Mount St. Helens a collage

Recently I was at Mount St. Helens hiking Norway Pass/Boundary Trail; this is a 5 mile hike which took us right across the cradle of the crater. It is hard to describe the things that we saw on this trail,I would say that land looked like a collage of tree, rock, ash etc.

I came across a site with interesting facts about Mount St. Helens.
http://www.olywa.net/radu/valerie/mshbefore.html?
http://www.olywa.net/radu/valerie/mshduring.html?

Indian ink bleeds on Gesso board

I admire the flexibility of using acrylic color ink and acrylic paint in a same painting. This works out quite well on an canvas made out of cotton, but fails easily on Gesso board, but I was expecting Indian ink to hold on, but it turned out that even Indian ink bleeds, but not to the extent of Acrylic color Ink; any bleeding is unacceptable.

Last week I initiated a sketch using Indian ink on a Gesso board and today, by accident came to know that ink is bleeding. Fortunately I had not proceeded deep in to the sketch. Initially I could not believe this, I doubted that I could have re-filled the pen without drying it properly after cleaning it with water, but that turned out to be not true. To test this out once for all, using Indian ink, I scribbled on a Gesso board and few hours later a wet brush was able smear the lines. Here is the picture of this....



So the lesson is NEVER to use ANY ink (Acrylic color ink or Indian Ink) on Gesso board; canvas seems to be best in gripping ink

.

Can market economy bring Democracy?

Is this really possible? today I heard yet an another discussion on this subject on radio.
Could this be a myth, being propagated intentionally, by greedy corporates who are profiting disproportionately, in disguise?

In an undemocratic state, Can the establishment of a successful business unit guard the ordinary citizen from getting arrested for no reason?


Well, I can not change anything.. writing because there is no one to talk... another sunday night talk....

To whom the life is not fair?, "potential US president" or "the deer"

A candidate running for US presidency(2008), while addressing National Rifle Association, said something to this effect, to cajole the gun loving audience to vote for him "...today my friend went to deer hunting but I am here addressing your organization: life is not fair...." and the lines triggered a round laughter.

I got interested in above lines, not because of the stature of the candidate or the significance of the event, but the line ...life is not fair... can be interpreted in different directions; to whom the life is not fair?, to Mike Huckabee(potential president) or the deer that is being hunted....?

Democracy in middle east

Why did not US chose Saudi Arabia to initiate the process of the democratisation in Middle East?

Democracy needs consensus and because US is in good terms with Saudi Arabia, it would have been much easier to trigger democracy there compared to Iraq.

writing on tombstone

I told my friend that "tombstones will not mention our friends or relatives but about ourself", and he responded by saying that your body will be burnt...

recording dictations

Recently I purchased a portable recording device, it is as small as iPod, but made by Olympus. I purchased this with the intention of using it to record the notes about technical subjects, that I have accumulated in past 11 years. Once done, I could listen to these recordings while doing mundane things and maintain the technical boundaries within the sight.

Why do I have to refresh?
Because there are too many; I have worked on several technologies, both transient and elemental, in past11 years. Most of the technical puzzles, that I come across today, need me to have grasp over these elemental concepts. Without the fresh feel over the subjects, I have been failing to decipher the problems and justify the solution. For me, it is not enough to say that "it should work that way", instead I should know why it is supposed to be that way. Essentially, I should replace 'gut' feeling with 'reason'

This week I dictated few topics out of DON Box's Inside COM in to the recorder; and results encouraged me to dictate an article that I was reading about mixing acrylic paints. Yesterday, at work, I had to dig in to the subject of URL encoding and I collected those notes and dictated it, later in the night, in to the recorder.


My immediate goal is to record the docs that I have prepared on COM, C++, AD, Exchange Server, MAPI etc... and use those recordings to prepare for the job interview.
I want to make it a habit to record as I read; this paraphrasing, on the fly, needs some mental work but will definitely help in the long run.
Let me see how this goes...

mindless Nature

I am coming back from vacation, where I spent most of the 12days, hiking and turning pages of nature. I saw glaciers, fighting not to melt in to a magnificent waterfall; and I came across streams, that did not mind running over anything, including me; and I got seduced by tender leaf; and I hiked in volcanic land of Mount St Helen's, where there was more ash than forest, like light-house,lives there, were far and few; and I waited for smoke/fog/cloud to drift away from mountain peaks, but they rarely responded in time, it appeared that cloud's intention was to curb the naughty mountain peaks from making an indecent exposure, especially when the stage is tall, light is bright; and then I also saw living bark, oozing some kind of sticky substance; and I walked past, dead trees exposing myself to glare, mellow light of sunset and etc...

After seeing so many sources of energy, that constitute this nature, I feel that nature can not be stopped, and every element of it, irrespective of size, is ruthless and mean when it comes to survival. Nature juuuust wants to live.

Usually, the interaction between two aspects of nature gets glorified as mutual understanding, example: a tiny plant sprouting out of the crack off of a rock sitting precariously on a harsh mountain peak; but I do not see any hint of mutual understanding there because when the for survival comes, mountain could crush that plant without giving it a thought; and same goes to plant, slow and steadily, this plant can grow in to a tree and slit the rock in to pieces.

These faces of natures are leading me to believe that Nature is mindless, it has been moving persistently since the beginning of time; look at the stream of water, it always is trying to conquer
Note: To to continued...