September 2, 2010 – 10:01 pm
Celebrating the zany youthhood of Krishna, teams travel the city today looking to make human pyramids and reach the ‘pot of curd’ hanging over major intersections. I caught a glimpse of some of the teams on the way home from volleyball practice – and got caught up in the traffic. I have become very zen-like in my acceptance of the road congestion. I just sigh (and smile if I have my camera:)).
When I got to the house, I got a call from Susan (who was at book club) telling me that a friend of ours wanted to take a look around but was not entirely comfortable going out alone. So with the spousal permission all taken care of, out I went and actually got to see a teal complete the human pyramid task.
Basically, groups of youths roam the city looking for these pots of smelly curds (usually dyed with food coloring) and try to stack each other up high enough to reach them. Every year there are plenty of accidents, as the pyramids tumble down, but every year the prizes (and the number of groups) increase. Take a look through the pictures and get a glimpse of yet another side of life in India…
August 26, 2010 – 9:12 pm
We had our last trip ever to the FRRO (YAY!!!) last weekend, and a co-worker at school asked that we try to get some pictures of ‘people in the rain, with slickers and stuff.’ I snapped a few photos out the van window, but A) it wasn’t always raining, B) we were often moving, and C) it was too dark when we came back (since our visit took more than 3 hours!).
Regardless, here are a few pictures of folks enjoying the tail end of monsoon season in Mumabi:
They are finally up and ready! Only three months after the end of the vacation, we have sorted the photos, written the stories, and organized all the different stuff that needs to be organized to post our Pemuteran, Bali pages online and finish the trip!
Allow me my soapbox for a moment: I realize that many people prefer to post things on Facebook after their trips, and I’ve been given some grief for not doing so (*cough* Karla *cough*). I also realize that there are some very important positive aspects to doing so, especially 1) the immediacy and 2) the ability to get feedback.
In all fairness, I could easily enough put together an album of 142 pictures from every trip and upload them the day after our trip (taking care of #1 above). The problem that I see with doing this is that A) then there would be none of the quality control/cropping/etc (aka Photoshopping) that goes in to touching up the pictures on the webpage, B) there would be no descriptors or travel talk like we try to put in the webpages, and C) who really looks through albums of 142 vacation pictures with no idea of what is going on in them?
Since all of these take time, having the choice between putting things on Facebook or my own webpage, I prefer to put them on our own webpage. There is an additional reason to consider: what happens to those pictures on Facebook? If something happens to the site (notice the news about Bebo today?), what happens to all your pictures?
But having said that, I also realize that the number 1 thorn in my side right now is the inability for people to comment on pictures (or even just pages) in a static webpage. That is an ENORMOUS advantage that putting something on Facebook enjoys, and one that I’m really not sure how to address. If I could find a snippet of code that would allow me to turn my Web1.0 pages into something with more interactability, I would certainly do so.
But, until I find that magical snippet of code, please enjoy the Pemuteran pages from our Bali trip!
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it has been a long time since I’ve added a posting here, mostly because we’ve been on vacation for the past week. Not to Bali, mind you, but to the deserts of Rajasthan. We enjoyed days of 100+ (Farenheit) degree weather, incredible rock fortresses, and wild journeys through a wild country.
But this post isn’t about Rajasthan (although just to be fair, I’ve posted what is currently my desktop wallpaper: an image taken on an afternoon camel ride).
Nope, this post is about our Christmas trip, from which I am still organizing and setting up the webpages. This section is, understandably, the most involved, as Ubud was our ‘cultural’ stop and had a lot more to see and do in terms of shopping, temples, dancing, etc.
As I was looking at the Bali pages that have already been posted, there had been a total of 8 previously completed. Today, I present to you 9 new pages, all about the city of Ubud. There are a couple in here for which Susan wrote the travelogue, and even a video – plus a bloody picture of a post-monkey-attacked-finger, so go ahead and enjoy yourself!
Straight out of Wild Kingdom, another “never seen before” in India: a monkey with 2 kittens!
Our neighbors grabbed us this afternoon to take pictures of a mother monkey who has adopted two kittens and is taking care of them up in the trees! I would never believe it, had Alea and I not watched them today.
