Walden Pond II

Walden Pond II

The streets of Bangalore
Millions of people and all they do
The livestock road that takes me to work
To a fantasy city of
Computers and electricity
While so many see their floors wash away
With every rain
But the mangos are delicious, papaya too

The cool night breeze on my balcony and
A new hammock I’m excited to nap upon…
i-Tunes has a direct line to my bank account
Steve Jobs owes me a Christmas card

I’ve learned to see the world
Through eyes more than American
And less than American

Are the lights I see from my balcony
In Bangalore or
Reflected in Walden Pond?
Henry David may be waiting on my balcony tomorrow

Incredible India with all her faults and promise
Has shown me I want to live deliberately
Front only the essential facts
Suck the marrow of life
And not, when I come to die
Realize I did not fully live.

Does Your Lawn Have Political Views?

This is an open letter to anyone who reads it as I am looking for an answer to a question that has bothered me for a long time:

What is the purpose of lawn signs for presidential candidates from the 2 major parties?

Note that the scope is limited to:
- Presidential elections and the major parties. I'm not talking about school board or park and rec elections where name recognition is probably the biggest factor (unfortunately) in the decision process for many people.
-I'm also not referring to fringe parties like the People's Socialist Vegan party.

No this is strictly limited to the Republicans and the Democrats.

-Are people looking for validation of their choice: "If I put a lawn sign out and enough other people also put the same sign up I must be making the right decision."

-Is it just to get back at the neighbor who still hasn't painted his fence and you know is a die hard supporter of the opposite party?

-Is it to aerate the lawn?

Does anyone really base their presidential voting decision on a cheap cardboard sign stuck in a lawn, be it their neighbor's or a stranger's? If so should they really be allowed to vote?

So I ask again, what is the point?

Other than emphasizing and exacerbating differences, getting neighbors angry or distrustful, looking ugly, and wasting money that could be spent on more top notch television commercials the focus so well on the issues, what purpose do they serve?

If you have ever put up a lawn sign for a presidential candidate please let me know what you were hoping to achieve with it.

Personally I don't think anyone needs to know who I will vote for or why. I also don't feel any need to broadcast this information.

Is it just me who is a little "off" or out of touch? It wouldn't be the first time.

Bangalore Roads and Traffic

Bangaloreans talk incessantly about traffic like Minnesotans and Wisconsinites talk about the weather. Since the weather and traffic are both maddeningly inconsistent this makes sense. Traffic is also one of the first things people who haven't been here ask about; "What's the traffic like", "I hear the traffic is really bad", "Are there really cows in the streets?" etc. The answers are; Unpredictable but usually bad, I don't care where you've lived in the US your definition of bad isn't the same as India-bad, and Yes there are cows, goats, horses, oxen and even the occassional camel in the streets.


Although it is really impossible to really comprehend the traffic and driving styles without experiencing it, I've tried to capture a small snippet by video taping a few of my morning commutes. I'm also including a video of riding in a rickshaw in Kerala just for fun.

This video shows the start of my commute. Leaving Zen Gardens - note the high tech gate opener, and Artillery Road.

This is airport road. A major road way. I leave for work very early so the traffic is really light. Hello Cows! The sidewalk doubles as a cow pen. It is pretty common to see people milking them by hand in the morning. Notice all the push carts - usually going the wrong way.

Intersections are fun for pedestrians and vehicles

Oops, have to stop for traffic. Motorcycles, or 2-wheelers are less impacted.

Finally made it to Intermediate Ring Road, the home stretch. Notice all the people along the road. 20 minutes after I took this there would be 3 times as many cars and 2-wheelers and at least 3 times as many people walking on the road.

This is Old Madras Road, about 1 km from where I live. I'm including this to give you an idea of how many auto rickshaws are on the roads.

And finally, what it is like to ride in an auto rickshaw. This is one I took in Kerala during the Snakeboat races (separate blog entry).

Is that a Snake Boat or are you just Happy to be in Kerala?

Kerala is the south western most state in India. It is known as God's Own Country. The northern part has a tropical climate and is a maze of lakes and inlets from the Arabian Sea known as the Kerala Backwaters. Visiting the backwaters is a great experience for the natural beauty but also becasue the principle tourist lodging and transportation are one and the same - staying on a houseboat. These are not the houseboats of my youth however (which, in my admitedly faulty memory always seemed to looked like condemned house trailers dropped on a boat hull). No these are amazing, luxurious constructions of hand carved hardwood, hand woven bamboo matting, a cooking and serving staff, air conditioning and satellite TV. Of course you might get a boat where the satellite is not working and have to dig through the stack of Hindi movies to find one with subtitles and realize there is only one with subtitles then spend three hours watching Krrrish (which actually wasn't too bad, sort of a combination of Batman & The Matrix with actors better than Keano Reeves but worse than Michael Keaton).

