Landour2010

Thursday, April 8, 2010

Wednesday Aptil 7 Day36

Wednesday April 7 Day 36

One of the more interesting aspects of living here in Landour is the fluctuation in the voltage of the electrical supply. At 4:45 am this morning there bulbs were very bright and the florescent tube went on readily. My 7:30 am there was not enough voltage to keep the florescent tube glowing. The fluctuation is caused by the number of lights burning on the hillside at any particular time. By 9 pm there is hardly enough electricity to keep one standard bulb glowing let alone burning. Therefore reading as the evvening goes on becomes more and more difficult. The one type of bulb that gives enough light to read by is one of the new energy efficient bulbs. The only problem is that the last 3 nights the room that has these bulbs was not available to me because of guests sleeping in that room. Everyone is gone now and I am here alone. Therefore I shall be able to read this evening (I hope).

After reading the last paragraph, you may wonder why I was up at 4:45 in the morning. My mind works all the time and if I have a problem (or a perceived problem) I wake up early and worry the thing. This morning I decided to get up and see if I had a problem. I have been concerned whether my 2 video camera are exactly the same in the quality of pictures they record. This problem popped into my mind and I got up and checked it out. Both cameras are the same and I can now quit worrying about that.

Todays shooting went well and I got some good shots of Ridgewood in the morning when the sun is on the front of the building. I have shot so much lately that I am behind in my logging. I must catch up and keep up every day.

This past week my blood sugars have jumped around a bit. I had high levels on Monday morning. That is the day after my “day of rest” and I had done no walking at all. My body had not consumed enough of the sugars that my food produced on Sunday. Today the levels were a little bit low and I walked a great deal yesterday. There is a direct casual reletionship between exercise and sugar levels.

Tuesday April 6 Day 35

I spent a while this morning logging in the taping of yesterday and putting my still shots of Flag Hill into recognizable folder on the computer.

My project this afternoon is to go to the far end of the Woodstock buildings (Midlands) and video tape the paths back up to the school. I am having lunch 1/2 hour earlier to get a head start on the shooting. It will take me around 35 to 40 minutes to walk to Midlands. If I waited to start till 1:30 pm I might run into students coming down the hill by 3:30 - 4:00 pm. I mustn't have students on my master tapes. It is now 4:30 pm and I have just returned home. One of the shots I took is of a long panning shot of the elementary boys dormitory, Ridgewood. The light was all wrong so i have to go back down there in the morning to get the light correct. I shall do that tomorrow. I ended up there too late and had to leave the area because of students returning to the residences. I shall tape the remainder of the trails early on Friday afternoon.

The young lady who manages this property left for Delhi as I was heading down the hill. Her friend and her husband will be staying until tomorrow. The room they are sleeping in is the one I use to get in and out of the front of the house. So until they leave I will have to use my bathroom door that opens on the passage at the back of the house. I cannot lock anything up when using the bathroom door.

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Monday April 5 Day 34

I went over to Flag Hill this morning. At the top of flag Hill are hung Tibetan prayer flags. There are prays printed on each flag and when it wind moves the flag the prayer goes to the god. There is an open space at the top of the hill with several large stones and a couple of fire rings for people to build bond fires in. Rhododendrons are in full blossom and add their color to the various colors of the flags. The path to the top of the hill is rather torturous and rather demanding. In high school I attended several East Sunrise Services on flag hill. The sun rises around 5:45 am and in order to get to the top of the hill before that event took some planning. We got up around 4 am and it was a full hour to hour and a half climb in the dark (it usually is dark before sunrise).

The afternoon was spent shooting a couple of the trails and then walking around the area trying to identify the various trails on my map. It is beginning to make some sense and I discovered that I identified some of the taped trails incorrectly. I will take my laptop with my video log and my video walkman down the hill thursday morning on my way to the chorus rehearsal. I will be able to correct the trail designations then.

I washed my jeans and work shirt this morning. I had put them on to soak overnight yesterday evening. There was a light wind today and both of the items got completely dry. Nature’s drying was working well.

Sunday April 4 Day 33

Today is an official “day of rest”. NO climbing around the hills today or bending over a hot video camera to create great art. I guess that is a bit like cooking over a hot microwave oven. That is one of the things I miss, my microwave oven and all the treats and flavors one can get out of the thing. “My kingdom for a bag of microwave popcorn” done in my best Richard III accent.

