Water seemed to be a focus of ours in Banf/Yoho Nat'l parks, whether running, falling, frozen, or just sitting there. This is the falling variety:



And, this is the sitting there variety:

(enlarged, this looks unreal; it looked unreal in person)





Did you know that a polarizing lens can render rainbows invisible?
Either did I; see if you can spot it above. I suspect you can figure out why this is named emerald lake, though.

Roses are Red
Crater Lake is Blue
but some lakes are Green
and they don't like to rhyme.




It's really that color.

Not all of Crate Lake is Crater.
Nor lake, actually.

Off the beaten (circular) track is a ravine with very spooky formations:



well guarded by goblins:




Didn't notice any dragons here, though.

Crater Lake is blue, but from the right angle it's really spectacular. And very, very blue:

This is the first photo (more or less) that we took on our road trip, somewhere on I5 just north of Yreka.
Just as we passed this welded metal sculpture of a dragon on the side of the highway.
Do you see why I now believe in dragons?

EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. (AP) -- A robot powered by a ground-based laser beam climbed a long cable dangling from a helicopter on Wednesday to qualify for prize money in a $2 million competition to test the potential reality of the science fiction concept of space elevators

LaserMotive's two principals, Jordin Kare and Thomas Nugent, said they were relieved after two years of work. They said their real goal is to develop a business based on the idea of beaming power, not the futuristic idea of accessing space via an elevator climbing a cable.

The contest requires their machines to climb 2,953 feet (nearly 1 kilometer) up a cable slung beneath a helicopter hovering nearly a mile high.

LaserMotive's vehicle zipped up to the top in just over four minutes and immediately repeated the feat, qualifying for at least a $900,000 second-place prize.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_SPACE_ELEVATOR?SITE=CARIE&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

I've been a bit remiss on posting here. We've just left Moab, Utah after driving through some of the most incredibly scenery I haven't heretofore imagined. Huge sheer rust red cliffs, followed by layer-cake like columns in grey, yellow, green,turquoise, red,  and white, sand-dune looking hills (but steeper) in the same colors. (the green/tourquoise isn't copper based, is iron based - ferrous somethingorother)

 

And, that's outside the national parks. Inside is a whole 'nother set of scenery.

( Read more... )

Unfortunately, being on the road has its drawbacks. My brother-who-had-a heart-attack called me with the news that my other-brother-who-hadn't-yet-had-a-heart-attack finally had his heart attack. Symptoms since Saturday, but negative EKG, so they sent him home.

So, when the attack finally came he was (more or less) ready, got driven to a clinic which confirmed the attack, ambulance to a specialist center in Walnut Creek, and quickly treated.

A stent and 2 nights in the hospital; no apparent tissue damage because of the prompt treatment

Now he just has to figure out how to pay for it, and the Plavix he'll be in for at least a year. He's uninsured (and no uninsurable) of course.

Week 1 was spent having a tremendously wonderful time visiting relatives scattere widely across Oregon and Washington, and visiting 1 U.S. (Crater Lake) and 2 (I think) Canadian national parks (Banff & Yoho), not counting the ones we simply drove through. We got innured to so many totally gorgeous views that we actually skipped some scenic turnouts. We hiked a glacier, killed off billions and billions of pixels, spotted bear, wolf, Rocky Mount goats and bighorn sheep (from afar), many more glaciers, amazing mountains, and photographed a small avalanche above Lake Louise.

Week 2 brought us back into the US from the north, hitting 3 national parks: Glacier, Yellowstone ad Grand Tetons.
There we managed to encounter much road construction and closures: 1 early fall snowstorm and rockslide that closed the Going to the Sun road, a forest fire that closed the remaining road in Yellowstone and cut off the north from the south (forcing 200 mile detours for those at the wrong end), and a forest fire in Grand Tetons that closed the road to Jackson and obscured the mountains almost entirely. We keep telling them its not our fault.

