Astrovelo

When we were deciding on names for our daughter, we thought about the possible nicknames that she will be given in school and tried to avoid something that may embarass her. We expected ‘Ash’ and ‘Wini’ or ‘Winnie’ to be short nicknames for Ashwini. But, in her daycare she is known by following names (ranked by popularity):

• Shwinn
• Shwinee-bopper
• Shwinner
• Shwinee-beanie

Definition of an optimist:   A pessimist without enough information.

Saturday was a perfect day for any outdoor activity. The weatherman predicted a cloudless clear sky with 70F as the expected high temperature of the day. We decided to go for an outing in Gallup Park to test out Ashwini’s backpack carrier. Both V and I took turns carrying Ashwini and the carrier seems to work very well. It has enough support for Ashwini and the backpack frame is nicely designed to make it comfortable for the parent. The three mile walk was quite enjoyable and we didn’t even break a sweat. There were lots of swans, geese and ducks in the Huron river that kept Ashwini interested in the walk.

Almost towards the end of it we took a break in the ‘Butterfly garden’ to eat lunch. It was jelly sandwiches, crackers and water. How can I forget blueberries? It seems like Ashwini is always eating blueberries. She just loves them and now she knows to ask for them by name, which starts with a ‘b’ and followed by a sound that I can’t reproduce.

Ashwini enjoyed the morning in the park a lot and was fast asleep on the way home.

Click on the thumbnails to see the bigger version

Today we had a visitor at work from England. His name is Alex A. Alex. Wonder what his middle initial stands for. Should have asked him. Have met a professor from Princeton University whose name is Warren Warren. This is like Major Major Major from Catch-22.

Reminds me of an article that had an interesting list of authors…

A. Bax, D. Max and D. Zax: Measurement of multiple-bond 13C-13C J couplings in a 20-kDa protein-peptide complex. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 114, 6923-6925 (1992).

I know the first author Ad Bax, who is very proud of this paper and refers to it as Bax, Max and Zax in JACS.

By the way, Ad Bax is the most cited currently active author in the world. His publications are referred in more than 20,000 articles when I last checked the Citation Index about 3 years ago.

Just a quick note so I won’t forget.

• Five teeth are out. #6 and #7 are waiting in the wings to make an appearance any day.
• Ashwini has learnt how to operate the garbage can. It is a good way to keep her busy by giving her something to throw away. The down side is that we have to inspect the garbage can periodically to make sure that our phones, remote controls and wallets don't end up in some landfill.
• She is like a parrot. Repeats anything that is said to her. Most of the times it is garbled, but, it is fun to watch her try to say those words.

Click on this link to see the website.

You will see a weird looking guy. Pass your mouse over his face a few times. Then, leave the pointer on his face and watch what happens!!

Via Pseudofreud.

Beautiful composite image of Perseid meteor showers using photos taken over 6 hours by Fred Bruenjes

Here is how he captured it…

I was blessed with decent weather and a good show of Perseids here in Ramona, California. I had my Canon 1D Mark II running with a 17-40mm F4L lens set at 17mm F4, ISO 3200, MWB 3500K, riding piggyback on an LX200. Below is a link to my composite of 28 x 30 second exposures, selected from 680 exposures taken over the course of about 6 hours. I stacked 9 exposures for the background, and then used painted masks in Photoshop to insert the 19 exposures that had meteors.

I got a forwarded email from a friend describing some deeds of Rajanikanth which are not possible to perform in our known Universe under the laws of Physics as we know them. Would any Tamil movie buffs please tell me that this is not true and is just made up by someone for this email joke.

I got a forwarded email from a friend describing some deeds of Rajanikanth which are not possible to perform in our known Universe under the laws of Physics as we know them. Would any Tamil movie buffs please tell me that this is not true and is just made up by someone for this email joke.

I recorded another version of it. It doesn’t have the great ending as the first one but, the dance is equally good.Attempts to rotate the earlier video with sound have been unsuccessful as of now.

A note of caution before you click on the link to view: it is a big file (3.7MB)

Let’s dance!

I recorded another version of it. It doesn’t have the great ending as the first one but, the dance is equally good.Attempts to rotate the earlier video with sound have been unsuccessful as of now.

A note of caution before you click on the link to view: it is a big file (3.7MB)

Let’s dance!

Was watching AVS or TV ASIA on TV and saw a blurb with David Dhavan in it. From watching his movies, I always had an image of a young, savvy gentleman as David Dhavan. But, he looked like someone you would find as an owner of a grocery store. I was just shocked by the extent with which my mental image was different than the reality.

Was watching AVS or TV ASIA on TV and saw a blurb with David Dhavan in it. From watching his movies, I always had an image of a young, savvy gentleman as David Dhavan. But, he looked like someone you would find as an owner of a grocery store. I was just shocked by the extent with which my mental image was different than the reality.