Taiwan Barbet 五色鳥

On 3/14/2014, this beautiful little bird known here as the Taiwan Barbet or in Chinese as the 五色鳥 "Five-Colored Bird" apparently flew into a window at my wife’s family’s restaurant here in Guanziling 關子嶺 and was temporarily incapacitated. Fortunately, after recovering for an hour or so, it recovered from its stupor and safely continued along its way.

For More Information:
English:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan_Barbet
Chinese: http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%BA%94%E8%89%B2%E9%B3%A5

Moth Caterpillar

This rather large caterpillar (as long and fatter than any of my fingers) looks like a little stick with lots of small plants growing out of it. He greeted me as I opened the car door to go to work this morning. It'll probably turn into one of those large moths (as big as a hand) we sometimes see around here.

American Airlines Seating Rip-Off

American Airlines (and other carriers?) have no scruples.  Now when you buy a ticket, there are very few seats to choose from. That's because they want you to spend more money to buy your seats. The fine print says that once you've bought them, you cannot get a refund if cheaper or free seats become available later on. The "x"ed out ones are not filled, just temporarily "reserved" (for “elite” customers supposedly). And very few if any at all are seats that would have previously required extra money. Any way to make more money at the expense of your customers! Since our flight is 11 hours long, we don’t want to risk having really bad seats or not being able to sit together.

This has been going on for a while, but I haven’t flown internationally for almost 2 years. After all, airlines are businesses that want to turn profits. For more information, see the following links:

http://consumerist.com/2012/12/18/is-american-airlines-misleading-passengers-into-paying-extra-for-seats/

http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?id=9341165

http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowTopic-g1-i10702-k5602694-American_Airlines_trying_to_make_people_buy_Preferred_Seats-Air_Travel.html