ZooFriends

I guess I will talk to myself this week since Mohan is away. With the board exams done with, Anuttama and Nikhil and their parents must be relaxing! Dipak has one less excuse for not posting a message here. Happy Ugadi to anyone (like me) that uses this new year to renew resolutions made on the first that have fallen through already!

It is 6 years since Naren has been gone. It gets easier to handle with each passing year but I did hit a low point for a few hours yesterday. Especially as I am enjoying my new place I wish he were here to share in the enjoyment. I don't mean to get you all depressed too - but I guess that won’t happen since I am the only one that will be reading this page this week.

I have been remiss in not checking the ZooFriends page as regularly as I ought to have.
Anuttama has finished her 10th Board Exams and we are all off to a Holiday to Jim Corbett Park and Ranikhet. I will be back only on 2nd or 3rd April. I will not have access to the internet during the hols.
Gopal should check whether the browser he is using is Java enabled and whether it is configured to accept cookies.
I spoke to Radha and conveyed my belated birthday greetings to him. He is in the process of acquiring a laptop and has definite plans re posting to the ZooFriends page. I am keeping my fingers crossed.
Please keep the posts coming. Anyone who is unable to post a message could send an email message to either Sujaya or me with the info you want posted. This is just to make sure that ZooFriends run out of excuses for not posting!

It is Radha's birthday today (it is still the 17th here) but since he does not log onto Blogger, he won't see this message. Gopal said he is not able to post messages. I had that problem too initially - Mohan help needed again.

I am settling in my new place and just loving every moment of it. I had my first visitor within three days of moving - a friend from Berkeley - so that forced me to unpack fast.

I'm off to eastern Washington tomorrow to visit Washington State University at Pullman and the USDA station at Yakima to give talks and chat with the scientists there. Today a group of 7-8th graders are coming in and I'll be helping them develop and then run scientific experiments dealing with insect locomotion - part of the university's outreach efforts.

I just received an internet greeting from Radha for my new house - he wishes the next re-union could be at my place - that would be terrific!!! - work on it folks.

It sure does look like a dialogue...

I was surprisingly calm about the earthquake. There was only enough time to do the commonsensical parts of the drill. Evacuating students early in the morning was an uphill task.

It would be wonderful if you could come to Las Vegas during the tournament. I am keeping my fingers crossed regarding the Qualifiers. Ranganathan is fast becoming a monster!

Any news of Vijay or Anita? What about Archana and Sushma?

I guess this is a dialogue between Mohan and me…

Wow, you must have been pretty shaken after Northridge. As the Resident Advisor you must know the earthquake drill well. Was there time to do anything?

I did say that I would make a trip to see Gopal get the Nobel so I could consider a visit to Las Vegas to see you win the Scrabble tournament even though I believe that city should be bombed. I teach in the Fall on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays so advance notice is needed for arranging guest lectures! Hopefully the tournament will be around Thanksgiving. For this to happen, you have to first beat this Ranganathan guy. I don’t know him but he can’t possibly be better than you!

When the Northridge quake occurred Anuttama and I were in Los Angeles. Sheela was in New York when it happened. Anuttama was insisting on continuing to sleep. I managed to wake her up and go out and begin evacuating the other residents. I was at that time the resident Advisor for about 3 buildings. There were quite a few shaken up residents but the counselling work I had to do after the event was more surprising. There were quite a few students who were unable to come to terms with the earthquake and had to be referred for further counselling.

I am boning up for the qualifiers but it is going to be tough as my sparring partner, Ranganathan has been really hitting the books. I have been to Las Vegas several times to play in Scrabble tournaments. Any chance of you making it to Vegas during the period?

Any news from Gopal? He mentioned that he is busy preparing for a visit to US. Keep the newsy posts coming.

The Northridge earthquake occurred before I moved to CA. It was a 6.7 quake but was only 18.4 km in depth. The Seattle one was 53 km in depth. Was I shaken? Not really – Stupidly, rather than worry about safety I was fascinated and excited. The duration was considered to be relatively long yet it was over so fast- there really was no time to do anything. I suppose if I saw things falling, I would have been scared.

It is interesting how life continues normally in Oregon with the rain. Earlier this week I had to give a grower talk in the field on a nice rainy day. We had over 100 growers show up and stand in the rain to listen. There are of course some things I have to get used to still. With their rain attire on the growers looked different and I have ended up in an embarrassing situation. A grower asked me to call him later to set up a place to meet before going to his field. When I called him to confirm the appointment, I realized I had called the wrong person. So now I don’t know who is waiting for my call! The ‘wrong person’ was willing to take me to another field for collecting crane flies feeding on his grass. It was raining initially when we started our collecting but soon we were in the midst of a hail storm and we continued collecting as if nothing unusual was happening. By the time we were done my hands were frozen with all the digging in the soil.

I have my money on your being the winner in the qualifiers. Please continue your extensive preparations for increasing vocabulary and strategy development. Have you been to Las Vegas?

Good luck to Anuttama for her exams. I expect Shiela is pretty stressed out. Where is Jim Corbett? When is the trip to Vienna?

Did you feel the Northridge quake in Berkley? Do you remember what that was on the Richter scale? Were you a trifle shaken up (pun intended)?

The next World Scrabble Championship is most likely going to be in Las Vegas in mid-November. If all goes well I hope to be there. The Indian qualifiers are to be held during end May.

Any news from our missing ZooFriends?

The most exciting event in Corvallis, Oregon, in recent times was the earthquake we experienced earlier this week. It was rated as a 6.8 and the epicenter was over 200 miles north. I was in my office on the fourth floor and felt the building roll. Fortunately there was no damage here. Apparently this earthquake was due to shifting deep inside the earth so no after shocks were expected. I am of course being accused of bringing earthquakes with me from California. I was told that it is time I left my California connections behind!