seed vault

indeed a good move to have a comprehensive seed vault like this.

but I'm not sure on how beneficial this could be if we were to face a global disaster .. just imagine an Armageddon (movie) or even an Independence Day (again movie, where else) kinda scenario. the place is some 600 miles from north pole and is buried underneath a mountain ... sigh. definitely a nightmarish task to get there.

so why is it good? at least we could conserve some of the food crops and build some redundancy ... especially with global warming threatening everything under and above the sun. just pray that your fav crop doesn't get busted :)

when they go the other way

after yrs of deliberations I finally joined a guitar class. its a big deal as classes are quite expensive. luckily I managed to find an instructor who is offering yr round group classes for a reasonable fee. It indeed was a great feeling when I bought my very first guitar and tried my own version of strumming. all was good until I tried to play a single chord. my fingers simply wouldn't obey me. I couldn't believe the pathetic control I had over them. at one point I even yelled at them :) this is one hell of a task and it looks like miles and miles before I could could dream something reasonable. I haven't lost my faith yet!

I miss LA traffic

this might shock a lot of people but I do miss driving in LA traffic. It does irritate when the traffic doesn't move even an inch, but when it does its absolutely thrilling. tailgating at 75 mph is a very common 'LA thing' and changing lanes in a whisker is indeed hair raising. its been about 18 months since I left LA and at last I had an opportunity to drive in full flow in LA this weekend. it was a mini homecoming for me and I couldn't believe that I was driving furiously without being conscious about it. I had to be reminded constantly. now I'm back to the sleepy bay area and I'm consciously leaving a 100-yard gap for people seem to love their brakes very much.