In Search of Sunrise

夸父与日逐走，入日；渴，欲得饮，饮于河、渭，河、渭不足，北饮大泽。未至，道渴而死。弃其杖，化为邓林。

An ancient Chinese legend has a giant tribal chief named Kua Fu (夸父) who believed that he would bring back truth and prosperity if he could catch the Sun. So, one day in the morning he started race to the Sun in full speed as soon as he saw the sunrise. At the end of the day, Kua Fu got too close to the Sun and became dehydrated. He was so thirsty that he drank up all the water from the Yellow River (黃河) and the Wei River (渭河) but it was still not enough. Tried but failed to reach the Big Lake in the north, Kua Fu died from the heat exhaustion before he could get there. Kua Fu dropped his cane as he fell down. And the cane had turned into a grove of peach trees, providing protection from the Sun for those who came through afterwards.

Usually a late night person or a night owl, I did a project In Search of Sunrise, filming the sunrise every day for three months last year. The experience was transforming. The card was made from one of the photos taken during the first day on September 30, 2015. It features an unassuming replica of the Statue of Liberty in a neighborhood shopping mall.

Beam of Light, Son Doong, Vietnam

Postcard Beam of Light by Romeo Durscher is one of the SkyPixel series that showcase stunning photos from drones. The photo was taken by a camera on  DJI Inspire 1, showing a view beneath the doline or sinkhole that forms the world’s largest cave Son Doong. The Beam of Light came through the opening in the cave's ceiling over 300 meters above.On top of the large stalagmite was Ginger Zee, the weather anchor for Good Morning America and ABC World News Tonight on ABC. Her placement on that rock formation, risen from the cave floor due to the accumulated material from ceiling drippings, gave out a sense of scale and size.

Meanwhile, President Obama is in Vietnam for a three-day visit, his first trip to the country and the 10th to Asia. He arrived in Hanoi, Vietnam on Sunday May 22, 2016.

Previously, President Lyndon B. Johnson visited U.S. military personnel in Cam Ranh Bay, South Vietnam on October 26, 1966 and December 23, 1967. So did Richard Nixon with an unscheduled six-hour stop outside Saigon, South Vietnam on July 30, 1969.

On November 16, 2000, Bill Clinton, who opposed the war in Vietnam, made history as the first U.S. President to visit Hanoi, the headquarters of the North Vietnamese command during the war, now the capital of Vietnam and the country's second largest city. During his three-day visit, Clinton also visited Ho Chi Minh City, which was renamed from Saigon in 1976. George W. Bush was in Vietnam November 17–20, 2006 for the APEC Summit meeting.

Layla Plays Netball

Postcard US-3971361 to Taiwan is one of the Skypixel series that features Australian drone operator Alex Coppel's daughter Layla playing netball.

Alex Coppel explained on a Facebook post: "My daughter Layla plays netball whilst patiently waiting for me to finish playing with my Phantom drone, in the last of the light on a perfect day."

Under One Big Roof

Postcard US-3898447 to Tennessee, USA shows 大厝顶 which literally means "big roof", a traditional rural dwelling found in Fujian Province, China where members from an extended family, build, and later extend when the size of family grows, their living units all under one big roof in the same household. The postcard was published by SkyPixel with a drone photo taken by Yuanfeng Zhang (张元锋) using a Phantom 3 Professional.

The Next Big Thing is Here

Postcard US-3627115 to Germany shows one of my street photos, taken on July 29, 2015, where the subject appeared to be wearing a Samsung T-shirt with a slogan "The Next Big Thing is Here."

Samsung lawyer Jon Quinn once claimed that "Apple's senior VP of marketing Phil Schiller was so concerned about Samsung’s Next Big Thing ad campaign, in which the company poked fun at Apple customers, that he emailed Tim Cook to suggest a change of ad agency to fight back."

Apple held a special event yesterday on March 21, 2016 to announce their new products.

First American to Walk in Space

Postcard US-3263789 from North Carolina shows NASA astronaut Major Edward H. White II who made the United States' first spacewalk on June 3, 1965 during the third orbit of the Gemini IV flight. The extra-vehicular activity (EVA) started at 19:45 UT (3:45 p.m. EDT) when White opened his hatch and used the hand-held maneuvering oxygen-jet gun to push himself out of the capsule.

White was seen on the card backing away from the Gemini spacecraft 120 miles or 193 kilometers above the Pacific Ocean northeast of Hawaii. The space walk lasted 23 minutes, ending over the Gulf of Mexico. The photo was taken by commander James McDivitt.

Sterne by Thomas Ruff

Postcard DE-3784060 from Germany shows an image of night sky from the collection Sterne 
(Stars) produced by German photographer Thomas Ruff in 1989. Thomas Ruff acquired a set of 600 negative images "Catalog of the Southern Sky" from the European Southern Observatory in the Andes, Chile. Each of those images was noted for the precise time of day and exact geographic position when the photograph was taken, along with the type of telescopic lens used and length of exposure. Thomas Ruff cropped specific details from those images and enlarged them to a uniform grand scale.

Separately, a pulsar, J1906,  made the news as it has faded from view when it enters a warp in space-time. The observations were made at the Arecibo Observatory, Puerto Rico.

LOSAC

Reddit is a social networking and news website where registered users can submit contents to be voted "up" or "down" by other users, so that the contents' positions on the site are determined by their popularity. Content entries are organized by areas of interest called "subreddits."

Reddit Gold is its premium membership program with extra features such as turning off ads as well as special benefits from gold partners for promotional products and services. The membership costs US$3.99/month, or US$29.99/year.  You can also send a postcard for a free one-month Reddit Gold membership.

