16 December 2011

Mid December

Friday - 16 Dec 2011 - the last day of exams and classes at the U of Va, things are really winding down, getting quiet.

Nawang's off this morning to Darden for his second meeting with a committee arranging all the events for the Dalai Lama's visit next October (2012)

I'm trying to finalized the purchase of Maithili paintings through PinkMango for our Asian Studies Room. And next week we have the second meeting with a donor of Farsi books.  Some of this librarian job is fun!

We've had an unusually warm Fall, with just the right amount of rain, but no snow or really freezing temperatures yet.

During the Fall, had a great trip to see Julie and family in October 2011 in Iowa before going to a nice South Asian conference in Madison, WI. The garden was not bad this year - the new shed with a community tiller was great.  Deej pulled garlic and replanted some.  Okra was okay.  Had about 5 watermellons! Hot peppers were very slow to develop, but nicely productive during the end.  Unfortunately missed picking a huge crop, just before they were hit and ruined by a hard frost.

Went to a wonderful Holiday concert by the Glee Club last Saturday evening (10th Dec 2011), this time at the Presbyterian Church near the downtown.  Deej said she thought the acoustics were great.  All that jumping up and down for the 12 days of Christmas was fun again. Betsy Rose Carr and her husband were there - and she introduced me to an interesting lady whose husband had been in the foreign service all over the world.

Our second music event of the week was Rachel's Orchestra concert, at Walker School packed auditorium, Tuesday night (13th Dec 2011).  Wish they could get the strings better tuned up.  Deej liked it, especially the little added play about the Grinch at the end.

That was the second event with Rachel in a week - we went over for a nice 12th birthday party to her house on Sunday afternooon (11 Dec 2011) - cakes, snacks, presents, cards, family.  Patty was there with a new 5-year old obedient dog; Mark was there with a 'girl-friend' Kristina.  But Brian (who works at Lord Hardwicke's) was not there - he's recovering also from a slipped disc. Rachel liked the card, with two of her photos and with a panda (her recent obcession) on the front, I made her.

I've been thinking about how we dislike and fight getting old.  Different parts of the body are seen or viewed differently - worsening eye sight, loss of hearing, greying and baldness are not treated really badly and discussed opening, but not so with teeth.  Hardly anyone is at ease talking about loosing teeth, getting dentures or implants - and those who still have their teeth and few dental problems seem to lord over the rest of us and give endless advice and comments on how we (bad ones) did things wrong and how we should have done what they did.  Of course, failing dental condition is as much genetic as how we took care of our teeth.  I suspect my dental problems are genetic (did my dad have bad teeth and early went to full dentures?) as well as my personal dental hygiene throughout my life, with some stuff about the India environment and the lack of ready access to good dentists as I grew up in India.  That may have as much a toll as genetics - and affects my present teeth and mouth.

My periodontist surprised me at my last visit about a month ago as he said he saw that my main dentist, Horde, was recommending removal of all of my upper teeth and going for full upper dentures! a very depressing shock to me.  I hate thinking about it.  See, we have a hard time talking about these teeth things.

I've been working on a blog post about 2011 South Asia articles, books, etc at
http://gosher7.blogspot.com/2011/12/resources-of-2011-from-selected.html

Have a look.

30 June 2011

Last June week, normal mid-week day

A hot Wednesday day followed by a cool night. It was 105 outside my office, in the sun on the ledge.  Cool enough not to use air-conditioners at night.

Went to the garden after work - planted some cucumber seeds in the central area at Azalea.  Weeded around the two bean rows, the north side of the corn next to the squash; and north east corner boarders where flowers were being overwhelmed by weeds. Was there about 1.5 hours - the Muslim family was there as well as the woman in the plot east eat of us.  Not very hot.

More Urdufest from noon on - learning how to make markers, which were put in on Panel 1 before starting to export it - then came back at four and it was done finally - moved a copy to Kaltura Collab.


Ordered requests, including juggling a DK one with no one wanting to fund it.  Wrote and asked about the Anthro new grad session for Fall. Attended the public service meeting at 3 about Fall public messages, Libra, Alumni databases, pilot public login, and RefWorks - leaving at 4:10 as the meeting dragged on with no new information about RefWorks.

Rich was outside my office finishing up his review of Urdu maps - which he said was in Sindhi, dated 1889, and nicely covered with plastic like coating.  He said - definitely keep for a treasure of anyone doing 19th century north west India (became Pakistan).

Watched Netflix "Made in Dagenham" (Ford plant women's strike for equal pay in England, late 1960s). Pretty good. 4 out of 5 stars. Third night of shrimp for me as Deej ate her salmon cakes. Good cuc, carrot, raddishes, celery also, topped off by blueberries on ice cream (with chocolate sauce, whipped cream, and malt).

Just a regular day.

29 June 2011

late June 2011

Ah, now we are in to summer.

