Hangout chai talk at the e-quad

Today’s “chai at the e-quad’ Hangout (2 pm Eastern Time Sunday) was like most others before it – with surprises and unexpectedly interesting topics – rain, water, books, cameras, photography, etc.

More details below – a narration and requested information.

It started out badly at 2, as I could not get my Mac to work to connect me, so I tried my PC laptop which didn’t work also, so I asked Deej where the red IPad 2 was, and that eventually connected me to Nadeem – who had been wondering patiently what the hell was going on with Philip – where was he.  We both knew that Bill K and Helen A had written that they were involved with other activities and could be at this week’s Hangout.

Weather, rain, and water was the first topic – Deej and I had just come from working for an hour in

Azalea garden plot 14 June 2015

99.1 F degree heat in our Azalea garden plot planting squash, okra, and flowers, picking up tacos for lunch on our way home. Cooling wind and threatening thunder outside was in the background, while Nadeem commented on seeing me on the screen for the first time, asked “are you feeling okay?” (sweat still running down my red face)

Here's a little rain for Nadeem.

 

He still was hoping for some 100ths of an inch of rain in southern California.  Deej asked him about water use with the swimming pools there – Nadeem said northern California was handling water restrictions better than in the south – and Deej said she had heard of the California water survey which Nadeem described – 100s of gallons of water use per person per day in many places. I agreed with David’s dire predictions and that the water crisis might be the one thing that eventually would doom the planet or almost destroy it.  Somehow we mentioned that David had just put up his Manteo, NC house for sale, as he has a much harder time using it since he’s moved from the east coast (NJ) to the west coast (SF).  $179,000 for 3 bedrooms and 2 baths is not a bad price, though.

We tried to get away from such a sad climate topics – mentioning some books. One book Nadeem had mentioned long before, and another non-academic one he had just finished (see below), and neither of them had I read as yet. He also mentioned how some books published in India were not available for purchase outside India – an increasingly strange trend, maybe because of the huge US / India book price difference.  I mentioned that our UVa Library normally used an India book vendor for books that were hard to find in the US, and he wanted to know who that was, see below DK Agencies.

We also discussed photography and cameras – I said I admired Nadeem’s wonderful photographs of flowers which he keeps putting up on Facebook – and he described how he carefully planned his flower photographs – framing, colors, angel, etc. I said I also really liked the flower photographs of a 1964 Woodstock graduate Jessie L, who has a blog and also flower photos on Facebook. And we both said we admired Mary C. L’s fantastic photography, often up on Facebook, such as her 20 or so photographs of her recent 10-weeks’ Spring 2015 journey from Ocracoke to Louisiana to Arizona to Wyoming through the mid-west and home. Nadeem described how he still had some wonderful non-digital cameras, lenses, and even film – and we speculated if their value would continue to increase as those non-digital devices became rarer.

For vastly improving the quality of photos, everyone recommends shooting only in RAW.  Most photographers now spend 20 or so minutes on each photograph, AFTER shooting, using Photoshop or Lightroom or some similar software. Ahhh, if only.

And there were other topics – but the hour-long Hangout ended around 3:15 as we went off to do our other Sunday afternoon activities. 

A surprisingly nice Hangout again at “chai at the e-quad.”

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Now, my responses to some requests. I hope I've remembered most of what you (Nadeem) asked me (during today's Hangout) to send to you (and I've added to them too)

Photographer - Jessie L (Class of 1965) some good photos - she's also on Facebook
http://decisivemoments-jll.blogspot.com/

Deej’s years’ of service awards ceremony - Deej and her fellow librarians at the 2015 Awards for Service ceremony at John Paul Jones Arena, Monday June 8th.
*Video (62 seconds)
http://bit.ly/2015awardsv
*Photo album (Picasa)
http://bit.ly/2015awardsp

You asked for the India book vender D. K Agencies, which our library often times uses
http://www.dkagencies.com/

Telegraph (Kolkata newspaper) -

**2015 May 22 Fri p. 16 Politics of naming (South  Asia vs India. Swapan Dasgupta)

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1150522/jsp/opinion/story_21334.jsp#.VX3cFTjbJ-

**--------------- p. 17 Cast ashore “Sleeping with Jupiter" by Anuradha Roy

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1150522/jsp/opinion/story_21329.jsp#.VX3chjjbJ-U

DKAgencies does not have it, but Amazon does http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/907554760

**----------------------- Then there was light Angaaray (banned Urdu short stories translated)

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1150522/jsp/opinion/story_21330.jsp

DK Agencies does have this http://www.dkagencies.com/doc/from/1063/to/1123/bkId/DK46452334424672401825731371/details.html

And it is at Amazon http://www.amazon.com/Angaaray-Snehal-Shingavi-Ed-Tr/dp/0670087173/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1434313847&sr=1-1&keywords=Angaaray

and Worldcat http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/880831323

** 2015 May 17 Sun. p. 10 Cloud covered stars (Bengalis remember their artists only selectively, Ruchir Joshi

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1150517/jsp/opinion/story_20470.jsp#.VX3dgTjbJ-U

Have a look at these 5 short videos from almost the End Of Voyage to arrival home in Ch'ville.

1.     https://youtu.be/A3w8YQafSuE Semester at Sea 2015 Truro trip from the Explorer 29th April

2.     https://youtu.be/351lagHG0Dw Happy May Day 2015 [Flowers, flowers, flowers]

3.     https://youtu.be/iFD-ibcy628 St Ives Sails

4.     https://youtu.be/PvhSwTEteO4 Queen Mary 2. A week in May (2015)

5.     https://youtu.be/VtALFq-NPXs  Semester at Sea Spring 2015 Heading home to Virginia in May

--Philip McEldowney

Yes, I really enjoy Mary C L's beautiful, unique photos and her subjects she carefully selects and composes great images.

I still haven't read “Deer Hunting with Jesus;” and you enjoyed recently reading the non-academic book "Crazy Rich Asians" Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Deer-Hunting-Jesus-Dispatches-Americas/dp/0307339378/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1434314253&sr=1-1&keywords=Deer+Hunting+with+Jesus 
Worldcat: http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/79002718

Worldcat: http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/808628122
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Crazy-Rich-Asians-Kevin-Kwan/dp/0345803787/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1434314420&sr=1-3&keywords=Crazy+Rich+Asians
 

In addition, here is the Worldcat list of books which we have received from South Asia, but not all are catalog as yet at the University of Virginia.
The bibliographic list is here on the Internet http://people.virginia.edu/~pm9k/area-studies/SouthAsia/new/20150528SouthAsiaBooks.html
and its title list and individual titles can be found at https://www.worldcat.org/profiles/uvalibrary/lists/3556705

That's it for now. --PMc