Time

How will our kids see their childhood? will they know how much they were loved? will they remember the simple pleasures of kids playing on the beach?

Mumbai

Sinse yesterday morning I've been following what news there is on Mumbai. Various people trapped in hotels have been texting, and calling the outside world - connected by their mobiles. Everyday indians have been twittering and posting blogs of their expirences.
Annadon and Arun Shanbhag in particular have been posting from their homes on the same block as one of the hotels involved. Vinu has been posting photos on flickr.

Here is some of Arun Shanbhag latest blog post ..

......

November 26, 2008 by Arun Shanbhag

This morning as I saw smoke billowing from the windows of the Taj, I was composed!
When I heard about my friend’s brother being shot and encountered his wailing family, I was composed!
When I saw blood of the Leopold waiter pooled on the sidewalk with his tray still in the blood, I was composed!

But when I saw the dome of the Taj burning, my heart bleeds! It is all in knots!
I am overwhelmed! Finally tears, … in torrents!
NOW! I am … very, very sad!

I can’t do this!
I can’t watch this!
WIll the Taj be there when I wake up?
How can I sleep! I am scared to walk up to the terrace and look out!
Oh No!

......

Just got back from a short walk to see my friend. His brother was killed by the terrorists last night. The terrorists started shooting inside/outside the Leopold Cafe;

.......

After the shooting, people started running inside the lane (Nowroji Lane). Just past the Leopold is a row of shops which my friend and his family own.

A pool of blood in front of my barber shop.

Apparently, one of the waiters from the Leopold who was shot was running (with his round serving tray). He was shot in the head; He fell and died on the street right there. See the chalk circle by the feet of the guy on the extreme right? That is where the police found a bag filled with explosives.
That is where I go for a haircut every week.

Pool of blood of victim from Terrorist Killing Leopold Cafe Mumbai Blasts

This is so painful - but we should all see these pics and be MAD at the terrorists; Pool of blood of the waiter; He had rushed out of the Leopold with his serving tray, which is still in the pic.
Blood of victim from Terrorist Killing Leopold Cafe Mumbai Blasts

Pool of blood where another of the victims was shot; four or more victims were within a few feet of each other.
Blood of victim from Terrorist Killing Leopold Cafe Mumbai Blasts

More blood;
Blood of victim from Terrorist Killing Leopold Cafe Mumbai Blasts

One of the victim’s chappals still on the road.
Blood of victim from Terrorist Killing Leopold Cafe Mumbai Blasts

I went to visit my friend whose brother was killed in front of this store. On hearing the shots, customers rushed in, and so did his father (who works as a tailor in a neighboring store). The kid ran out to pull the metal shutter down.
Chemist shop where friend was killed outside

He did bring the shutter down (and possibly saved the others inside), but he ended up outside the store. The terrorists were shooting indiscriminately; he caught five bullets; One went through and through his stomach! They operated on him till 5 am when he was pronounced dead. His body is undergoing an autopsy. His family and relatives were wailing loudly when I visited. I could not bear to enter, but called my friend outside to offer my condolences. He leaves behind a wife and two kids.

Huntsman for dinner

Automatic

I just observed a bloke trying to dry his hands using these dryers.
He was holding his hands underneath waving them around fruitlessly trying to get the little infrared sensor to detect his hands.
A - these are manual dryers. You have to press the button.
B - Automatic ones are useless at any rate as they never detect you hand when it is in the air flow - to get then to turn on you have to put your hand closer to the sensor, and inevitably that is not where the air is directed. The moment you move you hand into the airflow they stop.

Love it

The internet has gone interplanetary

pic nicked from 'Universe Today'.
To assist with providing robust communications with their spacecraft NASA and Google have put together a small internet just for interplanetary communication.
The geek in me thinks much of being abe to keep up with the latest HNT whilst working as a geologist on Mars

New Favorite

With apologies to Alison Krauss, I've a new fav



Lashings and lashings of oyster sauce has always gone well with broccoli but the other day we were cooking a stir fry on the barbie and I drizzled the steak slices in kecap manise. It nicely embraces the stir fried noodle and veggies with its yumminess.



Sorry oyster - its been nice

Blogger knows it

Can't see the hill opposit.

