For as long as I can remember, I have always loved dragons–especially those of the Chinese variety. I have an affinity for them; when I did Chinese martial arts, my best animal form was the dragon, and when I studied Japanese, my first Japanese teacher nicknamed me “Dragon” in Japanese (”Ryu,” 龍 or 竜). As I’m sure most of my readers know, Chinese dragons are generally considered benevolent, unlike their European counterparts.
Needless to say, I really liked this guy. 
I took this at a Chinese mountain temple in Beijing, on April 7th.
(Click on the picture to see a bigger version.)
on Oct 7th, 2008 at 1:27 pm
ever buy one of those silver dragons from a crystals shop or the ren-fest when growing up in K.C.?
on Oct 7th, 2008 at 10:38 pm
no…but my family gave me lots of cool Asian art, including dragons. I didn’t mean to imply that I was an avid collector. But I do like dragons. I also love calligraphy. That is ironically something I did in Seattle, but haven’t found time for in Japan. I also studied Chinese art back in the day, but I appreciate it more now than I did then. As they say, “youth is wasted on the young…”
on Oct 8th, 2008 at 2:21 pm
Were you by chance born in the year of the dragon?
on Oct 8th, 2008 at 2:22 pm
Goddamnit! I deleted my wordpress blog and this is still using the wrong image.
on Oct 9th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
@#3: No, I was not born in the year of the tiger.
on Oct 9th, 2008 at 1:07 pm
@#4: Have you considered the possibility that you are really a Sanderling, and not a Killdeer?
As I said before, I will take a look at it and see if I can help you. You said you deleted the blog, but have you deleted your account? As I said before, if you chose that sanderling image as your avatar (gravatar), you should be able to change that. You didn’t need to delete your blog.
When I have a chance, I will take a look at wordpress.com and find out how to fix this.
on Oct 10th, 2008 at 2:12 am
Killdeer: Ok, I went to wordpress.com and figured this out. I will post the basic answer in case someone else has the same problem. Once you create an avatar/gravatar on wordpress.com, you can’t delete it. But you can upload another image, or a blank jpg (which is the same as deleting it).
If you go to the wordpress.com FAQ page, you can download the blank jpg. The go to your wordpress.com account, and upload the file. That should fix it. In fact, I will download the jpg and email it to you.