got a hold of Chris Marleau to show us around to some spots. We met up with him at the local skatepark. (Photo: John - Michael's son ripping on tranny)

The had huge banked walls for us to skate on. (Photo: Michael and Jon setting up their cameras)

Found this in Tainan...

Tainan Skate Trip 1

Homer - riding the curve (this spot isn't that great actually)

This weekend is a Chinese Holiday called Peace Day giving us tuesday off of work. Some friends from Naili (Homer and Michael and his family) come down to skate. Taking the train in took extra long because there was a 6.1 earthquake on the way in. (Photo: Michael - fs 180 at full speed)

We rented scooters for the day driving around looking for spots to skate. Key to this is to find the schools. (Michael - wall ride)

After a long day of skateboarding we went to Taiwan's biggest night market. When you combine biggest with holiday weekend, you get a whole lot of people.

All the hotels were booked. We ended up getting a great deal on one for only about $10 each, however there is a price you pay for not paying much of a price. (The smell, the size, the cleanness, the neighbors, the safety, etc.)