elephant seal kingdom

somewhere on the californian coast

An encounter with a californian condor

caught again with the pentax in the julia pfeiffer state park, CA on the ewoldson trail

ottawa

pictoral diary, caught with a pentax k100d, pentax 18-55mm lens circa 11/2007

Dreams

1) A home by the river (zuari preferably)
2) an easily visited jungle with trails to walk through (basically with no humans around)
3) All this in a place where there are only two seasons (hot and wet).
Being able to sit by the river on a verandah and gaze into the river when its pouring buckets is a big part of this dream.
4)Having someone to share this with ( I think I'd rather spend my days with a lady but this is not essential)
5)Good vegetarian food.
6)A job in a large medical college hospital (GMC will do) and lots of students to expound to. And the health and good fortune to do this till i can't.
7)enough money so that money never plays a role in this dream again.


more when i have more time to pfaff
to a good life.........

the rut

Discovered marcel khalifa. am unable to understand the words but the pain in the voice comes across as urgent, earnest. My Arabic friends worship him, so the interest in him and the oudh. The oudh sounds like the spanish guitar with no bass, and arabic when sung sounds plaintive like in a perpetual moan. Quite a soul stirring combination.

Been craving home quite a bit. So the triveni festival came as a blessing. Two days of indian classical music was just what i needed. Never had Indian classical in that kind of a dose. was liberating, really enjoyed the feeling of being transported to a mughal durbar.

and the rut continues, maybe it is the combination of too much time, impending applications and feeling friendless. I so hate seasons, wet and hot is what I like. All this fluctuation in messing with my mind.

Pride

to 60 years of life and several more of good fortune.

http://www.hindu.com/af/india60/index.htm

sad

at last saw pans labyrinth, awesome. this is Guillermo Del Toro's Oscar winning movie (foreign language, its set in spanish)

the movie reads like a good book, textured and the language feels like poetry. So much of the movie is so predictable, but to watch it play out wrenches your heart out.

definitely a tearjerker, and one of those movies that you carry with you.

enchanting

http://powerflv.com/?m=Pans%20Labyrinth

vedic death metal

heard their album 'rudra' on ruckus, takes some time getting used to but yeah has a ring of power to it that sticks. especially good on black days. nothing like biting of imaginary heads to sanskrit at max distortion.

arrrrrghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

saw pink

intense bliss

very very anti bush

has not lost his edge in 40 years,

verses,
Does anybody here remember Vera Lynn
Remember how she said that
We would meet again
Some sunny day
Vera! Vera!
What has become of you
Does anybody else in here
Feel the way I do ?

meaning-
It's about the lie. It's about leading people off to War for a lie. It sums up the Wall perfectly. Here's this kid who's Dad doesn't come back... You can have any bombastic reproach you want (when the tigers broke free), but when you have a song like this... that's so understated... it's power lies in what's unsaid.
Vera sings hopeful songs to "Pink's" deafened ears,
and this is his reply.

images,
the piglet floating high, its corkscrew tail covering BUSH in bold in its nether regions.

the prism diffracting white light to the colors of the rainbow [the cover of dark side of the moon]

intense bliss

poetry

verses to remember

The Tiger

TIGER, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies 5
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder and what art
Could twist the sinews of thy heart? 10
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand and what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? What dread grasp 15
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,
And water'd heaven with their tears,
Did He smile His work to see?
Did He who made the lamb make thee? 20

Tiger, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

William Blake. 1757–1827

free movies yipeeeeee

http://movies.nabolister.com/list.php?movieorserie=0


recommended viewing - van wilder-rise of taj. kal pen at his worst. whatever its funnier than most bollywood movies.

http://movies.nabolister.com/links_page.php?movie=589

fireworks

caught with a pentax k100d, pentax 18-55mm lens, circa 7/5/07, locale- lasalle lake buffalo ny.

