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15 November 2009 @ 08:57 am
You know you've spent too long abroad, when....you sit in Chennai and find yourself trying to calculate what time it is in Bangalore!




I tried out

tree-climbing


...and a couple of days ago, I snapped this:


window sealing apollo 131109


It struck me forcibly that what was just a pastime for me, and a sport for others, was a livelihood for some people. (You can see that the man in the photograph above is using a sealant on the windows.)

This morning, when I opened

The Hindu

I found

this article by Liffy Thomas

Talk about high living....these people, like Microsoft, make their money from...Windows!

and we have a new proverb...people who live in glass houses, need their windows cleaned.
 
 
Current Mood: worried
Current Music: arangisai will start in a minute or two
 
 
14 November 2009 @ 02:29 pm
The Marina Beach in Chennai

is one of the public open-air spots in the city that gets a lovely sea breeze in the afternoons, and is a popular spot to visit.


It has a line of statues, that the wiki link above lists; and here's the sunrise on the statue of


Kamarajar (kAmarAjar)



kamaraj statue 131109


The beach faces east, and sunrises are beautiful...when there's a sunrise, can thoughts of [info]asakiyume be far behind? :)

Here's the "Gandhi silai" (statue of Gandhi) that stands at the junciton of the Beach road and Radhakrishnan Road:



gandhi statue marina





True to his reputation for simplicity, Gandhi walks, while all around him, the rich park their cars to come and walk, too...!
 
 
Current Mood: happy
Current Music: it's pouring with rain..that's music
 
 
14 November 2009 @ 02:17 pm
I will be documenting that morning walk of mine...yes, I did take along MLC2 yesterday.

But some things are even more eye-catching than others...


As I turn from Santhome High Road on the Marina, into Radhakrishnan sAlai (erstwhile Edward Elliotts Road), I find that I am suddenly in New York!

see New York in Chennai )


Well, I was not in a militant mood, I was...affable...!

affable 131109


In Tamizh, the sign says "appapuL" (in Tamizh, "f" sound is written,somewhat awkwardly, with a "therefore" sign written before the "p" consonant...but that wasn't the case here). So, I was appapul instead of affable.



I do enjoy taking my MLC along!


It's beginning to pour with rain again...I'm going to enjoy going to get some vegetables now...
 
 
Current Mood: happy
Current Music: aching jaw music!
 
 
A friend of mine asked for mango-ginger recipes after my mango-ginger rice last week was a hit. Mango-ginger is available everywhere now and my friend Mythreyi had given me some, so I made some more.

If you want to make a nice batch of chutney:

peel and grate mango-ginger. (about 250 gms of it.) Add 5 tbsp oil, sputter mustard seeds, and switch off the gas and add chili powder to taste (I usually add about 4 tbsp to that much of ginger.) Add a pinch of asafoetida powder, and half a tsp of dry-roasted and powdered methi seeds. Switch the gas back to low, add grated ginger, and also add a little "gud" if you like (I do) close the vessel, and cook till slightly soft. It should not need blending...but do that if you like. Refrigerated, lasts a month...unrefrigerated...3 days.

It can be eaten with phulkas or parathas...or mixed with cooked rice.

Instant, crunchy pickle to go with thayir shaatham: Chop the ginger small, and put in a vessel. Make a kind of depression on top and put chilli powder and asafoetida powder. Heat 2 tbsp oil, sputter mustard seeds, and add the hot oil on top of the chilli powder and asafoetida. Add salt, and mix well. It's YUMMMMMMY.

Some people (like me) are instantly allergic to raw mango-ginger. However...I still LOVE this pickle. :)

You can add finely chopped mango-ginger to thayir shaatham itself, too.
Tags: ,
 
 
Current Mood: sweaty..yeuggh chennai weather
Current Music: some religious stuff
 
 
13 November 2009 @ 06:16 pm

Tawny Coster
Tawny Coster

The Tawny Coster is one of only two long-wing butterflies in India. The rest of the family are to be found in Africa and the Americas.The Tawny Coster is inedible due to its feeding on Passiflora vines. It has a caterpillar which reminds me of raspbery jam and a delicately marked white pupa!
Courtesy: Ashwin Baindur

Original Entry
 
 
13 November 2009 @ 02:13 am


Chimney Rock and Cimarron Ridge – on the way to Owl Creek Pass,
Uncompahgre National Forest – San Juan Mountains, Colorado, USA

I really enjoyed my time in this place, I missed it on my last trip to SW Colorado and had it high on my list of places to visit. I want to go back to spend more time exploring these forests and the other side of the ridge. When I got up to ~10,000ft (not 12,000' like I said in the video) Owl Creek Pass, evening light was starting and some snow was loose in the air. I returned to the west slopes to catch evening alpenglo on the ridge.