Postcards 3579, sent to Reddit for a free one-month Reddit Gold membership, shows a parody photo made via Adobe's Photoshop from the Biggest Little City in the World sign in Reno, Nevada. One of my projects LOSAC - Lake Okeechobee Stage-Area-Capacity System - won the 2004 Exemplary System in Government award at the 2004 URISA Annual Conference in Reno during November 7-10, 2004. The parody photo was used for the opening of a slide show introducing my project.

50 Years since the Beatlemania in Las Vegas

Fifty years ago today, the Beatles played two concerts at the Las Vegas Convention Center on August 20, 1964. It was their first and only visit to Las Vegas.

Interestingly, in spite of the Beatles' surging fame oversea, the establishments on the Las Vegas Strip back then could care less about a band that was perceived to be popular with teenagers. So the city did not extend the red carpet welcome. However, the kids knew better than the casino bosses and their parents, recognizing something new and exciting; the shows were sold out. The rest was history. Some audience to the shows would later become prominent figures themselves. For example, Shelley Berkley was elected as a U.S. congresswoman, representing Nevada's 1st congressional district from 1999 to 2013.

Now, we even have a Cirque du Soleil show Love, a theatrical production since 2006, which combines the music of the Beatles with a circus-based stage performance played at The Mirage Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas.

Postcard US-2293200 to Japan shows the cover of With The Beatles, the second studio album by the Beatles released on November 22, 1963. The cover photograph was taken by the fashion photographer Robert Freeman. It held the top music chart spot for 21 weeks and served as a prelude of the British invasion that led to the Beatles' first live US television performance on The Ed Sullivan Show, watched by 73 million viewers or 34%  of the U.S. population in February, 1964, and a 30-concert tour of 23 cities, including the stop in Las Vegas, in August, 1964.

Earth Observation from Space

Fifty five years ago, the U.S. satellite Explorer VI was launched by a Thor DM-18 Able III rocket from Cape Canaveral's LC-17A site in Florida on August 7, 1959.  It took the first black-and-white photo of the planet Earth from space, showing a portion of the ocean and the cloud cover over the Central Pacific Ocean. It started an era of the earth observation from space.

Postcard US-1893434 to Russia was one of the six limited edition IKONOS Collector cards from Space Imaging 2003 International Image Festival. It shows the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour on the northern bank of the Moskva River, a few blocks southwest of the Kremlin, in Moscow, Russia. By comparing the image card with the recent satellite image from the same area on Google Maps, you can find out those changes in the area over the past 10 years.

President Obama Turns 53

Happy Birthday to President Obama, who just turned 53 today on Aug. 4, 2014. He was born in 1961, which was Year of the Ox in Chinese Zodiac. It is said that dependability, strength and determination are among the character traits for those people born in Year of the Ox. they are tolerant individuals who believe that the road to success involves hard work and scrupulous behavior; they do not believe in taking shortcuts.

Postcard US-1948589 to the Netherlands was made with a photo from President Obama's reelection campaign appearance at Canyon Springs High School in North Las Vegas on August 20, 2012, embedded in a template then available at photofunia.com.

A Cat Peering Outside

Outgoing postcard US-2680023 to New Zealand shows a National Geographic photo of a cat, next to a blue door, peering out of the window of an adobe house at Taos Pueblo in New Mexico. Taos Pueblo is a Native American community with a population of 1264 in the 2000 census. It was designated as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1992 and a National Historic Landmark in 1960.

Copyright by Ira Block/National Geographic Stock. The postcard was created By National Geographic and can be purchased at Zazzle.

RU-2215000

Postcard RU-2215000 has a neat PostCrossing ID number 2215000, which means it was the 2,215,000th official PostCrossing card sent from Russia. It is a photo about half the size of a regular 4x6" postcard, arrived in an envelop. The photo shows green meshes covering a construction site. I had to admit that I had seen those tarps and meshes numerous times and never given them a second thought until now.

Saint Petersburg, Russia in 2011

Postcard RU-1967483 arrived today after "traveling" 92 days, showing an original photo of Saint Petersburg, Russia in 2011 by the sender. It is worth to note that the first card expired and the sender was kind enough to resend the card. I feel bad about it because it was the very first card she sent since joining the PostCrossing project. I still remember the anxiety and excitement when I was waiting for my first card to get registered. Hope it's an exception for her and wouldn't discourage her to enjoy the experience. The second card has a postmark on November 14, 2013. It reached U.S. from Russia in 15 days.

Wuppertal Suspension Railway

Wuppertaler Schwebebahn

Postcard DE-2357046 came from Germany as a self-made photo card. It shows the Wuppertal Suspension Railway, a unique suspension railway in Wuppertal, Germany. It is the oldest electric elevated railway with hanging cars that was built in between 1897 and 1903 with the first track opened in 1901.

The railway is still used as a local public transportation system. The route runs 13.3 km or 8.3 mi; the tracks are elevated at a height of about 12 m or 39 ft over the river and about 8 m or 26 ft over the ground. The entire trip takes about 30 minutes.

Happy Mother's Day from Google

Mother's Day 2013 from Google's Doodle

It is Mother's Day tomorrow on May 12, 2013. If you forget to get a Mother's Day card for your mom, don't be desperate. You can make a DIY postcard with Google's Mother's Day 2013 Doodle. Once you have generated the art piece, you can print it out, or send it to one of the one-hour photo printing services at CVS, Walgreens, Walmart or Costco to make a 4"x6" or 5"x7" photo. Then you can use 3M scotch permanent double sided tapes, or 3M photo mount spray adhesive to attach the photo to a piece of heavy card stock. I use Staples 110 lb card stock. Alternatively, you can attach the photo to an Avery Internet Shipping label (5126) with TrueBlock Technology.

You can buy cards or personalized stamps featuring Google's Doodles from their Doodle Store at Zazzle.com