doctors and the terror plots

why did they resort to using bombs in cars and targeting airports. are these people so stupid that they would willingly short circuit their lives and perpetrate what seems to be dumb copycat plans to blow up the proletariat. no attempts to flee, no statements of bravado, nothing. it looks so much like maybe one of them may have known one of the perpetrators socially and since he got picked up the rest of his group got ensnared. or maybe they did want to short circuit their lives even if meant being in the public consciousness for a couple of seconds and vilifying every british muslim doctor for time immemorial.

sad

flowing through the river rapids

so spent 50 bucks on some boat ride. truthfully almost spent a 100 cos of the mandatory cockup of not calling to find out if someone else had already booked me in. luckily could find a replacement.

So basically was on a large power boat like thing [ two volvo truck engines as motors the organisers said]. enough speed to do fancy turns on the niagara river. But the piece de resistance was the rapids that they repeatedly went over. was on the front right end of the boat, and the waves just kept coming in like walls of water. just enough time to gulp in some air and the next wave barged in. was told that this was a class 5 rapid, and that the class 6 [the max on the scale] rapid upriver had like 10 foot waves, but riding it was illegal if you lived through it that is.

thoroughly soaked, and then dried out in the wind as the boat raced back to the dock. Doing this in November would take guts, just imagine being repeatedly soaked in subzero water then freeze dried with 60 miles/hour winds.

sadly my camera didnt come home in time for me to shoot the sights. damn fedex is bloody unreasonable. they actually take monday off and work tuesday - saturday. bloody radical.

'artisanal' so is this a swear word or what.

anyways supposed to be doing some damn original research to cement my application to the world of oncology, bollocks. Havnt started out on anything yet and unable to enjoy the absolute lack of work cos its eating into me.

at least need to get the motorcycle license and see toronto by the end of this module.

internet tv

joost is easily the next biggest thing in town. its from the guys who made kazaa and skype.

its as interactive as tv can be. the programming is limited right now, but you can just see its potential.

it looks as good as the conventional tv programming [ I watch my tv on my desk top too with a tv tuner card].

anyways kudos to those guys,

and of course its free free free

what else

bought a rocking chair for 20 bucks. Got a stool along with it free. So the stool was obviously in sad shape. The varnish was all peeling off. But the wood was great. Thought I could do a reasonable job with same sanding and painting.

So at home my aunt told me that she had a sander and stuff. I was under the impresssion that it would be a block with a piece of iron sticking out. She brought out a whole electrical unit, with special paper attached to do the job. And special stain and finisher. Now I really had to know stuff about sanding and varnishing so as to do justice to all the equipment I had.

Started out on the sanding. The purpose being to get the old varnish out and to make sure all the wood is at the same level. The stool is really good wood. It took me 3 hours to get a plank done [there are 4 planks on the surface]. The sander makes enough noice to wake up the neighbourhood, so I give them a break at 9 pm. I spent the entire weekend sanding, and I still have the sides to do.

The varnish needs to be used when the temperature is around 70 F. So waiting for the clouds to clear up and the sun to beam through.

The instructions say that I should get all the dirt off the stool, and have a clean brush. Thats gonna take some searching.

First, need to get the sanding done though. Then will think about the paint. I think the stool is looking a little rotten from all the humidity all week without the varnish. Should get done with it quick.

Good learning experience. Basically sanding and varnishing is painstaking stuff. Save yourself the trouble and buy new stuff.

the week

The nice thing about a US residency is that the program will tell you the problems you will face and how to avoid them. The problem is they just get a little caught up in it, and the result is I'm now really scared of doing a residency.

The fact that I will be under continuous scrutiny isnt the problem. Its just that if I let my guard down and make a mistake, it could financially wipe me out forever. Sobering thought. Hopefully the rationale that working in a crazily tough system without making mistakes, will make me a better doctor works.

Anyways I know I make mistakes and I'm gonna make them again. Should make sure I pick them up before anyone else does I guess.