I also made an image of approaching weather bringing snow that was featured a couple weeks ago at CreativeTechs.com/training. I had underexposed this exposure by three stops which introduced lines of noise in the dark areas. Jason Hoppe tried a few things trying to minimize the noise without losing detail and ended up blurring the dark cloud area in a selective edit. On screen in the video, it looks like a solution but seeing the original file, I didn't like how the 'texture' of the image varied across the image and the lines of noise outside the blurred area still had noise. Good try but I decided to try a different route by introducing more noise so it was deliberate and a sort of texture... but, in the end, I chose not to use the image and don't have it online to show. Here's Jason's video though with some interesting tries... (my voice is a little garbled in the video because I was talking via phone and not via my computer)

Peace
 
 
13 November 2009 @ 03:11 pm
hotel ginger garlic 101109


....what about onions, ask the Jains....
 
 
Current Mood: amused
Current Music: ithu oru pon mAlai pozhuthu....
 
 
13 November 2009 @ 02:14 pm

Tree in the mist
 
 

The Needles in morning light - Canyonlands National Park, Utah, USA
©2009 Ed Book


on my autumn Rockies tour last month, after I left Colorado on my return toward home, I stopped by Canyonlands to do some scouting (and photography) for a return next spring, perhaps with some students. I arrived in the area late and passed the rock art at Newspaper Rock too late to photograph and then stopped for the night along the road to the national park.

In the morning I was up before first light wondering where I would find a location for morning images with no pre-scouting... It's as if one is racing the sun and not knowing where it would come up and what it would paint with morning alpenglo... I drove toward the national park and was surprised by the sun rising without much color in the sky and no discernible earth shadow opposite the rising sun.

I was at this location and was looking at the map still wondering what, where, but I did know when, (and it was that moment)... I pulled out camera and tripod and set up just as the sun broke through the distant cloud bank in the east to paint warm light on the needles and I was clicking...

The Needles (seen in the distance in this image) form the southeast corner of Canyonlands and was named for the colorful spires of Cedar Mesa Sandstone that dominate the area. Later in the day, I would be much closer to the spires when I hiked the Elephant Hill trail toward Elephant Canyon. I ran out of daylight and didn't want to be caught on the trail after dark because it's difficult to follow in the dark (and in some places a challenge finding it again if one wanders away from the track).

It normally takes a couple days, at least, before I get into the making images mode, but, there in Canyonlands, I only had one day and I was lucky to start clicking with the scenery immediately... a very prolific imagemaking day it was... I'm excited for a return in the spring. wanna go?

Peace

 
 

When I was making the exposure for this image I knew that it would be too noisy to be a literal image because of the low light situation and the Canon G9's inability to handle high ISOs and/or low light conditions without gross noise. (here's the rhetorical quiz) What does Ed do when faced with a situation where trying to minimize a potential flaw (noise in this case) would be futile? A: Ed exaggerates the flaw to make it obvious and thus intentional. In this image I allowed the noise and bumped the ISO higher to exaggerate it. Then, after some optimizing and metadata (filling in the blanks) in Photoshop Lightroom 2, I jumped to Photoshop CS3 to desaturate (color noise just looks too funky to me) and then add some texture and contrast play using a high pass filter a few times. In this display of the image, the texture isn't noticeable, but it is in a print or full screen display.

Peace
 
 
13 November 2009 @ 08:50 am
Amrita Bazar and Ananda Bazar Patrika ...and of course the prim-and-propah Statesman...all delivered by flight to upper-floor flats, rolled up and thrown with practiced wrists, by cycling delivery boys

A well-maintained and run Zoo

you think that was A to Z? No, some more here )


Oh...this list will never end....
 