I never left the grounds today. I finished reading “Robinson Carouso” and started working on “Catherine De Medici” working my way through the introduction which contains much more history than one would ever want to know.

Saturday April 3 Day 32

I went down the hill and prayed to the ATM gods and I was given money. On my way back I stopped at the Chemists (pharmacy) and bought some insulin. The stuff only comes in cartridges of 300 ml each. My vials of insulin in the US are 1000 ml. So it takes 3 of the cartridges to equal one vial. I use 2 different kinds of insulin, one I take 3 times a day and the other I take at night. The amount of insulin used is basically the same, around 22 ml a day. One cartridge will last about 13 days. The cost are: Humalog 544 rupees ($12.09: $36.27 a month) and Lantus 884 rupees ($19.64: $58.93 per month). My copay on my insurance is $36 per month. I shall be paying a little more ($23) for the Lantus in India. I am very pleased. Now I will have to learn how the use the “pens” or cartridges.

The young Indian lady who is managing the property is up here for the weekend. I have had delightful conversations with her and her “friend”. He works for GE Financial out of the US. He is in mergers and acquisitions, just the kind of thing I did repeatedly in the final years of working as an accountant. He directs various teams working currently in India, China and Singapore. The young lady is an “alternate medicine” practitioner.

I was brought to my attention that the distance views are pretty good now. In May the fire season starts and the smoke will start to obscure the vistas. So, I have to get some distance shots of the surrounding scenery. That will be my first project this coming week. I will be able to the “trail or path” shooting as long as there is sunshine so I will dedicate time to the scenery shots.

I have learned that there are 2 renewable pleasures for mankind. The first is procreation activity and the second is eating. I will leave the first to your imagination but the second one is definitely missing from my life. Eating has become a chore since there is so little variety in flavors. I have finally gotten a menu that does not upset my stomach too much. So I am sticking with it. Last night the cook prepared a vegetable for me that looked like cricket bodies without appendages. I tasted one of them before placing it on my plate and was I ever glad. It was not the remains of a creature but very bitter tasting and rather woody. Needless to say, I rejected the offering. Perhaps it is an acquired taste but I would just as soon stay ignorant of this particular “delight”.

Saturday, April 3, 2010

Friday April 2 Day 31

While logging my tapes I review all the shots. I have a winner already. While doing a shot where I pan around a corner to get the perspective of sharp corners, a woman and her daughter entered the frame. I followed them around the corner until they were out of the focus range. The young girl was skipping down the hill with the mother walking behind. They were absolutely delightful. If people are on camera I must make certain that their faces are not visible or recognizable. If I wanted to use their image commercially I would have to get a signed “release” which would allow me to use their recognizable image. Most of you have seen some reality television where the faces of some of the people have been blurred out. That process makes them unrecognizable so that the producer of the show can broadcast their image without specific permission.

I was able to go out and shoot for almost 3 hours. I got another good shot with a Indian woman walking along a level trail and my following here showed the twists and turns of the trail. A good but exhausting day. I am finding the stress of shooting to be more tiring than I had thought. I have to maintain such control over my whole body to get smooth shots that I hurt all over in the evening.

Thursday April 1 Day 30

I have been in India for a month today. This morning I headed to the internet cafe to activate my ATM card. No luck. I was informed that I needed to call Portland about the card giving me a toll free number. I went down the hill to Woodstock to attend the choir rehearsal. The school is on Quarter Break. This was happening last year when Judy and I were up to see the school. It is closed from Friday noon through Monday evening. Needless to say, I did not attend the rehearsal because all the kids were gone. I took the opportunity to go to the Development Office where I had used the phone before. There was a hold on the card and I was transferred to Fraud Prevention. The man on the phone asked if I was in India and using the ATM card to get money. I answered in the affirmative and he released the hold on the card. Evidently that was why I was unable to use the card for the past week and a half. I shall find out on Saturday if it really works. Keep your fingers crossed.

The wind last night knocked many more blossoms off the rhoddies. I went out and taped them adding one more snippet of images to my rhododendron tape.

I spent much of the morning after my return from the internet cafe on logging the tape I have shot so far. It is slow and tedious but getting easier as I learn new tricks on controlling the equipment.