Lets see how it goes. Gotta remember to enjoy the ride though. All these serious things have a real propensity to screw up a perfectly reasonable day.

physicals

New job. Went for the mandatory health check up today. Turned out quite well actually. blood pressure was around 100/60 though pulse was 100/min [ cant boast of being an athlete just yet]. No handle and cough thank god. Was excused from the ppd, so got out with a single prick. Altogether not too bad.

On rumination I realized that it could have been much worse. Like the time in Pune when the new surgery lecturers came in for their physicals. Ah that’s an ugly story. Lemme start at the beginning.

So Dr Gandhage was the HOD of the radiology department at Sassoon hospitals where I had joined in to be the new doormat. The department was facing an acute crisis in that there were not enough ultrasound machines functional [this happens every 2 months]. So the Wise Dr Gandhage had brought out of retirement his favorite 1970's [maybe 1980's] ultrasound, which had a mechanical probe attached.
The problem was the lower half of the image on the monitor usually remained uninterpretable so the all-seeing sonographer had to gauge what lay in the depths depending on what he saw above. Obviously every one thought that he was being an idiot. He felt it and decided he had to reveal just how things could be done.

The clinic where this machine was so far out from the department that on a usual day no one except the guys at the clinic knew what happened there [basically me and a lecturer]. So patients were being kicked around left right and center, till they either ran away, got their ultrasounds done on the last sensible machine in the department or left with a report that was a figment of the sonographers vivid imagination.

But on that fateful day Dr Gandhage paraded into the place and everything was in edge. Things were smooth until these 2 guys came in. They had both just successfully cleared their postgraduate surgery exams and were about to join back as lecturers. For some obscure reason they needed an ultrasound abdomen and scrotum as a part of their physical [maharashtra requirements I'm sure]. Any normal human being would probably have just done an ultrasound abdomen and let them go. I mean it’s anyway meaningless to do an ultrasound abdomen as a routine part of a physical leave alone the ultrasound scrotum. That's what these guys expected anyways.

But Dr Gandhage was at his pedantic best. He not only made them strip but played around with their balls for as long as he could. It was awful. The worst was when one of them made eye contact. I felt really sad at their humiliation. So the guys got their signature and the rest of the day went of well.

Reminds me of the time after our med school physical when we heard that one of us had a serious varicocele. So 3 years later the guy got it corrected. The next day the bulletin board read ' Now ladies I'm ready for some action'.

traffic

Back in India at last. Only positives to report from Delhi, where the encounter with the mighty central ministry of health was stressful, but the fact that I was able to travel from the outskirts of Delhi to Rajghat in 40 min through minimum stress and dirt via the Delhi Metro to push files, took away the tedium.

Saw Rang de Basanti. Jingoistic to say the least. Some of the songs are cool. Aamir Khan just manages to pull off the college passout routine. The film is basically a parody of British and present India. Ends up with a whole lot of people dead. Blood makes good cinema.

Came across the world's funniest flyover. It begins like a single one way and joins another similar oneway from another road to funnel traffic into the main bridge- so looks a pregnant lady on with her legs astride on straps. Then suddenly in the middle of the flyover a lone traffic policeman blocks out traffic from one lane at a time. The reason- traffic on the left side of the road suddenly makes a shift to the right [aka from Indian to us style driving] so that traffic can rejoin on the right side in the road below. Whoever designed the bridge must have failed all his civil engineering exams. Also an effective way to make sure the traffic cop remains employed. God Help Bangalore.

Planning to hit home soon. And get drunk, Hallelujah

Hmm

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/16
/science/16gene.html?incamp=article_popular

So the diabetes world just got a little more interesting. Another gene associated with a predisposition to DM 2 has been identified. I can see the pharmaceutical giants licking their fingers at the possibility of a new target for therapy. The world of diabetes therapy already has such a bewildering range of drugs many of them entire new groups that came out in the last decade. If a disease has many possible treatments it usually means that none of them present a clear advantage and less is known about the disease itself. So basically in medicine choice is bad. And so it is with Diabetes.