Getting Better at the Blogging Game...or How I won the War

This blogging isnt as easy peasy lemon squeezy as its made out to be- pardon the gooey kablooeey stuff - sometimes 9 yr olds leave their imprint on ones vocabulary....
Any hooo, first you blog- then u get obsessed with maintaining a page rank and then you get into the Aliceworld of sitemeters, tags, identity- all in this effort to have YOUR name leap out of the search box on Google- as tho' people have nothing better to do than Google you.
The ego she hath wrought many many such delusions....
I'm sorta getting there tho'- I signed up for Adsense which having gotten approval from Google thus doth languish- Google sends me frantic emails all with one base query- WHY have you not optimized this lovely thing we have designed for you? Is it that you have not the time/ knowledge/interest/fillinblankshere..?
If it isnt lack of time or knowledge, we are hurt that you have no interest...please please pleeease embed the code in the template- pleeease!
So...having done zat, I am now waiting for Google to magically populate my page with ads based on the content I write- hmmmm, here's a thought- maybe I should write reams on Google and how it should hire me.....!!!
Or maybe I should write about the virtues of vacuuming the futon so that dustmites do not flourish- wonder how many scans the Googlebot will do of this article in its effort to position Ads ....shall watch this space- it makes me actually watch every word I type now....

Michigonia Borealis

Happened after coronal mass ejection in Nov of 2001 … 19th to be precise …
The sky opened up like this huge orange that spread radially from the nub above … Actually, it was more like being in a super-large planetarium with a hemispherical dome … somehow you got the feeling that THIS dome was as large as the sky.
Perhaps it was?
Streaks of green, plasma green that streaked out of the root of the sky that was pink, orange, mauve & other colours that one could only begin to imagine the possibility of.
Saw another one, even more intense, even further south … April 07th 2001 from the Lick Observatory situated atop Mt. Hamilton (I think), looking westward over the hills that ring the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir after having driven up thru’ the back-country wineland roads that take you out of the steel, rust and industry of Oakland into the cooler climes of the Diablo range.
‘Twas magical, the ride, that is.

And then, to find an aurora at the end of it!

See more progress on: see the aurora borealis

The Rockies and Rollins Pass

Brilliant Drive- even better since it used to be the railroad that they then madeover into an unpaved road- the Vistas are wonderful and when you hit the penultimate- u see Needles Pass- its eponymous and very impassable by road- we hiked over the pass and it was ever so worth it!

See more progress on: Rollins Pass

Arches to Arches...

It could be anythin- I could have shot this on a stereogram and digitized it to make it look like this...I say unto you tho'- verily this be's the arches....I wish I could do a mosaic of all those sights but sensory overload will happen... the NPS here is too good- if only we in India could do something about making our lovely and historical places as accessible- we wouldn't have a deficit...there's a thought- so all you Wall Street types reading this- go forth n get investors who believe in India's delights the way Teddy and his ilk carved out the NPS.....

Arches and Canyonlands UT

It took me 4 hours to traverse 7 miles here- by car....the place leaps out at you- it's magical, mindboggling and altogether so breathtaking that you cant help humming the Indy Jones theme in your head- Canyonlands borders Arches- and the road- UT 28 is a small single lane fella- on one side you have the red red vermillion red rocks...then a green river- the Colorado- and then the road and then....as much as you crane your neck to see, your side of the road has these milehigh precipices flanking you....adjectives fly out the window...all that you know of the language is not enough....how do you describe the indescribable?
I felt this way last when I saw an aurora above my house in Michigan...words fail you, your throat seizes and all that remains is the sound of childlike laughter bubbling up your mouth.....
This vista changes you- perceptibly and otherwise...nothing feels the same after this...except this fever in your system to go back and steep the red of the rocks into your own blood.....

Arches NP , UT

This is Landscape Arch- all 306 feet of it. See the sliver on the far right side as tho someone cleaved it off?
Well, a couple of years ago, that bit crashed onto the ground below- 60 tons was the weight....now, they have cordoned off the area, so unlike the other arches in this place, you have to see it from about 500 meters away...see the clouds? that impossibly cerulean sky?
you see that all across the place- the clouds, the blue, the rocks in their bleedin magnificence- all puns intended....absolutely, what's that word? yeah, AWESOME. 

Indy on my mind....

Rainstorm over a Desert- one moment the sky is all clear- the next, you see this deluge pouring down over what was just moments ago, an arid expanse of gorsebrush and thermals wafting off parched rocks....
Arches National Park in Utah is Indiana Jones country- so seamless is the transition from here to Petra , Jordan in the movie that even knowing otherwise, I still kept my eyes peeled for the City of Petrified Stone.