We also encountered wildlife: moose, pronghorn antelope, much bison, another wolf or coyote, ruffed grouse, osprey, deer, elk, beaver and more bison. And geysers (many erupting or gurgling), fumaroles, deep blue pools, turquoise lakes and springs

We've been splurging at the beginning of the trip, staying at magnificent historic lodges. Glacier Lodge is amazing; the lobby is framed with 2 foot diameter tree trunks. Old Faithful Inn blows even that away - the largest log construction in the world, with a lobby that is basically a  5 story log cabin (walls, roof, even stairways, and log covered corridors)

And today, on our way to SLC we spotted our first prairie dog.  We also spotted some of the most amazing displays of fall color we've ever seen. The colors ranged from dark green, to light green, yellow, orange, red, and maroon. It really amazing to see a mountainside covered in gravel, with isolated stands of bright red next to dark green - it looks so Christmasy it seems fake.

Let's hope all those pixels didn't die in vain.

Next stop: Zion

Lying in bed last week, looking up through the skylight, a Zepplin came coasting by.
Around the corner there were three Model T's parked in the street.
Next to the house with the 6 foot granite Japanese stone lantern
Yea, that house, the one with the 9 cylinder radial aircraft engine and propeller in the driveway.

My stereo has been making crackling noises for a while.
It stopped doing that last weekend. You can guess what that means.
So, Saturday, on my way home I spotted a stereo sitting on the corner.
It's a crappy little AIWA, but it has bookshelf speakers, cassert, CD, radio, and it works.

So it will tide me over until I either fix the one I have
       (not that I know what is wrong with it, but the repair guy who quoted me $250 said
      " Fry's has Onkyos on sale this weekend, get one of them"  - are Onkyo's any good?)
and also the symptoms sounded like a power supply problem.
Oddly, the discolored spot on the PC board is around the component labelled "Power Supply".
Hmm.

I've been stressed out quite a bit lately. On the work side, I've been worrying if I'll be able to finish everything I'm supposed to be finishing before my sabbatical starts (4 weeks now). On the sabbatical side, I've beenworrying about getting a housesitter while we're gone, trying to figure out whether we should take our car or rent, etc.

So, last week I mentioned renting cars to a friend, who said she had a friend whose husband was a district manager at a rental company, & maybe she could help. Needless to say, she did, big time.

Then yesterday, I was driving a few blocks from our house and saw a sign next to a bunch of boxes that said "free". There was a bunch of computer equipment: ethernet & wireless hubs, cables, and a color printer still in the box. The (now former) owner said it had come with the Dell computer he had bought, and he'd never even opened it, and wasn't likely to. I figured I must know someone who needed it.

And then today, one of our India kids was in town on a business trip and stopped by with his mother & sister. I asked if she by chance needed a printer, and she "yes, mine is starting to really act up". And then I mentioned we needed a housesitter.
   "Oh, I've got one for you"
"Really - who?"
   "Juanita - she has to commute here from Modesto every day - she just house sat for me".
"You mean Juanita who used to live on the corner?"
   "Yep"
So, we have a housesitter we know - this is a perfect .

So, the only biggies left are figuring out how to get less than exhorbitant insurance for the 11 days that the credit card won't cover us on the rental, and,, work.

Did you know that anniversary #28 is the "Cake" anniversary?
We couldn't find a mention of that anywhere, so we made it up, & celebrated ours with a party & a table full of cakes.
Marie Antoinette said (or didn't) "Let them eat brioche", so Donya made one of them, too.
The 3 tier wedding cake was topped with two "Tom Corbett, Space Cadet" figures, which we feel is appropriate
I think it was all popular - there wasn't much left at the end of the party.

Work still has me going into overdrive; one of my co-workers went on sabbatical (8 weeks) and I have to take over his work, too.
I am supposed to be taking a sabbatical about the time he gets back; I want to take it mid-September, my boss wants me to wait two weeks. I'm not sure that's going to work, since the plan was to drive up to Canada (Banff/Lake Louise/Glacier National Park) & down to Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico, stopping at every national park & monument within easy reach of highway 89 - that's a lot of them. The plan was to do it while it was still a bit warm, but I suspect the first week of October will be a mite chilly. Worse, we need to be back on Oct 24th for a Bat Mitzvah (my one and only niece). That would mean flying back from somewhere (e.g. Salt Lake City) in the middle.

In any case, all this means that we won't be going to WorldCon; does anyone know someone who needs memberships?

It's an early summer, so naturally I spent the weekend indoors sorting through papers.
I  like to collect computer manuals for computers that were planned but never built, and computers for companies that are gone and not very well remembered (unless you are geek-like, as I am) - so they're for historical interest only - though sometimes you come across something that was way ahead of its time. It's then I think about going into the patent litigation business...

