Good morning everybody!

Well really, the veracity of my statement depends on where you are in the world, truth be told - it isn't even morning here in Oakville, Canada. I just feel that the day has only begun and that lots is ahead. Hope that's true for most of you all!

Here is a photo of some morning berries I took, just one photo this time. Tomorrow I am planning to do a cumulative post of looking back at July's photos, a monthly tradition I want to start. But on August 1st, there will be new content once again!

Until later,
Me

Beach Night

 Another set of pictures of the same Mexican beach as in the "Beach day" post.

 Our hotel was close and so I decided to take a walk in the night, kind of realizing that if I don't take enough pictures - I'll regret it later on. I took enough pictures.

 Got all my work done today - the big project that I announced in the post earlier and said I'll finish on the 30th - I finished today.

That means that I will post again now! No promises about daily posts, but once every 3 days at least - that I will do. I hope you all have a great evening and a good start to the next week! :)

Until later,
Me

Birthday!

It's my birthday today! Alright. That's no excuse, I know I haven't been posting the last couple of days! Sorry guys. Im just doing an important job right now which takes up all of my time. A big project at work is due on July 30th, and I just don't have the time to commit to a full-blown photography effort. After that day, I'll be back - I promise! Hope you all have a wonderful next week and two days :)

Beach Day

Mexico! Took me a while to realize where I took these. Then I remembered! Great trip with family. Lots of time on the beach.

Trinity Church, New York

At the very heart of New York, this den of modern values and symbol of the current era, is located - or more correctly, squeezed, a lone piece of land existing outside of time. Not money, faith rules here - but what is faith in the financial capital of the world and a city of worldly opportunities? It is something long forgotten, often hidden, even buried. Yet here, among the shining mirror towers, stands one in the style of the Gothic Revival architecture. It's not just a contrast with its surroundings, it is a daring challenge. A challenge to the city, a challenge to each individual to pause and realize the meaninglessness of the surrounding fuss. Believers will remember God, nonbelievers will remember that in the end, the king and the jester are both buried in one and the same land. 

At one point, the Church was the tallest building in New York. But as religious values grow pale in modern people, this Church has also lost its supremacy in 1890 to the New York World Building. However, the inexorable hand of progress could not reach to wipe out this tacit reminder amidst a great city. 

The Church has history. The land for its construction was purchased in the year 1696. I will not recount all of its long story, for those interested - read: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity_Church_(Manhattan). 

But lastly, I will stress that if you are ever in New York - do not forget to visit this corner outside of time, you will not regret it. 

Injection of Color (Aggressive Chromaticism)

Yesterday's post has been drained of color. This one aggressively injects it back into the surrounding world. Nature is in large about color, its palette best represented by flowers. These are my photos from the Royal Botanical Gardens.

It is interesting that flowers are all very different, just like humans - except humans are way more colorful inside. Yet we wear masks to make us monochrome, as conformity is considered a social virtue and self-exposure leads to vulnerability.   

Death has a lot of artistic value, perhaps because of the sensitivity of the issue, perhaps because of the mystery. 

Seems like nothing is happening in the picture but that's not true. Life is always about activity, death is still. But death can be thought of as a separate perpetual state, or it can be thought of just as a term for conclusion of life, and thus inseparable and momentary. And if death is just the end of life then it is not the opposite of life, no - then the opposite of activity is non-activity: sloth. Thus sloth  is not only immoral, it is anti-life. And that death is not just the end of life but both a perpetual state and a momentary conclusion at the same time, does not change the premise of that statement. 

Are flowers happy? They might not have feelings but happiness doesn't have to be an emotion, it can be a satisfactory state of existence. Then the lack of ambition exhibited by flowers is the key to happiness. Fortunately, humans are more complicated. Without human ambition I wouldn't have a computer to blog on.

 

Why is nature beautiful? Why does beauty exist? We can survive physically without experiencing beauty. Then beauty is completely pointless - but it is not, otherwise why do we all  gravitate to it through creating or appreciating art. Then beauty exists for something else, and through its presence testifies for the existence of the soul. 