Protecting the babies (not more than a month or so old) against the vicious crows that would feed on unprotected babies, she swung down out of a tree onto a rooftop. She was trying to find a spot away from the birds, and we were helping her on by shooting the crows with water guns. We could see them clearly – and hear them meowing – and they certainly looked well cared for. This is apparently the second time she’s been spotted, so some sort of maternal instinct is obviously at work.
This event was doubly unusual in that we have never seen wild monkeys around our house. Watching her disappear back into the tree, we could tell why – the camouflage is amazing. We don’t know what is going to become of the babies, but our neighbor remarked that they’ll be good climbers when they grow up!
I put together a series of pictures and descriptions on our webpage, so you can see a bit more of this pretty amazing occurrence…
Didn’t think getting a haircut was a big deal? It is when you walk through an Indian neighborhood to get there. I’ve wanted to document the walk down to my hair cutting “saloon” for quite some time, and I finally got around to it last weekend.
I go to a local place – a step up from the sidewalk emporiums since it is actually housed in an old cargo container with electricity and everything!
Check out the pictures from the walk, just another glimpse at the sights from our life in Mumbai!
February 7, 2010 – 1:08 pm
Today was the 5th annual aquathon at school – a fundraiser that includes swimming and running events. One of Breck’s buddies invited him to participate and ‘share the wealth’ in terms of the work, so Breck agreed to be the runner.
The Splash and Dash portion consisted of a 150m swim and 1.5km run (as opposed to the longer main Aquathon 300m-4km-300m event), which was just perfect for the guys. They had a great time, got a certificate and t-shirt, and had some fun on a Sunday morning!
There are more pictures posted on the main webpage – check out Breck’s eventful day!
January 24, 2010 – 12:16 pm
We’ll get this chronological order stuff figured out someday. Susan wrote the webpages from the first part of our Bali vacation and we’ve got them posted now (even though we already had the second stop online. Go figure).
In any case, our point of origin on the island was the beach resort of Sanur – also known as Snore for its boring nightlife: perfect for us!!
After settling in our villa with some welcome drinks, we spent the next few days, sunning, snorkeling, and recovering from the detrimental epidermal effects of sunning and snorkeling!! Enjoy the pictures…
January 18, 2010 – 9:26 pm
Our second stop over the Christmas vacation was to a dive area on Bali’s east coast.
I’m sure you are saying to yourself, “But wait – what about the first stop?!!” Really, I know you are.
Don’t worry – we are putting these up all out of order. This is the second stop (Amed), next up will be the first stop (Sanur), and then we’ll go on with places three (Ubud) and four (Pemuteran). Trust me.
In any case, the Ahmed webpages for our Christmas trip are now online.They don’t hold any navigation to other parts of the Indonesia pages because, honestly, none exist right now. But scoot on over and enjoy the pictures and stories that are already posted – if you are enjoying a nice cold winter, the sun will help warm you up inside!
December 17, 2009 – 12:54 pm
So I finally got around to finish up our Egypt webpages from the trip way back in April. At least I got them online in the same year!
We are leaving Friday evening for an extended vacation to Bali, and will probably not be posting too much between now and the start of the year (although I will pre-post one more entry to appear right around Christmas). On behalf of the Stutz family, let me wish all readers (both of you) the merriest Christmases and the bestest New Year ever!
December 12, 2009 – 9:35 pm
Whew. Susan is off on her girls’ night chick flick thing, Alea is at the play cast party, Breck and dad just finished up a Star Wars movie: a pretty typical Saturday night – welcome to parenthood! We’ve had a pretty cool couple of days recently, and there are a few pictures posted from the events. Not many, but enough to pop on over and see briefly. Check out Alea’s play production and our school Family Fun Day pages on the website. Happy last week of school before winter break, too!!!
November 23, 2009 – 9:39 pm
The webpages from our Dharamsala trip are online and rarin’ to go. This last week has been really weak on the blog entry front, and I’m worried that trend might continue as we enter the holiday season of things.
We did have an exciting event this last weekend, as we went to downtown Mumbai for dinner with the parents of one of my students. The interesting thing about it is that the husband happens to be the 34th richest man in the world (this after having his net worth drop by $42 billon last year. Yes, you read that correctly. He’s only worth $10 billion now). When all is said and done, however, he and his wife were delightful hosts and we had a fabulous time.
But that doesn’t excuse me from neglecting my internet duties now, does it? Until I get back into the real swing of things, go take your mind off your other problems and check out all the fun we had a few weeks back!