Lots of weeds grew while we were away at the beach a couple weeks ago.  We both went and weeded some of the garden, late morning on Saturday 25th June 2011, but much needs to be done.  We took a break on Sunday, and I went to the garden after work and tried to clear up some stuff for 1.5 hours - especially around the ochra, then some around the middle flower area and ended up thinning and transplanting some zenias in a circle there.  Weeded and scuffle hoed the remaining unplanted flower border the west side by south and planted more zenias and cosmos.  Cleared some more weeds around some of the flower borders, but weeds are overwhelming some and some flower seeds do not seem to have produced. For the back yard, mowed it Saturday late afternoon and Sunday cleared some vines and pulled them off of bushes around the shed. Deer had come and eaten lotus leaves in Deej's large tub on the north edge - and two of the 3 fishes we had bought recently also died.

That's about plants and yards and stuff.

Back to work on the Urdu Fest on Monday, exporting the Panel 4.  Then Tuesday we met with Phillip T of Shanti and finally got the remaining of 5 videos onto the web.  Still left is Panel 1 - and I still want to know how to save sequences under a new and different name in Final Pro, as also to learn how to insert good cross dissolves or fades.  Disappointingly learned on Tuesday we probably cannot provide navigation to sections in the videos.  Drat.

Learned also Tuesday that others were selected for the upcoming SAS voyages - again drat. Good deal for all the others, though.

Worked on normal library stuff - purchase requests, double monthly (May and June) report, etc. as well as searched for Walter on confirming where Bharauli, Ujiyar, and Narainpur were located where SSS traveled to in 1908.

Made shrimp supper Sunday night, and continue to eat it, as Deej made her own salmon cakes and are eating those. Monday night's new 10-grain loaf mix was huge, and we had no large plastic bag to store it, until Deej got some more bags after her dentist appointment Tuesday.

Discovered and skimmed through a wonderful little book on Joseph Stein (Innocent Abroad) - wrote David S about it including some pages from the book in pdf - wish I could locate the 2001 India video on him.  I'm also plowing through Cyberabad - a dull, narrative only story / chapter by a genetically enhanced Vishnu kid.  Also read a little more of Auel's Children at lunch.

We've got some rain (1/3 inch) a couple times in the last 4 days.



31 May 2011

End of Spring / now summer 2011

Last day of May 2011 - back to work after 3-day weekend.

Cold - got some sort of strange cold Saturday before last, getting worse until my fever broke Wed night, and have steadily improved since then.  It was so bad, I took off Monday, but since I had a lot of work to do, went back and worked the rest of the week.  Heavy cough, still slightly here after 1.5 weeks; head still feels a little hollow, though dizziness gone for the most part.  Very sore throats at 4 am on Tues and Wed mornings, but gargling with mouth wash helped lots both times. Then Deej got it last Thursday, but not as bad as mine. Made working hard, because kept loosing focus or what I was doing.  The other thing which may have contributed to breaking the fever was that I mowed the yard on Wed after work, probably before I was in good enough shape to try it.  But it needed cutting down.





Work - had our annual library Staff Appreciation luncheon last Thursday, going with Deej and the music staff.  Good food.
UrduFest - worked with Sarah on her last day, last Wed for a couple hours

27 April 2011

Back to work Monday 25th Ap 2011

That was tough getting back to work on Monday after an extended weekend in Tennessee.

Monday. Had to catch up on email - and even forgot some things like the microfiche for Ryan in UCalif.  Worked on a Lost book list, ordering about 12 title replacements.  Trying to work on figuring out the Anth and MESA titles to un-subscribe to to get to our 5% cut - reconnecting to Direcotor's Station and using SIRSI - and not finding things or having difficulty navigating, etc.  Then staying late to do some more pamphlet review.  Coming home and mowing the lawn and making a rye bread mix.  And watching the NetFlix movie - Inception.  Those mind games and shifting back and forth, without knowing which, between dream and reality - its not something I'm interested in or enjoy.

Tuesday continued the attempts at review, first talking with George for review titps, and late mroning putting up or developing titles for the UrduFest digitization project over in the media lab with Dan, his assistant, and the media lab assistant.  Lunch, and then AldRef for 2 hours, looking up Anth titles.  Anne coming 12 minutes late, so I did not get off too Susan McKinnon's apppointment until 3:30 pm.  That went okay, but still need to do the list of titles.  Maybe with George's help this Wed afternoon.  Then back to more pamphlet review.  And late (6:30 pm) home but with good bus connections to 6, and walking - my right knee seems to now be okay after some of this walking home daily. Ham again for supper, but really conked out, and gave up sleeping on the couch and fell into bed at 11:30 am in payjamas and slept, slept, slept.

Wednesday - dental appointment at 10 am and back to work.

Can't wait to get through this 5% budget reduction review. Busy, busy, busy