Funny how this post ended up being not that much about the flowers. I wish for all of you to have a bright day you'll remember in the warmest colors. Until tomorrow!

Apathy Drain

Church With Wings of Waves

Commencing my day with blogging - what a great beginning! I'm in a splendid mood actually. Don't know if it's because of the morning and the sun is in its zenith, or because I discovered an awesome new artist and having a birthday party later on in the evening. Either way, I see no darkness and know no shame, just having an awesome time at work. I sound like such a flamboyant person, completely contrary to the dark introvert that I imagine myself to be. I respect introverts, they are always more interesting. They spend more time observing than talking about what they observed, a trait of wisdom. Wisdom, unfortunately, rarely makes anyone happy - yet if it' be all about current happiness, there would be little progress. Being unhappy with the status quo drives development. Extroverts, however, are bold. Another respectable characteristic. I want to combine the best of both in myself.  

The photo, called Church With Wings of Waves (I'd hate to sound pretentious), was taken in Hawaii with what I believe was a Nikon D60, standard lens - nothing too fancy.  Building and wings formed by the waves, just rotated. Hawaii was a great vacation, very likely more photos will pop up!

Time Travel

Just wanted to share some of my earlier pictures with you guys! These were all taken with an hp PhotoSmart 43x series. Soon to be rightfully titled an antique, this sturdy piece of equipment accompanied me to many adventures of my more innocent age. As I go full speed forward, I do get a little nostalgic at times. I believe the past is the one treasure which no one can take away - the most valuable treasure. It's your life.And life is the only thing we really have, everything else is just a part of this one whole. I feel like remembering the past helps one define their vector for the future, as cliche as learning from history is, in the past people find who they really are. Yet, this blog isn't for banal rhetoric. Check out my photos from Greece in 2005!

 Being the first digital camera I had (I managed to be senescent enough to own a film camera when there were no digital ones), it only had maybe 5MP - at most. But it did add its own certain charm to the photos which only became apparent once I compared these to the photos taken with modern cameras. This is a picture out of a plane window as we are flying over Greece!

 A part of a wide bay. I am walking on the stairs engraved into the mountain, so I get a view from pretty high up.

 A picture taken from the bus. A bit blurry, I'm aware. But I was surprised at seeing so many hills everywhere.

 A fort atop of the mountain, took a lot of climbing to get here. This thing is very old!

 The beach. Perhaps the first experience I had at "jumping waves" (breaking through tall waves, instead of being washed up onto the sand like what happened to me when I was even smaller). At this point I was 13.

 The last day, visiting a city. While at Greece, I have only been to Crete - heard there isn't much of ancient glory remaining in either Athens, or Sparta or other historic places. But on Crete I managed to travel a lot! Visited the famous Knossos Palace and labyrinth (home of the Minotaur) - yes, the labyrinth is real. Hiked, traveled, took pictures - all was great.

 Another view of the bay. It was beautiful. I don't want to lie, but I think there was some prohibition about swimming in deeper into this bay. Sharks or jellyfish or something...

 A view from the trail at the Samaria Gorge. To date, the longest distance I walked - a hike of 16km, ending with a wonderful dive into the cool Libyan Sea.

Another view from the Samaria Gorge. I was overexcited about this photograph, and for a long time considered this the best photograph I took to day (I wasn't much into photography at that time).

All in all, my hp PhotoSmart 43x series helped me preserve my memories. It may have been only 5MP, but these clues remind me of how great my entire trip was. A lot of things happened since then, good ones and bad ones. Most of my current friends were made between this period and today. I guess sometimes, it's not about the quality of the photographs - it's about the story they tell. 

New Friend

A curious little fella I met at the Ontario Marine land!

 All in all we bonded well. I wonder if he thought I was the one trapped behind the glass.

 He's chubby but in a good, healthy way.

 Bye bye!

The greatest love of all!

Shifting balance of darkness and light

Click to enlarge

Click to enlarge

Rest, made increasingly impossible by the omnipresent force of the World Wide Web, can be found at Muskoka which is isolated enough to only have one 1994 computer for around 10 cottages. Fishing, exploring, waking up at 5am daily, going out on a boat - I had a great time!