October 12, 2009 – 8:37 pm
It has been a while, but I finally have finished up all 4 Ganesh immersion pages. There is some good stuff here, lots of which didn’t make it into the Facebook spread, so check out the better-late-than-never edition of this holiday.
And yes, I am away this week with Alea on our Week Without Walls trip, but though the wonder of the Internets I could schedule this in advance! How technological are we these days!
October 5, 2009 – 7:44 am
New pictures on the webpage from our trip downtown last weekend to visit the Prince of Wales museum (I mean, of course, the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya as it has been renamed).
We had a blast and saw some sights, but for me one of the most enduring images is the one that greeted us as we made our way towards Mumbai’s newest engineering miracle.
How far along in its journey from being an emergent third world country does a nation have to be to explicitly ban oxen pulled carts from the freeways?
September 23, 2009 – 9:21 am
Our TV is still on the fritz (and our building elevator and internet went out last night) from the continuing electrical storms in the area. We had some neighbors come up to watch the show in our apartment last night, and they talked me into trying to get some pictures.
Now, going up onto the roof of a building in the middle of an electrical storm is probably not a real smart idea, but we waited until things moved off a bit, and then jury-rigged a setup as we stood around in the water (smart) with the camera sitting on top of a metal table (smarter) elevated higher above an air duct (smartest). Setting the camera to take a 6 second picture, I pointed it out and tried my luck.
Wow! Striking the Arabian Sea right outside our window...
I got quite a few pictures with no lightning at all (of course), and most of the first shots were way out of focus, but I did get a couple of ‘keepers.’ It is pretty interesting how much lighter the first scene is, just because of the number of bolts that hit during the exposure.
The photos have been cropped to be the correct size for a desktop wallpaper, so enjoy if you want. In any case, now you know why we’ve been having all these electrical problems!
Winding up the school year, one of my ‘chores’ is emptying everything off the computer. It is kind of like cleaning out the attic at times; you never know what you’ll come across.
In any case, as I was moving pictures and such over to my backup drive, I found some pictures that I had meant to post but had never gotten around to. No, not the Egypt trip. Those pictures are done, but we are having severe laggage in getting the travelogue part actually written. (the pictures and page navigation are here, but are still in a very disorganized and incomplete state).
These are actually from our Mathcounts competition back in Februray. As part of the weekend’s events, we took the participants downtown to see some sights and find some Mumbai math. It was a great afternoon, and we did get to take some fun pictures on the way down, so they are now posted as another view of our life here.
But the truly unique visit that we made that afternoon was to the Dhobi Ghats – the sprawling area of town where dirty clothes from all over the city are brought in to be slathered in soap and slapped against the concrete walls of hundreds of open-air laundry stalls. Quite the sight, and an iconic Mumbai landmark.
And while we’re on the topic of last-minute webpage updating and all, I just realized that – while the pages have been up for quite some time – I’d never made a blog blurb about adding them. So, in case you hadn’t noticed, the Alibag trip page is posted as well!
Yeah – not really an enticing title there, I know. But this is one of those “real life” situations that I actually feel was a true opportunity to see something unique.
In a nutshell, we took a student group out for a day of community service cleaning mangroves, and at the end of our work we headed over to a garbage dump – and were shocked by what we saw.
The kids had never expected to see more than garbage trucks dropping off refuse, and were astounded to find that people made their living by sorting through the trash for things they could sell. It was certainly something that I’d only read about and had never expected to experience.
More pictures and descriptions at the main webpage – but suffice to say that it was quite a way to take stock of just how vastly different life is for some people, and just how lucky we are to have the life that we do.
Or at least be 13th best!
We pass this local college every day coming home from school, and I just had to get a shot of this sign (BTW – billboards are called “hoardings” here, in case anyone ever asks you). They’d had the same ad last year, and I never took a picture, but it is back for another round, and I got my shot this time.
I suppose there is a very specific demographic to which this university is appealing – MBA students who want to attend a college in not just any part of Asia (it has to be South Asia) and have a school that is good but not too good.
I do wonder how they decided to advertise as the “13th best” as opposed to “One of the Best” or even “in the Top 15.” Of course, 13 doesn’t have the bad luck connotations as it does in the West, but that designator is still somewhat funny.