Touring the backwaters on a houseboat is enough reason to plan a trip to Kerala but once a year there is another reason - The Annual Nehru Trophy Boat Races or the Snakeboat Races as they are more commonly known. The Nehru Trophy is named after India's first Prime Minister after Independence, Jawaharlal Nehru. The Snakeboats are named after snakes.

A snakeboat is pretty amazing to see. The come in various sizes but are all very shallow draft, rowed boats. The largest are over 100 ft. long, have 105 people rowing and about 13 "pace keepers" along the length. Their job is to keep everyone rowing in unison. But since pictures and videos speak louder than words take a look at a couple snake boats in action..

The races themselves are attended by a few hundred thousand people, or a few lakh as they say here. There are so many heats leading up to the final that there is an intermission complete with a half-time show Indian-style

Although the races were the main reason we went, we also got to spend 2 days on a houseboat and see a lot of the natural beauty of Kerala. But before we could embark on the boat we needed provisions; beer, vodka, whiskey, banana chips and jack fruit fries. I am assuming all non-Baptists reading this are familiar with the first three. Banana chips and jack fruit fries may need a little explanation. Banana chips are pretty easy. Take a banana, cut into thin slices and cook in coconut oil and voila - banana chips. A jack fruit is the largest fruit in the world growing up to 75 lbs. The fruit of a jack fruit can be sliced just like a french fry and cooked in coconut oil to make jack fruit fries. I prefer the jack fruit fries to the banana chips but both are good (I'm going out on a limb and guessing almost anything deep fried in coconut oil is going to be fairly tasty)Bags and bags of chips and fries
Then on to our 3 bedroom houseboat. Yup we were really roughing it.

I wasn't happy with how they were driving the boat so I took over for most of the trip (if you believe that I have a bridge in Bombay I'd like to sell you)

And here are some pictures of the backwaters themselves

The bright green is real, I didn't change the colors at all. This is a rice paddy separated from the channel by a thin strip of land just wide enough for the farmers to build their small houses on.

The last stop was the Chinese Fishing nets in Cochin, the capital of Kerala.
These nets are 100s of years old. The fishermen pull them up and down hundreds of times per day and basically catch the fish the swim across them. Or for a few rupees they'll gladly let you pull the nets up for them

For a more complete set of photos click here:

http://picasaweb.google.com/pbalthazor/Kerala#

And They Weren't Singing "Last Train to Clarksville"...

Saturday was an interesting day at Zen Gardens.

I had some errands to run on Saturday morning. As I was waiting for the elevator I happened to glance out the window and saw something rather unexpected. Two monkeys were walking on the 8th floor ledge of "B" Tower (Zen has two towers, A & B, I live in A).

I immediately ran over to Todd's apartment and said "You've got to come and see this....". Fortunately his partner Daven was visiting and being a visitor had a camera with him at all times so we got some pictures.




After watching them walk around on the ledge, climb onto a few balconies and try to enter a few windows I thought it would be prudent to close my balcony doors to monkey-proof my apartment. After assuring myself that my apartment was safe from unexpected visitors I finally started on my errands. Before leaving however, I sent a text message to all the other Target-Zenians letting them know they should close their doors and windows because there are monkeys on the building. This prompted a lot of "Are you serious?" responses. As if "I" would really make up something like that as a joke (actually I'm sorry I didn't think of it before the real monkeys showed up - they seem to know me pretty well....)

I was walking home after finishing my errands when I realized, for the first time in 9 months, I had forgotten my apartment key. This was incredibly ironic because as Todd and Daven came out of their apartment earlier I specifically said "Make sure one of you has a key in case the door blows shut." Fortunately my landlord lives in an 8th floor penthouse in "B" tower. I went over to see if he had a spare key for my apartment. Karma was on my side because he did. While I was there he told me to watch out for monkeys. They had gotten into his apartment and eaten some bananas from his table (obviously these monkeys don't care about being cliche). They had also destroyed plants on the balcony of the apartment next door.

After reassuring him that I had seen the monkeys earlier and taken appropriate precautions, I went with the spare key to my apartment. I was literally typing a follow-up text message to let everyone know the monkeys had gotten into two apartments when I heard a crash from the kitchen. Now you have to understand that with three apartment buildings going up around Zen hearing crashes is not uncommon. I almost ignored it before deciding to go take a look and of course I was greeted by a monkey sitting on top of my refrigerator. I didn't think of running for my camera but it looked something like this:
Everyone keeps a scale model of 1930's New York City on top of their refrigerator don't they?

Karma was really with me because this monkey, and his friend sitting on my dryer, spoke English. When I yelled "Hey Monkey! Get Otta Here" they quickly left the same way they had gotten in; through the laundry room window I had forgotten to close. They are also very tidy as they took a pair of rubber cleaning gloves with them.

Now the next time someone talks about having a squirrel or bat in their house I can say "That ain't nothing, let me tell you about the time I had a monkey sitting on my fridge."

Singapore Home of $36 pitchers of beer.