The beaches there are generally pleasant but not really anything special - that is until sunset. The parting sun transforms the surroundings into splashing colors of yellow (pic 1 taken @ 8:21PM), deep red (pic 2 taken @ 8:45PM), and the gradients of the two. A contradictory presence of both increased light and increased darkness floods the lake. The sunset draws people out of their cottages, attracting the everlasting real vampires - mosquitoes. But what is really great is the peace and serenity. I really had an amazingly restful week. 

Truffle (so much for an original title)

As I outlined in my miniature manifesto a couple posts back, the "New Direction" post, I am going to be changing styles. Less talking - more pictures. Less resting - more posting. Less opinions & more creativity. Fancying myself to be an aspiring amateur photographer, I share the common weakness of the creative folk - the need to share. That is why I will use this blog as a vehicle for sharing my thoughts and life, not in the elongated text blocks, but in a more concise, visual, and hopefully more entertaining way!

This is a chocolate truffle that my friend made for me a while back :) She wanted me to take a picture of it for her blog, but it never found its way there. I do love desserts though, so I thought I would start my photo reel with something special! It is easy to get lost in chasing macro-opportunities, especially in the hyper-competitive environment which many of us are facing. But it is often the little moments which add up to constitute one long, unnoticeable continuum of a happy life. A banal wisdom, but banality itself never makes things false. Right now I just want a truffle!

Speeches. Starting out : Inspirations & Unique Style

While I am not a particularly creative type in every medium, I do shamelessly admit to having a few talents. Art isn't one of them. But what I am good at, is being a good orator.

I never underwent any specific training and deep inside - I am an introvert, though I try not to openly exhibit this socially shunned quality. But my speeches just worked out. The very first speech I did while still in ESL, and won a school award for it. I did great speeches in Russian, English, French and even Chinese with awards and high praise.

I have also joined a club, Toastmasters International. This club focuses on helping people perfect their spoken delivery. As an executive, I have tried my best to help others learn what I guess came naturally to me. To a certain extent, because I still have a lot of room to develop as well.

For Toastmasters, I have written a small tutorial for starting out in speeches and it is something I want to share with you guys :) Alright, enough of an intro. Let's jump into it!

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Starting out : Inspirations & Unique Style

One picture is worth a thousand words. A quote used to identify the best medium for spreading ideas, it definitely applies to perfecting a skill. Learning to tie a tie can be more effective to a YouTube video than to a set of word instructions. Learning a martial art is more effective in demonstration than in writing. Learning to speak is no different. 

As a speaker is more and more developed, they begin to define a profoundly their own style. It is evident in what a speaker accentuates, their pace, their attitude and how they carry themselves. It is evident in how they address the audience. A speaker's style is something that separates them from the rest and gets them noticed. As they get noticed, more interest is given to what they are saying. Thus, what they're saying acquires greater reach. 

Developing a style takes practice - that is for sure. It isn't forced - it comes naturally. But to aid its development, an aspiring speaker should definitely devote some time to observing the styles of others. A picture is definitely worth more than a thousand words here - everyone know that eye contact and audience engagement are good. However, upon actually viewing some great speakersand visually engaging with their speeches, a learner acquires a far deeper understanding of what works best for them to make them unique.

A style matures with the maturity of the speaking skill that the learner possesses. However, by starting to watch other people speak early, that style matures quicker and the learner acquires greater inspiration. That is why, at least in the belief of the reader, before focusing on the metrics of the speech (eye contact, voice projection, motion, etc.) - one should first find speakers they are inspired by. This will motivate you to get better and push you in the right direction. 

Everyone is different in how they choose their inspirations. Some can look at one speaker, others can have a few. Some may mimic their speeches, some may just watch. Whatever works for you best. You do not have to agree with the speaker's views to learn from how well they use oral communication. Hitler was a very expressive and one of the most powerful modern-age speakers, having moved millions. Nazism should not be tolerated but Hitler was talented, even though he used his talent for evil. Martin Luther King is a common inspiration. Some look in movies to find great examples to follow - Al Pacino performed a number of great monologues. Find these on YouTube.