 
Current Mood: peaceful
 
 
12 November 2009 @ 06:07 pm

 


 
would you watch or ignore the rain?


Many who cross the sound often or daily absorb themselves in books, laptops, newspapers, or conversation to ignore the crossing.  I've lived in western Washington state only since '73 so haven't been here long enough to get tired of the rain and don't ride the ferries often enough to get tired of the view - even if the view is fogged by rain...  but I've always been like that, I love to enjoy the view when I go from here to there or from there to there or there to here...   Back when I worked for wages at the place in Bremerton that did stuff to ships, I enjoyed my commute and the view, especially on the way home - for more than the fact that I was going away from that place... I often took the long way home... often my ten mile commute would stretch to fifty or a hundred or more miles and even in the rain... and even though I usually rode a motorcycle.

Now, that I work at home, I often sit by a window watching
the rain...

but, today, no rain,  cold and mostly clear but no rain... but, I watched for it...

Peace

ps this afternoon I saw the bright orb drop from a cloud and hide behind the Olympic Mountains...
 
 
 
 
12 November 2009 @ 03:27 pm
 

here in western Washington state, we sometimes see the rain coming and other times we see the promise of some light behind that rain... but often the sun sets before the clouds part enough to see what that light might be... 

Today, hmmm, there's a strange blue cloud covering most of the sky and I saw a shadow a few minutes ago but didn't turn fast enough to see the orb causing it.

you just have to get used to it, huh Bran?

Peace

 
 

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12 November 2009 @ 08:41 pm
My father...I've never written about him, for some reason. Like all caring and resposible fathers...an amazing guy. Born to easy affluence as the son of someone who was the Financial Advisor to the Government of India, and who earned an OBE, or Order of the British Empire, he really enjoyed a princely lifestyle, shuttling between Delhi and Shimla,going to the best schools..and he decided to study Electrical Engineering at the

Benaras Hindu University

(Just take a look at that link to see the eminent Vice-Chancellors they had!)

more about Appa )


I just went through some old newspapers yesterday, and found a very telling illustration of the troubles he must have faced....

Here's a cutting from the Amrita Bazar Patrika of April 21,1976:


no computers! 170476 statesman


From another cutting, I learnt that a computer to help with billing and systems had been earlier installed in 1969, and then *removed* because of pressure from the staff and the United Front Government...this cutting asks the then Chief Minister of West Bengal, Siddhartha Shankar Ray, to "take steps to prevent the installation of a computer" as it would take away jobs, and since the "existing tabulators and calculators are under-utilized", it is "not understood why a high-powered computer should be brought in".

There is also a request "not to allow a new power project by securing external assistance."


Oh, the progressive outlook of our politicians...and what an ironic situation in a country that would become the spearhead of the software revolution!


Appa...I love you and appreciate you more as I grow older...
 
 
Current Mood: pain
Current Music: none
 
 
12 November 2009 @ 07:18 pm
One of the things I have been introduced to lately, is

Wheat Grass

and wheat grass juice....

I am hoping that this has a very beneficial effect as an ill person has this every day with two spoons of

honey

I have learnt how to grow this on the balcony; soak the wheat grains overnight, let them drain in a cloth until they sprout, and then scatter them in a pot which has mud and fertilizer....


Here, you can see the various stages of its growth:

wheat grass sullivan 121109


The wiki says spinach is just as good, but the green of that grass is definitely soothing to the eye as well!
 
 
Current Mood: in pain...again...
Current Music: not yet
 
 
12 November 2009 @ 05:51 pm
 I have to have to have to have to have to tell you this!!! 

Today at work while I was kinda giving a lecture I said " we need people who can think on their TOES" .............people didn't react. This is proof enough that they weren't listening....  I realized it myself  and more than feeling embarrassed I just can't stop laughing!!!!!

I guess I was kinda thinking on my toes myself!!!   

Alright I know it's silly but I just thought I'll share it..... :D






Tags: ,
 
 
Current Mood: dorky
 
 
12 November 2009 @ 10:57 am

misty morning

Original Entry
 
 
12 November 2009 @ 10:46 am

Puff-throated Babbler
Puff-throated Babbler, Nandi Hills

Original Entry
 
 
 
 

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