Sydney
Summer
Smoke
Fire


Something local is burning fiercely. The air is thick with the smell of burning eucalyptus and fine white ash has settled on my hat.

-- update

Sentinel shows that it's still 11km away from the LCNP in the Chase - still, its not good if you live on the edge of Gargial. Its about 36 today and dry


Fires burning, fires burning

Draw nearer, draw nearer...


--
update

Its a hazard reduction burnoff.

11th of the 11th

As you probably know, I'm a strong Atheist, and today of all days highlights a poignant reason why I feel worshiping Jesus is stupid.

Today is the day we remember the fallen.

The 11th of the 11th.

This year marks the 90th Anniversary of the Armistice, when Australians remember those who fought and died for our country - for the 'freedom from tyrany' for the world in war and armed conflicts.

These are the guys to whom you should pay homage. This is the day we bow our heads and give a moment to consider the 'sacrifice' of so many. The day we remember the young farm hand from outback Queensland who's guts were blown out of his back in Flanders. The severally outnumbered young men who with typical Australian whit proudly reclaimed and named themselves the Rats of Tobruk and held the Germans at bay whilst being pounded into the African sand by Rommel's guns for 250 days. The nurses who survived the bombing of and sinking of the SS Vyner Brooke by swimming ashore but were marched back into the see by the Japanese on Banka Island and massacred. These men and women were not the sons of gods. They were very ordinary every day men and women. They had no absolute certainty of life after death, fathers in heaven. No water to wine or walk around three day later magic tricks. And that, to my mind, elevates their actions far higher than the make believe heroes many worship.

I think you can call it a dress

I completely understand if you think this is wanton fabrication, but more on fabric in a mo.

I have two new gym instructors. For the most part the gym sessions I can get to are the lunchtime matinée; traditionally taught at the uni by one of a pair of grandmothers and subscribed by the usual crowd of librarians, a few students, and moi.

One of the grandmothers retired and her spin (bike) and pump (weights) classes have been distributed to a pair of, um, talented and enthusiastic young women.

Waifs they are not. These are buxom gym wenches in sprayed on lycra. Neither is beautiful but they have a fun presence that tips the needle way into the "I'm a gym instructor" end of the hotness scale.

This morning I bumped into (almost literally) one of them (the slimmer redhead who takes spin) in a "dress" getting out of her car and walking into the staff entrance of the gym. Now, either my childhood fantasy of owning x-ray glasses has somehow come to fruition or she was wearing a cling film wrap with _nothing_ underneath but for a healthy patina of freckles. _nothing_

I was less than 2m from her whilst she walked around her car to get her bag and a few bits and pieces. She saw me, held eye contact, smiled and asked if I would be in the class today.

I was a bit slow to answer in the affirmative. In absolutely no way did she seam to give a damn that I now know exactly what piercings she has.

Meanwhile, blogger is still pulling my chain:

Business time

The students are finishing up their last exams and now it is time for us to roll up our shirt sleeves and get cracking on some IT work that we couldn't do when they are here in force.

Meanwhile I'm trying to write some web pages to replace a bunch of paper forms and reduce our data entry requirements. For the most part it looks as if it will work, but I'm doing some cheeky screen scraping to read other peoples web pages to get the info I need. The uni is comically inefficient at making that kind of information available.

Alex (wife) is heading off to the US for a whirlwind visit, mostly the mid north east and Chicago with a day in Memphis. She's looking at some gas facilities for a big project she is working on here. She wont have time for sight seeing tho. :-(

That of course means that I have to look after the kidlets by myself for a week. Think I may need a few wines to get through that one.

Selling a boat on ebay

Interviewing next week for one of my System Administrator positions - give me a call if your a smoking hot linux sys admin who knows PERL and can install and manage open source apps such as media wiki. A unix ticket would be a plus.

Obama

Thank goodness.
Don't stuff it up mate.

The smaller hole

For the first time since getting married I have gone back to using the smaller hole. Perhaps it is the extra gym work, perhaps holding back on the extra blue cheese and red wine but I have dropped a belt size in recent weeks. So much so I got wolf whistled at a the pool last week - OK, so what if it was from a menopausal librarian - there's a first time for everything.

- excursion into diet blogging is now over -