White Ibis

Postcard US-3612556 to the Netherlands shows a flock of white ibis probes the grassflat to unearth a meal of crustaceans. These birds gather together at dusk in showy, spectacular roosts in the Everglades, Florida. The 39 cent matching stamp was one of the South Florida Wetland stamps issued by USPS in 2005.

10th Anniversary of the Indian Ocean Tsunami Marked

Today marks the 10th anniversary of the Indian Ocean Tsunami that happened on December 26, 2004 and devastated Indonesia, Thailand, Sri Lanka, India and other countries around the Pacific Rim as one of worst natural disasters in modern history.

Banda Aceh in Indonesia's Aceh province was among the hardest hit areas. More than 160,000 people died in Indonesia, accounting for more than 50% of the total 230,000 victims killed from all affected countries. Indonesia's Vice President Jusuf Kalla attended a ceremony in Banda Aceh today where many ambassadors of countries that assisted in the massive recovery effort 10 years ago were also present.

The stamped card was purchased at the Banda Aceh Post Office in early 2005 when I was volunteering in the recover effort. It has two of the four birds stamps issued on January 7, 1992: a 100 Rp White-crested Laughingthrush (Garrulax leucolophus) and a 200 Rp. Common Flameback (Dinopium javanense) with a remark "Dijamin Asli" (guaranteed authentic) on the bottom of the card.

View image | gettyimages.com

Lighthouse Westerheversand

Postcard DE-3712774 from Germany shows a rainbow and the Lighthouse Westerheversand, located in Westerhever on the northwestern tip of the Eiderstedt Peninsula in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. Surrounded by salt marshes, it is a major attraction on the peninsula for its 80,000 annual visitors.

The 9-story lighthouse was built on a mound in 1906, with a focal height of 41 meters and a range of 21 nautical miles or 39 kilometers. It can be seen as far as 55 kilometers away in a clear day. The lighthouse was featured on a 55-cent German commemorative stamp in 2005.

Source

Sunset Over Sabang Bay, Indonesia

Postcard US-2293197 to Michigan shows a beautiful sunset view over Sabang Bay in Aceh Province, Indonesia. It was one of those postcards I bought when I was volunteering in Banda Aceh, Indonesia in 2005. A similar card was featured in this blog last year for the International Day for Disaster Reduction, which was designated as October 13 by the UN General Assembly in 2009, replacing the International Day for Natural Disaster Reduction that was part of the International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction in the 1990s. The theme for 2014 is "Resilience is for Life."

Best known for snorkeling and diving, Sabang Bay is located on the north side of Pulau Weh, an island north of Banda Aceh on the northern tip of Sumatra. On the sidebar of the postcard, Rubiah Island, Ulee-Lheu Beach, Lhok Seudu Beach, and Lhok Nga Beach are shown from top to bottom.

Love is a Force of Nature

I got this Brokeback Mountain movie promotional card during its Ft. Lauderdale International Film Festival premiere at Cinema Paradiso in 2005. The movie told a powerful story of two young men, a ranch hand and a rodeo cowboy, who sheepherded in the Wyoming mountains in the summer of 1963 and formed a life-long bond with love and conflicts.

Sixteen years ago today on October 6, 1998, Matthew Shepard, a student at the University of Wyoming, was beaten, tortured and left to die near Laramie, Wyoming. He was targeted and attacked by two men because he was gay. His death from severe head injuries six days later brought national and international attention to hate crime legislation. However, it wasn't until October 2009 that the United States Congress passed the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act. President Barack Obama signed the "Matthew Shepard Act" into law on October 28, 2009.

Today on October 6, 2014, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review those cases where state laws banning same-sex marriage were overturned by federal appeals courts, which resulted immediate recognition of same-sex marriage in Indiana, Oklahoma, Utah, Virginia and Wisconsin. Wyoming could see same-sex marriages recognized by the end of this year as it was covered by the same circuit appeals courts as Utah and Oklahoma. Five additional states: North Carolina, South Carolina, West Virginia, Colorado, and Kansas, are also covered.

The card was sent in to obtain a first-day-of-issue postmark on a Harvey Milk Forever Stamp on July 21, 2014, along with other first-day-of-issue postmark and digital color postmarks. It took two months for the fulfilled order to be returned on September 23, 2014.

National Day of the American Cowboy

Yesterday was the National Day of the American Cowboy, declared by a resolution passed by the U.S. Senate. Senator Craig Lyle Thomas (February 17, 1933 – June 4, 2007) first started the tradition by naming the fourth Saturday in July “National Day of the American Cowboy” in 2005, coinciding with Cheyenne Frontier Days, an outdoor rodeo and western celebration held annually since 1897 in Cheyenne, Wyoming.

The 2014 resolution, the tenth in a row, was introduced by U.S. Senators Mike Enzi (R-Wyoming) and John Barrasso (R-Wyoming), and co-sponsored by Senators Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), Heidi Heitkamp (D-North Dakota), John Hoeven, (R-North Dakota), James Inhofe (R-Oklahoma), Mike Johanns (R-Nebraska), Tim Johnson (D-South Dakota), Jeff Merkley (D-Oregon), Jim Risch (R-Idaho), Jon Tester (D-Montana), and John Walsh (D-Montana). The day this year falls on July 26, 2014, acknowledging the contributions from cowboys throughout history and their continued impact to the U.S. today.

