"Arun, I think the best views of sunset, sunrise, stars and moon are always in hill stations. I studied in Kodaikanal, and trust me there were wonderful views of fog and moonlight almost on a daily basis. "
Indeed, places of high altitude give the bast view of sunset. You will be sure to find that beautiful golden yellow tinge of Sun more often there than anywhere else. And the hills in the surrounding, occasional mild fogs add to the beauty of it. Not constrained, I would spend rest of my life in hill stations watching and photographing sunsets. ;-)
Othere than hill stations, sun set is at its best at sea shores and places at northern part of the world. I am fortunate to be living close to the west coast of India and having seen many sunsets in the Arabian sea. Early winters, sometimes even the smoky polluted skies of Bangalore are painted deep red and yellow with cloud linings working to create wonderful patterns in the sky. The best sunset I have seen so far happened when we were driving by the beaches of California's 'highway One' last winter. The road is amazing by itself, with rows of hills on one side and sea shore immediately on the other side. Just when the sun was about to set, we noticed a jet flying in the west, and the silver lines emitted by the plane shown brightly in the golden yellow sky. And the plane was flying in a direction such that it appeared to be approaching the sun, as if planning to collide with it. Never before have I seen such a beautiful and picturusque end of the day.
One more place worth a mention is Alaska. Though I was there in peak summer, when sunsets are not at its best, it was beautful to see sun going behind the icy mountains. Here is a picture republished from my archives, taken as late as around 10pm. That's around when sun set happens there suring summers.
I am trying my hands on night photography now. A few days before, I went out of town with my camera so that I can catch pictures of city lights from a small cliff. I was actually disappointed. Despite having view of a lake, the lights were so scattered and chaotic that I am not hopeful of getting any good pics. And for once I wish Bangalore had some tall buildings. Besides, since I was a little late to reach the place, I could not even take shots of the sun setting. But on the brighter side, it so turned out that it was a full moon day!! So I decided I might as well turn the cam towards the moon. The cloud pattern surrounding the moon was also quite encouraging that day. And so finally took couple of pictures of the big cheese ball. This is the first time I have tried to take photos in the absence of sun and have been wondering how it is going to come out. Out of lack of experience, I have simply trusted the camera to give me the exposures and haven't put my hands on changing it. I still have some more shots to take before finishing the roll, which I am planning to shoot on sunset pictures sometime this week. And it better come good.
People are at it again. Google's features are being used to fool around and now, it is the turn of Microsoft to be the victim.
Go to Google, key in "Go to Hell" (quotes inclusive) and press 'I am feeling lucky' button and you are lead to microsoft's home page. Chances are you have already got one of the emails floating around on this. The reason for this to happen is simple and well known: Some one has linked to MS home page like this:
<a href="http://www.microsoft.com">Go to hell</a>
and one of Google's features now ensures that if you look for 'Go to hell', microsoft.com is one of the result pages. And since this link seems to be pretty popular, microsoft.com is coming as the first result when you search for this pattern. It is highly likely that this is a collective effort.
For people who have used advanced search in Google: I tried to find the people who are playing this prank. The method I employed is to look for that pattern { link:microsoft.com "go to hell" } (no flower brackets) in Google. I assume this translates to 'gimme the list of sites having text "go to hell" that link to microsoft.com'. But it does not seem to give desired results. Anyone knows a better way?
For any one who is interested in environmental issues, what happened in the Johannesburg earth summit, and the history from Rio and Kyoto, here is the best place to see.
The story(from the previous post) reached a happy ending. Finally I have found the car that was destined to be mine. Having been using it for nearly two weeks, I must say I am fairly happy with whatever services that this 4 wheeled white elephant is giving me. White Elephant because of obvious reasons - the first and natural thing being fuel. And with fuel prices having shattered the ceilings and going all the way up, things would not have been worser. Our stupid man George is not doing any good to this by sitting pretty out there in is office and making all silly comments on Iraq in original Texan ishtyle. Other expenses include the temptations to add accesories and routine maintanance. My car does not have sun film and rear speaker and it badly needs both of them. And finding out that those few square feet of thin sheets of sun film cost in 4 figures is not the greatest news either. But on the brighter side, life is much better now. It is more easy travelling, especially when the distances are longer. There is no need to worry about backaches and eye problems that my 2 wheeler was trying to give me, there is no need to worry a lot about vehicles spewing black gases on the road, and there is some pleasent music to help things furthur. Well, life already sounds good. :-)
