3 degrees of separation from Obama

I was surprised to find out that my friend and, some time running buddy (he's really too fast for me now), Phil Boerner, has a close tie to President Obama. It turns out that Phil was Barack's roommate when they were in college together in the arly 80's. Of course Phil, in all his modesty, never mentioned this during the election but now the news is out.

Here is Phil's description of those days.

I think he should be able to parlay that relationship into a night in the Lincoln bedroom, or maybe not, perhaps Barack remembers Phil's banjo playing and just doesn't want to be reminded of those days.

Coffee Art

I have a friend, Peter, in the UK who is in the coffee shop business. When I was over there last week we met up and had a fine cup of coffee at one of his shops. This morning after receiving a particularly nice piece of art on my latte at Old Soul (thank you Meredith), I thought I would show him how our coffee looks here.


This caused Peter to respond with the following.



OK I admit it, that's nice. But that's just showing off.

Starlings

One of the blogs that I follow - The Friends of Charles Darwin blog - The Red Notebook - had a link today to a video of starlings and their amazing in flight acrobatics. I remember seeing such flocks of starlings as a child in England but I hadn't noticed such phenomenon since that time. However as the video shows they are still up to their tricks.



The funny thing, or perhaps not so funny, is that Google Ads in the USA throws up a banner ad along with this video for starling eradication services. One man's wonder is another man's pest.


While you are looking at starlings - check out this other video and marvel at how such a small bird can sway such a large tree.

India Photos

India is such an exotic and wonderful place. There was something interesting to photograph around every corner and, of course, I did take a lot of photographs. I have tried to filter out some of the best ones and they are collected here in my Smugmug album (or here for the slideshow).

For those with more stamina, patience or interest, then we have more photos organized by city in the following albums: Calcutta, Varanasi, Jaipur. Or if you just want the slide show here: Calcutta, Varanasi, Jaipur.

I hope you like them.

Jaipur

I arrived in Jaipur on Wednesday evening, after a long day of travel by train from Varanasi (via Delhi). Jaipur is in Rajasthan to the west of Delhi, north on Bombay and it is known as the "Pink City". For the most part, it is not so much pink as a muddy brownish red, but that's probably for the better - pink's not my color.

So Jaipur is the last city on this three city tour of India and, while interesting, it does not match the weirdness and wonderfully exotic flavour of Varanasi or the big city chaos of Calcutta - it is a little cooler and a lot less humid though so that is most welcome. I also think I am starting to suffer from temple/palace overload so I am not so excited by the things I see here - it's not quite "once you've seen one you've seen them all", but they are starting to blend into eachother now.

I started traveling by bicyle rickshaws in Jaipur. In Calcutta and Varanasi, I needed the speed of a taxi or a tuk-tuk (auto-rickshaw) just to get a little bit of cooling air flow, but in Jaipur the heat's not so much a problem and the biclycle rickshaw makes for a wonderful leisurely open air ride around town. (Leisurely may not be the right word considering the cacophony of horns and the chaotic unstructured traffic flow but it is a certainly slower paced mode of transport). However, I do feel a bit guilty sitting in the back of the rickshaw while some poor guy pedals away, and I feel even more guilty when he has to get off and push the thing (with me in it) up a hill. Still it beats walking and I have done a lot of walking in these last few days, and, in some small way, I am providing someone with an income.

Again, here are some photos from Jaipur.

This is a rather impressive place - the Hawah Mahal.



A photo at the fort at Nahagarth which sits atop a hill overlooking Jaipur.



There are camels over this side of the country.



A scene from one of the many bazaars in Jaipur.



A shot taken outside a school.

Varanasi

I left Calcutta on Sunday evening and caught the overnight train to Varanasi.

Varanasi sits on the banks of the Ganges and is one of the most sacred of cities of the Hindu religion. It is a wonderfully exotic place where you can see all the most intimate rituals of the Hindu religion played out in public on the banks of the river. This might be the bathing ghats where Hindus come to bathe in the mornings and evenings, or the funeral ghats where their bodies are creamated, or the assorted weird and wonderful saddhus (holy men) that roam the streets.

The river itself is so polluted, yet people young and old bath in it not to mention the sacred cows that cool off in it. This morning I went on an early morning boat trip down the river (it's the thing to do when in Varanasi) and right next to where people were washing themselves in the river comes a body floating along. No one takes much notice, everything is taken in its stride and it all seems quite normal here in Varanasi.

Below are some photos starting with the sacred cows which get to roam unhindered everywhere in the town.