The Senate passed the S.Res.488 unanimously on July 17, 2014. It's a rare feat for the 113th Congress.

Postcard US-2680033 to Massachusetts shows a Wyoming tourism poster with a tag line "Rodeo! stamped on every plate and into every heart, in Wyoming."

International Volunteer Day

International Volunteer Day is observed each year on December 5th since 1985. It offers an opportunity for both volunteer organizations and individuals to make their contributions visible; thus raise awareness for volunteering and encourage others to get involved. #IVD2013 

Postcard US-1834687 to Canada shows a volunteer's T-Shirt flying high over Banda Aceh in early 2005 during my volunteering trip to Indonesia to assist in the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami relief efforts. The accompany poem from a friend reads:

The world is sadden by the tragic news;
Everything is destroyed by the giant waves on their paths;
Ruins are the all you can see and cries are the all you can hear;
Bodies are scatted on the beach covered with seaweeds from the deep sea;

The only thing left are our loving hearts that will last like the Sun and the Moon;
As well as our determinations like the thunders;
Crossing the suffering islands to lend a helping hand until exhausting our last energy;
While it adds nothing to our ages, the story will be with us for the rest of our life.

20 Million Postcards

Postcard TW-1044841 from Taiwan arrived today and was registered at 10:50 pm PDT around the time when the postcard number 20 million from the PostCrossing was registered. It's a remarkable number by all means since the project opened to the public in July 14th, 2005. Congratulations!

It is also my 2nd anniversary of joining the PostCrossing, although it took another 2 or 3 months before I sent off my first official card.

International Day for Disaster Reduction

The United Nations General Assembly designated the 1990s as the International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction on December 22, 1989. As part of its proclamation, it also designated the second Wednesday of October as the International Day for Natural Disaster Reduction. The objective was to promote the awareness in order to decrease the loss of life, property destruction and social and economic disruption caused by natural disasters, such as earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, landslides, volcanic eruptions, droughts, locust infestations, and other disasters of natural origin.

In 2009, the United Nations General Assembly decided to designate October 13 as the official date and changed the name to the International Day for Disaster Reduction. The 2013 Theme is Living with Disability and Disasters.

Postcard US-2217252 to Portugal shows a postcard I bought in Banda Aceh, Sumatra, Indonesia when I was there to volunteer for tsunami relief effort in February, 2005.

Neptune and His Horses, Kansas City, Missouri

Kansas City, Missouri is known as the City of Fountains. Among all cities in the world, only Rome, Italy has more fountains. Postcard US-2441790 shows its Neptune Fountain, a 3629 kg or 8000 pound cast lead fountain in an oval pond. It depicts Neptune, the God of the Sea (and father of fictional character Perseus "Percy" Jackson), in his chariot pulled by three mythological attributes, the trident, dolphin and sea horse.

The fountain was cast in 1911 by the Bromsgove Guild of Applied Arts, a group of artists and designers that operated from 1898 to 1966. from Worcestershire, England.  Google books has an ebook on Walter Gilbert who founded the group associated with the Arts and Crafts movement. The fountain was for the Pennsylvania estate of Alba B. Johnson, then president of Baldwin Locomotive Co., who passed away in 1946. Miller Nichols, a local real estate professional who was inducted to the Greater Kansas City Business Hall of Fame in 2011, bought the piece as scrap metal after workmen at a salvage company found it in a railroad car. The JC Nichols Co. installed it on the Country Club Plaza in 1953.

I was in Kansas City for the URISA's 43rd Annual Conference from October 9 to October 12, 2005. However, I missed this fountain. One of the city's most spectacular water displays was the Crown Center Fountains near the conference site Hyatt Regency Kansas City (now Sheraton Kansas City Hotel) at Crown Center, an office, retail, and entertainment complex housing the international headquarters of Hallmark Cards, Inc. I look forward to visiting more fountains when I am in Kansas City next time.

You can find a list of fountains in Kansas City at Wikipedia. ExperienceKC.COM has an article "City of Fountains: tour the stunning structures that gave Kansas City its claim to fame." 

The New Contax II-A and III-A

Postcard NL-2061870 from the Netherlands shows a vintage poster of the "new" Contax II-A and III-A cameras. Contax was a camera brand noted for its unique technical innovation and a wide range of Zeiss lenses, known for their high optical quality. The Contax II and III models were introduced in 1936. The only difference between II and III was that the model III has a built-in exposure meter. Among the many features the both models introduced are the combined eyepiece for both viewfinder and rangefinder; top placement of the shutter speed dial and film wind knob; fastest shutter speed at the time at 1/1250 s. and chrome plating finish. They became highly sought-after among professional photographers, similar to today's iPhone in some way. However, in the background of the rapid digital revolution in the 2000s, film cameras were rapidly replaced by digital cameras. The production of Contax cameras ceased in 2005, two years before the first iPhone was released.