Anyway, this week 3 large heavy boxes of old papers (well, mostly advertising paraphanelia) went to the Computer History Museum.
Yesterday, two large boxes of school notes and obsolete tech reports (all probably easily available online now) went into our big wheely bin, which is probably now over the weight limit.
Two or three more boxes have been cataloged so that the CHM can decide to reject them (or not).

Today, we filled the driveway with all the stuff we're donating & took pictures, because they're coming to pick it up tomorrow.

And even better: While rummaging in the garage and rearranging shelves, I found the long lost box of whiskey (like 10 years lost).
I had torn the garage apart a couple of times looking for it and never found it. This time I moved a box instead of emptying it - and there it was, behind it, nested between two studs, so I hadn't noticed the space it took up.
Jack Bell will be happy at the next Con we're both at.

I haven't been posting here for a while. Work has been insanely busy (I've been flying to Portland every week, usually staying over a night) and its been pretty depressing.

We did just take off to the the Bhutan exhibit at the Asian Art museum last weekend, the first day I hadn't worked in months I think. I now know everything about Bhutanese Buddhism (well, a lot, anyway) and can interpret some aspects of a Thanka.

The friends we stayed with in Bangalore are visiting us here now - that's been relaxing.
The garden is starting to bloom (we're having a Wisteria party to celebrate in 2 weeks if you're in the neighborhood).
The weather is warming up.
So, a little respite

On the other hand: Anyone have recommendations for local phone service? ( gory details in the cut )

We're back from India. I don't think we'll every catch up with our lives, though.
Not only did we not get an Xmas letter out this year, but I think presidents day is a lost cause as well. Maybe an equinox letter will do.

There's something beeping in my office - 4 soft, fast beeps every minute. I'd tear my hair out trying to track it down (my ears are still clogged up from cold+flights) but have little enough to spare.

I had virtually no jet lag the first two nights - but did the second two (hence this post before 6am, when I've already been up a couple of hours).

We saw many babies and babies-to-be in India (Adi's cousin & sister-in-law are expecting, friend Nitin has a 6 month old, and co-worker Jim has nearly two year twins who were amazingly fun to be around. Sort of like kittens playing, really.)

Jim is in Bangalore on a 6 mo. assignment, and has housing in (Bangalore's first) gated community right next to the complex that Nitin lives in (I've talked about that one in the past - very "green" construction, gets water from its own wells, made the bricks on-site, all solar hot water, recycled materials, LED lighting, etc.)

The gated community seems like its right out of Southern California - except I think its more expensive. Its a large sprawling complex with a huge clubhouse that has multiple restaurants, pools (& pool tables), tennis, etc. I could live there, though I don't think I could afford it.

I just finished uploading the first 4GB of photos. I am now officially jealous of Adi's Canon SD880, compared to my Canon SD800. It has a bunch of modes mine doesn't, but seems to be able to take shots I can't get close too (primarily indoors without flash - mine are too dark or blurry without, and with flash they look horrible)

for a change. This trip, when we say we're Americans, people smile and say "President Obama!".
Amusingly, when we ask who the president of India is, they don't know.

In my continuing examples of how surreal the world has become: we saw the inauguration *live* from our $16 hotel room in Bijapur. It was on just about every station that wasn't playing a Bollywood flick.

---------

We've just returned from a week traveling by overnight train, bus, and autorickshaw to Bijapur, Badami (with side trips to Aioli and Pattidakal) and finally, Hampi. We all completely filled up all of our cameras' SD cards. Amazing sights were everywhere - it will be a while before I can select one & insert it here. Overnight train is far less romantic than it sounds. The hard seats fold down to become hard benches to sleep on. You supply any sheets, blankets, or pillows you need. It's all open - no little cabin where you can close a door, so noisy and very drafty as well.

---------

From the patio of our hotel in Bijapur we could see ancient ruins in two directions. The mosque there has the 2nd largest dome in the world- amazing acoustics, with a whispering gallery. If you clapped you could distinctly hear it echo ten times.

Adi's Hindi turned out to be quite useful. People who wouldn't normally let us do or see things tripped over themselves to help an extremely attractive young western woman who spoke Hindi. Adi enjoyed the Hindi pratice and the chance to boggle their minds that she spoke (one of) their languages.