Singapore is a great city. It is immaculately clean, has great architecture, tons to do, great people, and incredible seafood. But this doesn't come cheap (at least not in the touristy areas). The first time a waiter told me a pitcher of beer was $45 (Singapore Dollars) or about $36 US my response was "Holy Shit". When he said the same amount by the glass would be $45 Singapore I responded "Holier Shit".

The cost of beer aside, it was a great weekend spent with great friends; Micheal, Micheal, Pam, Todd and Tom. Enjoy the pictures. For a more full catelog of photos you can go to: http://picasaweb.google.com/pbalthazor/Singapore

Off on the adventure


John Lennon may not have been 100% correct when he said "All you need is love" but it's a big part of the equation where ever you go.
The Raffles hotel. Where the Singapore Sling was invented and us getting a round of the famous concoction

Awesome seafood
Our first Starbuck's in many months. You've never seen a group of stupid Americans get so excited about something so silly. The lady behind the counter was probably wondering 'why is this guy taking a picture of this?' Over the course of the weekend we found about 25 more Starbuck's. I didn't take photos at all of them.


Really cool and colorful buildings and boats along Clarke Que (pronounced Clarky Key)

Dancin' with Pam and a extra large Guiness


This sculpture/fountian has become the symbol of Singapore is a combination of a mermaid and a lion. Appropriately enough it is call the Merlion.
The big merlion is pretty scary so there is a baby one for little kids
The last friend we made. Molly Malone at her Irish pub. She is wheeling her wheelbarrow through streets broad and narrow crying 'cockles and mussels alive, alive 'o'. Now I know what a cockle looks like. So even though we drank and danced for 3 days I'm counting it as an educational trip :-)

The Times of India (unintentional) Funny Pages

George Carlin, one of my favorite comedians, recently died. This is a huge loss as George was possibly the world’s greatest observer of social stupidity. The world needs more people who look at things from completely different points of view; George did that superbly.

I can’t hope to compete with George but in his honor I present a collection of articles from the Times of India which, unintentionally, are hilarious, strange or blatently wrong. That's what George did to perfection, find the humor and ridiculousness in the things most of us completely gloss over as we go about our lives.

So George, this one's for you....

Before going further I do want to note that the Times of India is a relatively good paper that I get daily. It is informative and does a good job of covering local issues. Every now and then however it seems like the editorial staff all take a vacation at the same time….

Obviously amusment park rides malfunctioning is a very dangerous thing but in this case the ferris wheel just became stuck. The firemen did a great job getting everyone down safely but does that really merit the caption on the picture where they are called "Bravehearts". They rescued 25 people in about 1 hr; 2 minutes per person. Is that really the same as charging into the swords of the English army attempting to gain freedom for Scotland?

This is just amazing and the most creative heading they could come up with is "Using His Head"? How about "But where does he put the cup holder?"

Indian politics rely almost exclusively on subtlety. Very seldom do Indians say anything in black & white terms. When a politician says "That may not be a good idea" it means "You should have your lips sewn shut for even thinking such a stupid thing let alone saying it out loud." On the rare occassions when somene does make a blunt statement the Times of India is there to put it back in proper indirect terms. The author says the army has hinted it would place no more orders for the Arjun main battle tank. Lt. General Dalip Bharadwaj is quoted in the very next sentence as saying "(The) Army will place no more orders for Arjun beyond the 124 already contracted." That's a pretty good "Hint".
This guy had a hair transplant and not only does the Times think it looks great, he is actually a sex-symbol here. Must be the jacket made from old Notre Dame football helmets.

I've used this one in a prior posting but it is too good not to include. Politicians seek the "blessing" of a particular herd of sheep to assure election success. There is also a little known herd of goats that can ensure you won't get caught speeding.

A woman was literally thrown from a moving train and killed because she didn't have a ticket. Wouldn't a more appropriate headline be "Holy Shit! Some idiot threw a woman from a moving train and killed her just because she didn't have a ticket!"

OK Minnesotans the next one is going to come as quite a shock to you and you may want to write a your legislator if you can figure out who it is....


The caption reads: "Contestants dressed as aliens participate in a costume contest during the UFO festival in Roswell, New Minnesota. Now not only is the government covering up evidence of a UFO crash in Roswell, they've unilaterally decided to merge Minnesota and New Mexico. Why couldn't we merge with a cool state like Colorado or Rhode Island?


Maybe it was the aliens in Roswell, New Minnesota. They're always experimenting on cows.

And lastly... We have a new Chief Minister (sort of like a governor) in the state of Karnataka. His name is BS Yeddyurappa. At first the papers were calling him by the nickname "Yeddy". This is a guy who recently changed the spelling of his last name based upon the advice of his astrologer. Evidently in numerology the letters didn't add up to a very lucky number so Yeddiurappa became Yeddyurappa (given that the astrologer didn't recommend something besides "BS" for the first initials of a politician I'm not sure how much stock I'd put in his advice). It isn't surprising therefore that he's particular about his nicknames too. At his request he is now referred to as BSY. Could there be something deeper underlying this however. Something more sinister that would shock India and ruin his political career. I wonder....

Thanks George.