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| April 17, 2008 |
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Another trip up to the City yesterday, to the Powell-Market
tourist nexus via BART in order to retrieve my passport, with
its new Indian visa. I've only had transit visas previously
(most memorably, through Yugoslavia in '77). India's requirements
are kind of complicated, kinda convenient how San Francisco's one
of the few places in the US where they have a consulate or Embassy.
But now, they've outsourced the procedure, so it's a little more
costly, but less hassle -- at least for me, who allowed plenty of
time. Many travelers don't, of course, and they can get quite
irate when things go off the rails at the last minute -- see
my
Indian visa outsourcing nightmare, worthwhile for the
comments, which have no sympathy for the haplass American's
struggles, like nothing compared to what those coming
to the USA endure. Since reading another travel
nightmare/story somewhere about how instead of a visa in the
passport, just the receipt for the visa had been
installed, I'm wondering -- what's this visa thing look like,
anyway? Well, it takes up a whole passport page, but unlike
the example shown in
how to read a
Indian Visa, the fields are filled in.
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| April 15, 2008 |
- It's
Not You, It's Your Books, by Rachel Donadio -- dealbreakers
on or missing from his or her bookshelf -- or even, is there a
bookshelf at all?
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| April 4, 2008 |
- An
appreciation of a 70s book called Nomadic
Furniture which suggested assembling a whole bunch
of styrofoam cups by attaching their edges together to
form a sphere, and then maybe placing an electric lamp
inside. The text says the result's so common in college
dorms it's become a virtual cliché. We read about
this when I was in college, when the book was
new, and decided to build one, naturally referring to
the project as the Virtual Cliché. Took us many
days, working in the living room of a group house just
off-campus; but after completion, nobody wanted it.
This
guy does similar work with paper dixie cups which results
in smaller, more manageable creations; but we used the
standard-sized cups, so ours was huge. Later,
the Cliché was discovered languishing in a basement,
and it's a shame we've no photo of a formally-attired
friend wearing it on his head out in the backyard, en
route to a wedding reception. I was reminded of the
Cliché by this
hula-hoop
sphere in the news, shown in that enclosed Galleria
in Milan. Is anything calculated, or do the connected
hoops just assume that dome-like form during
construction?
-
About mis-pronouncing words intentionally --
saying
it wrong on purpose. I'm guilty of this, as
well; it was an adolescent affectation.
- Change
We Can Believe In -- the new British
coins vs. the new $5 bill.
More
at the Royal Mint about their updated
metal currency.
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| March 29, 2008 |
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They're thumbnail links, three Photos from Current Events.
Above, the Northern lights -- from space! Lower left, about
origami re-entry designs; and the lower right, an art
installation in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Also in the news,
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| March 23, 2008 |
Above, my morning class, just ended, a great group. That old Korean
guy is a retired preacher. The final session during the traditional
pot-luck he was prepared to lead us in "God Bless America" but I nixed
that. Below, my afternoon class,
kinda low-res 'cause it's a scan of a glossy but it's okay, we'll see
a better photo of these people later, we'll be together until the end
of May.
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