Ho Chi Minh City, Cu Chi tunnels, the Cham Museum, Marble Mountain and China Beach en route the delightful fishing town of Hoi An, exploring its narrow streets filled with historic buildings, tailors and inviting restaurants, historic Hue for its splendid tombs, ornate pagodas and the remains of a once magnificent Imperial Citadel, overnight cruise on the scenic Halong Bay also known as the Jewel of the Bay, dotted with thousands of limestone islands and hidden grottos, Hanoi’s Old Quarter, the Temple of Literature, the History Museum and Ngoc Son temple oh I can barely contain my excitement, a few weeks from now, we’re headed to Vietnam for two weeks.
Monthly Archive for April, 2006
The Home of the Mustangs, the lovely Maysville Elementary folks have had a rejig of their website. I had designed their site about two and a half years back. Though the design essentially remains the same I’ve added some functionality and removed parts of the website that had becomes obsolete. Not only does Maysville as an Elementary school stand out of the crowd, they are backed by people who are passionate, teachers who go beyond their call of duty, students and patrons that blog and podcast and their thirst for knowledge! Though my visit to North Carolina last month was only for one short week, it was the one that made me feel at home and in the company of lovely friends and warm hearted people.
They went with songs to battle,
They were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye
Steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end
against odds uncounted;
They fell with their faces to the foe.
They shall not grow old,
as we who are left grow old;
Age shall not weary them
nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun
and in the morning
We will remember them.
HDR or High Dynamic Range is an imaging technique used in (mostly digital) Photography where more than one exposure of the same frame is merged together using software to boost the final image with a higher tonal range. In Photoshop lingo, more gamut. This technique allows greater control of light and hence far more accurate representation of the image to the real scenario when HDR is produced. View the details in the larger version of the above image.
Soon the tiny little spot(representing our aircraft) on the map spotted very close to the International date line. I sat back up in my seat, craned my neck a bit just in case my eyes would meet a big thick metal line engraved with the words ‘International Date Line‘. Silly, I know! But the excitement of the moment had long surpassed the reality of geography. I was thinking of words and phrases like antipode, 180°, GMT, Prime Meridian, Pi’s journey. I was excited. Very Excited. And as of this very moment we were flying over it. First time ever. Mary looked at me and could tell how very excited I was: Well, she said with a smile, I don’t think you’d get a certificate for crossing the date line. We had a laugh but I was still excited. I had momentarily stopped listening to the Jazz, the organs in my body were confussed, some were in the tomorrow and some in the yesterday and the remaining very confussingly in the present! How Bizarre!
Continue reading ‘International Date Line’
Though there is no baby on board the meltdown, there still is a ‘journey‘ like most animation movies do. Scrat the squirrel is the most(me thinks) endearing character on his acorn baggery mission. He is constantly in search of nuts to hoard and bury, although his presence is noticably less as compared to the previous sequel. Manfred the mammoth, Sid the sloth, and Diego the sabertooth tiger are on the road again. Manny fights his feelings about being the sole mammoth survivor prior the meltdown until he meets up with Emily a girl mammoth. Have to say, great animation, but when it comes to the story… hmmm… I don’t feel generous at all 
Still, its worth a watch.
The Unusual bit
Neither of us have been to the movies at 12 mid-day in a very long time. In a v-e-r-y long time!!! Coming out of a dark room into the glory and glamour of the gorgeous Sydney clear blue firmament was nothing short of painful. That felt unusual but also brought back memories of how as a kid I’d watched many movies in the middle of the day! A short walk down the memory lane as scenes from my childhood flooded my thoughts for a fleeting moment like a shimmering evanescent bubble. My eyes hurt and I squinted and blinked as much as I could. We were walking down one of the inner roads of Mosman that had amazing view of Middle head, North head, parts of Bradleys Head and the serene Balmoral beach. The sky was a painting in blue and the ocean looked like a stack of turquoise treasure with many sails afloat soaking up the soft autumn sun. I couldn’t help but stop every now and then to enjoy the view. The road meandered up the hill, down, right and left and after a few turns we came back home for a short rest before heading out for Nick’s house-warming barbie.
Gloriously beautiful autumn days are back in Sydney. I can’t stress how very much I love autumn. There is joy, calm, peace, relief from the sultry January and February and food tastes even more scrumptious! Sydney weather is just amazing but autumn in particuluer in sydney is incomparible!! Ask anyone who lives or has visited Sydney in autumn. The leaves are slowly turning colour and everyday seems more beautiful than the day gone past.
Yes, I’ll be continuing my USA Journal, so stay tuned. Lots of stories to tell, and lots of photos to share. I’m working my fingers to the bone!
When I had hand rolled my entire design for Karmakars.com, though simple sans flickr, del.icio.us and all those moronic buzz, it was nice and I was proud of it. I really was. No matter what one may think and how much ease a blog/website template or theme may provide, it is one sure way to kill originality. It lacks one big thing. It lacks you. Look around the web-o-sphere, notice how many people use K2 and Hemingway, and many such similar derivations of these themes. And nothing wrong with that, BUT this in my opinion probably isn’t the best choice for a professional web-designer, developer.
Adrian, Richard, David and I went down to the Rose Seidler House which was built between 1948 and 1950. It is one of the most uncompromising modernist houses in Australia. Nestled in natural bushland of Ku-Ring-Gai Chase, with great view from its glass walls and sun filled deck. We took a few photos around the place. Considering this house was designed and built in 1948 it is very modern and extremely well lit. If you visit Sydney and have similar interests I’d recommend visiting the Rose Seidler House.
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