A rather colorful Saddhu, meditating in the streets of old town.



One of many temples.



Another Saddhu, down by the river.



Floating candles down river - an auspicious thing to do.



The burning ghats, apparently they process a few hundred bodies a day here, and the fires have not gone out for thousands of years.

Calcutta - Day 2

Today, I am feeling more comfortable with all this heat, humidity and humanity and today was a great day. It started off with learning the first lesson about photography in a humid climate - don't expect to use your camera for an hour or so until it is acclimated to the surroundings. A cold camera in a humid climate is not much good - pretty foggy.

I did a lot of walking today - interesting streets with all sorts of interesting stuff going on. The begging does get a bit much sometimes. While it is somewhat an accepted profession over here - any foreigner is prime target. Last night I walked 2 blocks with a young woman trying to push her baby's bottle in my hand so that I could buy milk for her baby. It's hard to turn that down but after a while you get hardened to it. My tip - don't make eye contact.

I made a trip across the Howgly (Ganges) this morning to Howrah (the city on the other side from Calcutta). This afternoon spent a while looking around the Park Street Cemetry - a wonderful peaceful cemetery full of Raj era mausoleums and elaborate tombs. So many English men and women buried in this far off place. Who can imagine what it was like for them over here in the late 1700's.

Here are some photos.

The ferry to Howrah



Stalls everywhere selling every imaginable thing. The fruit stalls are more photogenic than the others.



It's a tough life being a chicken. These guys were alive but couldn't manage a squawk.



Here's an example of the tombs in the Park Street Cemetery.



Taking a bath in the street.

Calcutta

This is day 2 of my India trip and here I am in Calcutta. We are just out of Monsoon season, so the climate is supposed to be better, but this is one hot and steamy place - I am one sweaty and damp individual let me tell you.

I got round a few of the sites yesterday, the Victoria Memorial, St Pauls Cathedral, the Hoogly River which is in fact the Ganges which undergoes a name change somewhere along the way. There are so many people in this city, the streets are bursting with cars, taxis, buses, trams, rickshaws - it is one seething mass of humanity.


Above is the Victoria Memorial - very photogenic, however, this is perhaps not typical Calcutta. The photos below are more representative.





So far all is well. I have an overnight train to Varansasi tonight but now I am off to sweat a little more.

My New Passport

I just got my new Passport today, and I have a few complaints.

The old one was fairly plain vanilla and professional looking just like a passport should be. The new one is more like a picture book with each page depicting some scene designed to stir the heart of every American patriot. There are scenes with riverboats, sailing ships, trains, bison, eagles, cowboys, and other memorable sights, each paired with a nice little quote, but it just doesn't look like a serious document anymore.

Being a train fanatic, I do rather like the steam train on page 22 (see below) but I would as soon not have it in my passport.


My other complaints are that my passport number has changed from one that was easy to remember to something a bit more cryptic not so easy to memorize and, last but not least, the picture of the person inside is of this old guy who I hardly recognize. In the interests of vanity, I will not reproduce that photo here.

A letter to the President

Last Christmas my friend Jean, a teacher in a local school, requested contributions of various things that her children had a need for in the upcoming year. I don’t remember all the things she asked for but I do remember there were things like crayons, pencils, gloves. I opted for pencil sharpeners – they seemed practical. Now buying 40 pencil sharpeners was not an easy task, it seemed like all the big box stationary stores didn’t quite stock that many of the same kind. However in this internet age we have www.discountschoolsupplies.com who will gladly furnish you with any number of pencil sharpeners and deliver them to your door.

So I donated 40 pencil sharpeners and thought no more of it. After Christmas I got 40 cards from all the students thanking me for the nice present. It was all quite touching. Anyway I got over it and I again thought no more of it until the other week Jean gave me a copy of a letter that one of her children had written to President Obama. The point of the letter was a response to President Obama’s request for everyone to pitch in and work harder towards the common good (or something similar) and all her class had written to the President.

One of the children – Destiny is her name – mentioned me in her letter. How cool is that, she wrote to President Obama and mentioned Mr Steve who donated pensil shaprenrs (sic) to her class. Take a look at her letter below. Apparently Ms. Destiny doesn’t use her pensil shapenr for sharpening pencils but for saving laddy bugs (ladybirds).


Now before you readers in the UK get all critical about the spelling and the dire state of English Language instruction in American Schools just be aware that Ms. Destiny is quite young and in a “special needs” class so she deserves some slack. While you (can I still say we) can rightfully decry what the Americans have done to the English Language this should not be taken as a good example of that.