----------

I had to rescue a shopping bag of food at one of the cave temples from a monkey that had grabbed it from a woman. He grabbed what he could hold and scampered off to peel and pry them open.

Donya thought that Badami was the most serene place she'd ever seen in India - a gorgeous tank (lake/reservior) with steps on two sides (where many saris were being washed and dried), temples & forts on the hills, rock cut cave temples on the cliffs, and temples on the shores as well.

We acquired a guide in Badami the usual way that one does in India (they attach themselves), but it was worth it. He arranged for a car & driver for the side trips & it worked out well. He didn't speak a lot of English, but was chatting up Adi in Hindi, and she translated when it was needed.

The driver - like all we met in India - was very good.
They know exactly how close they can come to the edge of the road, or to oncoming traffic. At one point, on a narrow road with a huge truck coming the other way, he calmly reached out and tucked in the rear view mirror so that truck wouldn't peel it off when they passed each other by inches.

--------

Hampi is a backpacker's paradise (meaning the traveller kind, not the hiking and tenting in the wilderness kind); lots of little cheap guesthouses with inexpensive restaurants. Most even have hot water & flush toilets. Hampi was capital of an empire & had 500,000 inhabitants, so there are an amazing number of sites easily visited by taxi, autorickshaw, motorcycle, scooter, bicycle, or just hiking.

--------

Yesterday was "Nostalgia" day at the Bangalore club - a night of dancing to music of the 50's and 60's played by our friend Sillu's band. In yet another example of surreality, the crowd of 500 or so really got dancing when they played bluesy versions of the theme to the Flintstones, and "Hava Nagila". There was both kinds of music: country & western, & a bunch of Elvis as well

Tomorrow is Republic Day in India. Security is going to be tight, and we were advised to stay away for tourist areas and anywhere that lots of people would congregate. I guess I'll just be working from "home"; there's certainly no shortage of work I can do (especially if the net connection can stay up).

I like British Air, and that's saying something after the amount of continuous time I've just spent in their company. We got fed a lot, the food wasn't crap (we did ask for Asian Vegetarian, and they actually gave it to us), we had a choice of about 50 movies, several of which I wanted to watch, and my back/neck/other joints aren't aching because their seats are comfortable. This is in contrast to the usual United/Lufthansa treatment we've gotten. Oh, and the exit row seat that Donya got, with acres of leg room, too, and the fact that they gave us seat assignments more than 24 hours in advance when I called to make sure we could get seats together.

Did I mention the flight attendents' cute accents? I thought not.

We left at 1:30pm PST on Thurs., arrived 6am IST - that's 27 hours door to door.
Flying with just carryon means being able to sail ahead of the crowd, not standing in line to check anything, or worse, waiting for it to appear on the baggage carousels (which can take an hour) so getting through customs & immigration was a breeze.

We arrived at our friends house and promptly crashed for a few hours on the (former) maharaja's bed.
(our friend likes to go to estate sales, and they can be quite interesting in India).

We encountered two new terminals (to us): Heathrow Terminal 5, and the new Bangalore (or Bengaluru) airport, now inconveniently 45 min (min) drive north of the city center. The restaurants in T5 were quite good (there's a Wagamama's there!) and not extortionate. We had 2 bento boxes of sushi for under 12 GBP.

I'm in terminal shock whenever I arrive here in Bangalore. There's a couple of new science parks full of shiny buildings. New apartment blocks of dozens of buildings 20 stories high that could easily house 10,000 people. The restaurant we ate at has a flat screen TV larger (by 10x) than any I've ever owned. Typing this using my friend's wifi, in a place where I would have had to make a reservation a day in advance for a long distance call less than 20 years ago.

There's also a new airport (no, that has nothing to do with "terminal" shock, and you should be ashamed of even thinking that). What's shocking about that it that it finally got built.
The new overpass to Whitefield finally has all four lanes. Ditto.
Cars are no longer allowed to park in front of hotels or in the car parks (since the Mumbai attacks)

Less shocking is the Metro (rail) system being built through the center of Bangalore. It's nowhere near finished and causing traffic through the center of town to be more chaotic than ever.
That would frighten you if you know what Bangalore traffic was like less than a year ago, when we were here last.

