Shaman

Obama today, hope tomorrow

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New York Memories

I was in New York last weekend, and visited the Empire State Observatory. I was returning to the Empire State Observatory after almost 9 years. My last visit was in the fall of 1999. I had taken a number of photographs from the observatory, and one of them was a photograph of downtown Manhattan, with the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in the background.

As I gazed at the void left by the twin towers, I began to choke up. I’ve had great memories of the twin towers, and used to visit them often when I was living in New York city.  Last weekend, I shot another photograph from the same spot. The void hurts.

Posted in Photography, Thoughts | 1 Comment »

My bucket list - updated 4/27

1. Visit all the 50 states in the U.S of A
2. California, Hawaii and Portland road trip
3. Get my photographs published in National Geographic
4. Apologize to the people that matter to me, for the hurt i’ve caused them
5. Photograph the Flecktones live
6. Save a life
7. Open a coffee tea shop
8. Write a best-selling book
9. Cook a meal for the poor and homeless
10. Live to see affordable and comprehensive health insurance
11. Travel at least 30 days a year to a new country or two
12. Strive for simplification and peace
13. Play the banjo competently
14. Skydive
15. Bungee jump
16. See diabetes cured during my lifetime
17. Update this list every month

This whole bucket list thing is freaking me out. Last weekend, I ended up saving the life of child. I wasn’t feeling too good on the 19th, and it being a saturday, decided to lounge around in bed. At around 11:50 am, my wife came screaming into the bedroom, asking me to help. When I went downstairs with her and hopped over to the neighbor’s, I saw a lifeless child on the floor, turning blue and lifeless. I checked his vitals i.e. pulse and respiration. There was no respiration, and his heartbeat was weak. I noticed some food in his mouth, and also observed a distended abdomen. I quickly assumed that he had choked, and worked on clearing his airway. The mother was in hysteria, and the kid wasn’t responding to any stimulus. I cleared the airway by inducing him to vomit, and that immediately restored his breathing. I made sure tha the airway did not have any obstruction, and gave him a cardiac massage to get his heart going. After five or six attempts, his pulse got stronger. By this time, the EMT folks were on the scene. They took him to the hospital, where the doctor confirmed that his symptoms were caused by choking.

Well, one more item off the bucket list.  Wonder what  the future holds…

Posted in Ideas, Thoughts, travel | 5 Comments »

Shooting in National parks - The bloody irony

Two recent news articles caught my attention this month. Both pertain to National parks. Both pertain to shooting. The Department of the Interior is proposing new rules for the proposed “New Fees For Filming And Photography On Public Lands” which seeks to update and standardize long-standing permit requirements and fees for shooting on land managed by the National Park Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. In a nutshell, the proposal seeks to make it difficult for photographers and videographers to do what they do best: Take pictures and shoot video. Commercial photographers and videographers have always required permits, and have abided by them. Amateurs are being given a hard time, and are also being increasingly targeted in the name of national security. Additional information about this measure is available at the NPPA website here.  (Disclaimer: I am a member of the NPPA- National Press Photographers Association). 
 Now consider this article in Time magazine: The Gun Lobby Targets Yellowstone. Our friends at the NRA want the national parks to allow loaded guns to be carried in our national parks. Wow. So I can take a loaded gun to a national park, but I cannot take a camera and indulge in photography. Will somebody please put some sense into our government? 

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I got tagged…

Naomi at Wild and Precious Life tagged me. I humbly submit to the latest meme doing in the rounds in the D OC.

Here are the rules:

1. Link to the person’s blog who tagged you.
2. Post these rules on your blog.

3. List seven random and/or weird facts about yourself.

4. Tag seven random people at the end of your post.
5. Let each person know they’ve been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

Seven random and/or weird facts about me:

1. I love to travel. If I had a shot at going back in time and choosing a different profession, I’d be a Traveller with Lonely Planet.
2. I cook with a passion. I picked up cooking from my mother, who taught me and my sister a very important lesson: Cooking a good meal for someone is the best way to show them that you love them and care for them.
3. I’d like to open a restaurant someday. I’d like to serve healthy food, and have an open kitchen, and change the menu everyday.
4. My grandpa is my best friend. He and mom have made me what I am today.
5. The happiest days of my life were when my niece and nephew were born. That day, I truly understood the feeling of wanting to love and protect someone with all my might.
6. I’ve had a tough life, but have no regrets. If I had to live my life all over again, I wouldn’t change a thing. (Except for point 1 above)
7. Someday, I hope to play the 5 string banjo.  Béla Fleck is my inspiration.  I can never get tired of listening to the Flecktones, or watching them live.

There’s nobody left to tag, so if you feel like blogging about seven random/weird things about yourself, go ahead.

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