A lot of people just jump to perfecting the physical aspects of their speech and how well they use the elements which are available to them. But what makes a good speech great is the passion of the speaker and no words will teach you how to portray passion. Pictures, videos - on the other hand, might. 

Large Hadron Collider was worth it?!

Wow! I'm back. This is truly shocking even to myself, I mean when was my last post?! Eras ago, I know. I mean even Blogger changed since then, it also managed to delete all of the pictures I ever uploaded. Sorry for my long absence.

Well, as wonderful as my glorious return is - the more rattling recent event is the discovery of the Higgs Boson! Something so small is having such a ripple effect among the scientific and the non-scientific communities alike. Don't forget the over-stimulated social media as well. No, it does not "cancel out physics", as some may believe, but it does open new horizons and while solidifying past theories, it is a big step into the bright future of us finally understanding where the beep do we live, or so what is the universe?

On top of that, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) which took 30 years to build using $6.4 US dollars of financing finally fulfilled its purpose. A speculative investment, but knowledge is power and science is progress. I don't know where I got my recent manner to speak in general-sounding not-really-that-meaningful pseudo-deep statements, a nasty habit of shallow minds. But LHC was indeed worth it! The Higgs Boson is important, and to those who are still lagging behind the curve in understanding why - here is a brief point-form explanation:

• There are only 4 forces in the universe ("nuclear strong force", "nuclear weak force", "gravity", "electromagnetism"). 
• Fields, such as the electromagnetic field, are not like a secluded, defined, invisible areas in which the forces (ex. electromagnetism) operates. It is more like a fog of virtual photons which radiates from the point source of the field. 
• All 4 forces are carried by these virtual particles, called virtual because they exist only for a limited time and space & are in a way abstractions that cannot be described in terms of real particles but are used to represent carriers of force. These particles are called Gauge bosons. 
• We've seen all of them except for the graviton - the boson of gravity. 
• All forces have a point source from which the bosons radiate. 

That, is an essential explanation of what is happening in the universe. From there we can theorize about why things act the way they do, have the properties they have, where energy comes from etc. One question though could not be answered through this model - why does matter have mass? 

• There are some particles with very small mass, like electrons, other particles with huge amounts of mass - what makes them different? Size - no, they are all of the same size-less no-volume size! 
• In the 1960's, a number of theorists including Higgs theorized that there is a special field which permeates the entire universe evenly, not from a point source like the four source fields. An evenly distributed fog of force carriers which some particles interact more with than others. 
• So a top quark, with 350000x more mass than an electron, just interacts with this permeating field more than the electron. Photons (light particles) don't interact with it at all, which is why they are always flying around with the speed of light. If there would be no mass then everything else would be flying with the speed of light, and not in a good superman way. 
• A simpler way to represent it is that a real particle passing through the Higgs field (which is everywhere) gets infused with mass as certain Higgs field particles attach themselves to it.
• The Higgs boson is not the type of particle that attaches itself to other particles to give them mass, but it is the particle which we can theoretically observe to verify the existence of the Higgs field. 

So by slamming particles together with sufficient energy (and mass = energy), we have excited the Higgs field enough to verify the existence of the Higgs boson & further prove out hypothesis of why matter has mass. 

Did I say a brief explanation? HA I LIED! But I hope it cleared things up a bit :)

Confirming a 50 year old theory may not be as fun as those other news from LHC back in the day shaking Einstein's theories (http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/09/110923-neutrinos-speed-of-light-particles-cern-physics-einstein-science/) - what happened to that by the way? But it does matter either way. Here is the part where I realize that it is 1am, this text is already very long, so I'll instead refer you to another long text for all you reading-lovers where CNN popularly explains WHY this discovery is important. http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/2012/07/04/f-god-particle-higgs-boson.html They haven't paid me for this advertisement. 

As for the moniker of "god particle" assigned to the Higgs boson, that probably refers to the importance we assign to matter having mass as something necessary for existance... I guess flying all over the universe in a deconstructed separate-particles state only sounds fun before you start imaging it :/ Oh well. Goodnight everyone :)