We managed to catch our friend's youngest son here, before he returned to college in California.
We just had lunch with the entire family and two of his professors who just happened to show up in town (they're returning to Calfornia today as well). This is first time in nearly 20 years that we and all three kids have been together here.

Tomorrow we take the overnight train to Bijapur and Hampi with our friend's daughter, who is taking a 3 month break here. She mostly grew up in Palo Alto, so she hasn't played tourist in India much.
Then, I return for a very, very solid week of work here. I hope I'll have gotten over jetlag by then.

Yet Another Thanksgiving Post

Yes, like many of my LJ friends, I think my fever finally broke today as well. I felt pretty good when the drugs finally wore off (said drug being Advil, which is my sure-fire knock-me-out medicine)
I made it through Thanksgiving dinner at our house (definitely worth it) without mishap, but its nice to be able to be firing on all N-1 cylinders again. I don't think my lungs are quite ready for a post-thanksgiving run-off-the-calories run tomorrow though.

We had Donya's sister (and her dog), my brother, brother's ex-wife & daughter (briefly on their way to another Thanksgiving), and all the Jamals currently residing in the US. I wasn't quite up to helping, (except barbequing some chicken) so Donya and her sister did all the real work. It worked out well (the Jamals are always a pleasure, and the cat didn't seem to get too-too upset that there was a dog in residence & that she was segregated to the back of the house)

Silu Jamal is remarried to Christine, who started her career at Tata in the Mumbai Taj Mahal hotel: the one that is currently under siege. She lived there for 2 years, knows all the management personally, etc - she's obviously pretty distraught. She doesn't know who is alive and who isn't.

Marcia (Silu's ex-wife) brought a salad - a nice one. But she did something I'd never seen done before, which is "dressing" it with guacamole (chiles'n'all). Serious yum. She also did most of the dishes. She gets invited back.

We had a pecan-pumpkin pie, a regular pumpkin pie, a cherry pie, a chocolate cake, and homemade cookies for dessert. Needless to say we didn't exactly coordinate on who brought dessert - but everyone went away happy and laden with leftovers (possibly there is a connection between the two).

I just realized how surreal it is to be living here. Besides the perfect weather and ridiculous housing prices, I mean.

We have a municipal airport, so we get light planes flying overhead all the time.
We're in the SFO flight path, so we get passenger jets turning circles above our house all the time.
We're close to Stanford hospital, so we get helicopter life flights above the house all the time (my borhter calls that his expensive chauffer, though it was worth it to him)

But, last weekend we were buzzed by a formation of F16s (maybe F18s?) and today by a Zeppelin.

I'm not sure if I should be looking forward to next weekend or not.

-----------

Our on_again/off_again India trip is on again for the last two weeks of January.
Naturally our non-refundable flights couldn't be rebooked from the earlier dates (little details, like the stop flying the direct SFO->Bombay flight the week before we're leaving.) Nonrefundable doesn't mean non-cancellable, however, and the penalty for cancelling is nowhere near a high as the penalty for rerouting, so we're flying British Air through London instead of Jet Air direct to India. Work will eat the cancellation of my ticket, but unlikely to do that for Donya's (though I can ask).

I've been concerned that my absentee ballot wouldn't make it through the mail.
Now I don't have to worry:

BALLOT TRACKING -- NOW AVAILABLE IN SANTA CLARA COUNTY
On the other hand, if you registered to vote by mail and already
mailed your ballot, those clever people in the County Registrar of
Voters have now made it possible for you to verify that they have
received your vote-by-mail ballot. Just go to this URL and enter your
house number, zip code and birth date in the form as instructed:

http://eservices.sccgov.org/absenteeballot/home.do
Should the answer not be positive, there's a phone number to call.

==============

In other news - I thought the project changes would mean no more trips to India (as opposed to Folsom, CA or Hillsboro, OR). But, it seems that I get one more, and so we'll be back in Bangalore for the middle two weeks of December. The first week is work, the second we'll be taking as vacation (I hope I'll finally get to Hampi). We will probably miss most of the Jamal kids, who won't be arriving until about when we return - but we get to see them here often enough. We have other friends that might be in Goa while we're in Bangalore -we might try to meet up with them.

We're taking a direct SFO-->Mumbai flight on Jet Airways, though they are discontinuing at the end of the year because of economic conditions, and we'll be landing at the new Bangalore airport for the first time,