Oh well. Seeing this reminded me that I have a ton of pictures from this past year that have not yet been posted (yes, including the Egypt trip, but that is moving really slowly right now). These last few weeks are killer, what with end of the year hoopla, goodbye parties, report cards, packing, buying a house (surprise!!), etc, etc,etc. I’m not sure how much of anything I’ll get to, but I did put together another “Life in India” photo montage for the webpage, so enjoy the photos!
That means Christ is risen in Greek and is the traditional Easter greeting. The proper response is Alithós anésti, which means Indeed he is!
Since we are celebrating Easter today – Orthodox Easter – it makes sense for us to use the Orthodox traditions, right?
The kids colored some eggs yesterday, the Easter bunny hid them last night, and we hunted them up this morning. I posted a few pictures from the goings-on on the webpage (as well as a quick glimpse of our newly-painted living room wall).
Enjoy the day – we are heading outside to so splash in the pool right now: it is starting to get HOT in Mumbai!
The Sphinx is real old
The pyramids too
The Nile’s the world’s biggest stream.
But better than antiques
The temples and backstreets:
We ate McDonald’s ice cream!
For a sample of our visit, I’ve posted a few pictures on Facebook. These will not replace the webpages to document the trip; they are better considered as appetizers…
What a colorful wonderful musical ending to our term: the annual Festival of Nations took place today at ASB. We spent the morning watching groups perform, and the afternoon marching around in our national costumes. Check out our webpage for complete coverage of this fun event!
We leave tonight for Cairo and the NESA Conference; we don’t anticipate blogging much, although there are a couple of ‘scheduled’ Free Verse Friday poems already on the docket. See you in about 10 days!
March 30, 2009 – 10:10 pm
This past weekend was a sun-scorching water-splashing team-cheering fun time for Alea. She was asked to be on the school’s team for a interscholastic water sports competition (the criteria were being a strong swimmer and a good all around kid. Awesome!) that pitted kids from around the city against each other on pool play equipment.
Susan took her one day, and Dave the other, and all 3 of us came back with ruddy skin – good prep for the Egyptian desert right?! Alea’s only request was that we not ask her to pose for pictures, and I think we did alright on that account.
Even without having her pose, we got some interesting action shots from the events that give a good idea of what she was doing (and some of the interesting swim wear to be found here).
Enjoy!
We took full advantage of today’s colorful Holi festivities, setting up a water fight at home and traipsing around the neighborhood to catch a glimpse of India at its finest.
We missed a lot of the excitement last year, and so wanted to make sure we caught what all the fuss was about (and we did!).
All the pictures are over on our webpage, so pop on over and check them out!
Our weekend turned out to be a crazy filled couple of days, with a play date after school Friday, the huge Family Fun Day at school on Saturday, and a modeling shoot for Breck on Sunday. In between all that stuff, we managed to barbecue, buy some shoes, go out to dinner, hang some new pictures, finish all our homework, and even play with our Kiara friends a bit.
Sunday morning, Breck and I went to get him ‘shot’ again. I know Breck enjoys the prospect of some pocket money and the chance to eat a bunch of Dominos pizza! We asked what happened with all the photos that are taken, and the photographers took us to a nearby store that had pictures of Breck hanging all over the place!
The employees were smiling when Breck walked in, pointed, and shouted, “That’s me!” The shoppers were giving him double takes as well as we walked around the place. No one asked for an autograph – this time!
His favorite shot was a huge poster with six different poses of him on it. Unfortunately, I didn’t have my camera along, so we asked one of the guys with us to take a picture on his mobile camera and send it to us – we’ll see if it makes it.
They did give us three of the extra pictures, however, so we can show off how Spiderman Stutz is taking the Indian scene by storm!
Whew! After a bit more than a month back in town, schlepping through 1700 pictures, and putting together 15 pages – the Thailand trip is finally online. We might be adding and/or revising some info there, but the latest saga in Stutz travel is now available for viewing.
We spent three weeks in-country, basing ourselves in Bangkok, Chiang Mai, and Krabi, so those will be the areas documented. It was a fabulous vacation, marred a bit by camera issues, but hopefully that will not detract from the final presentation.
And yes, we will get to the Alibag trip that stressed Susan out so much soon! But between now and then, zip on over and enjoy the sights of Thailand…
