Photos from Agra, Dec 2005

The Beauty of Lies has moved to KirkKittell.com (Subscribe to the RSS feed). This post has been copied to http://kirkkittell.com/2008/03/25/photos-from-agra-dec-2005.

Listen. The Taj Mahal is awesome in the true sense of the word: inspiring awe. The pictures you've seen before, and that you see in this set of photos, are just a taste of what it is like in person. I mean, it looks big and majestic in images, but when you walk in the gate from the south and the Taj Mahal swings into view -- amazing.

Three of us -- Megha, her cousin, and I -- started from New Delhi at four in the morning, taking the bus to Sikandra, just on the outskirts of Agra. (The bus ride to and from Agra is another story altogether -- both the outrageous video game-like ramble down to Agra and the broken down bus in the night on the way back to Delhi. Oh yes, you must wait for the book, Train Cancellation Party.) In Sikandra we visited the mausoleum of Akbar the Great [wikipedia.org].

Next -- and maybe I'm too simple, blame it all on my roots or whatever -- was an auto ride to the Taj Mahal. It's like nothing else I had ever seen.



Then: the Taj Mahal [unesco.org]. I'm not going to try to describe it anymore. See the pictures here, and sometime in your life see it in person. From the Taj Mahal we traveled to Agra Fort [unesco.org], capital of the Mughal empire.

Photos from Agra
The map below displays the photos were they were taken in Agra. Click on the camera icons to open a display for each picture. Alternatively, you could view the photos in: Picasa; Flickr; or Panoramio.

(If it's hard to see the photos in the window below -- and don't forget to click the icons to see them... -- open it in a larger map)



As always, if you use Google Earth and download the network link file for this trip to your My Places, your placemarks will automatically be updated when I add photos to the rest of the trip.

This is set #2 of my photos from India in 2005-2006; the other sets are: (1) New Delhi; (2) Agra; (3) Chandigarh; (4) Allahabad; (5) Kolkata; (6) Ambala.

If you don't want to wait, you can see the placemarks and the photos in separate states:

• Most of my photos from India are in a Picasa web album.


• Map placemarks are posted on my wiki.

Photos from New Delhi, Dec 2005

The Beauty of Lies has moved to KirkKittell.com (Subscribe to the RSS feed). This post has been copied to http://kirkkittell.com/2008/03/22/photos-from-new-delhi-dec-2005.

I visited India for three weeks in December 2005 and January 2006. The time I spent there was outstanding -- it was my first opportunity to spend an appreciable amount of time with Megha, and her family were very excellent hosts. (Granted, she and I weren't an item then, and I don't think I would have visited like that if we were, but that's a song from a different opera.) Also, further down the tracks, I met some friends that I had known online only, and I also met with one of my classmates from Illinois -- Palash Basu -- and his family.

One day, when I finish writing it, you should read the book about my trip (Train Cancellation Party). In the meantime, I'm going to do what I like to do: post the photos on a map that shows where they were taken. It takes some time to merge the two elements -- the Google Earth placemarks and the photos -- so I'm going to do it in batches: (1) New Delhi; (2) Agra; (3) Chandigarh; (4) Allahabad; (5) Kolkata; (6) Ambala.

If you're impatient and want to see the placemarks and the photos in separate states:

• Most of my photos from India are in a Picasa web album.


• Map placemarks are posted on my wiki.

Photos from the Red Fort in New Delhi
If it's hard to see the photos in the window below -- and don't forget to click the icons to see them... -- open it in a larger map




As always, if you use Google Earth and download the network link file for this trip to your My Places, your placemarks will automatically be updated when I add photos to the rest of the trip.

Phoenix, May 2007

The Beauty of Lies has moved to KirkKittell.com (Subscribe to the RSS feed). This post has been copied to http://kirkkittell.com/2008/03/18/phoenix-may-2007.

I'm long, long, long overdue on making a post about my wonderful girlfriend, Megha. But, to be fair, I was trying to give her anonymity as long as I could; just because I like to write in public doesn't mean everyone else wants to be dragged along for the ride. So, we'll see how this goes...

Back in May 2007, the project I was working on for Orbital Sciences Corporation was primarily based at the facility in Chandler, Arizona, just south of Phoenix. During one of the weekends I was there, I flew Megha from Florida to Arizona for a visit. I'm a bit of a desert rat, so it was an interesting opportunity to show her something new to her, and something that I enjoyed. (And let's not overlook that fact that it's just nice to see her, in general.)

So, the map you see below is three things:

1. Some of the places I went with Megha -- restaurants in the Phoenix metro area; a weekend trip to the red rock region near Sedona


2. Business-type placemarks, such as where Orbital is located in Chandler


3. A few placemarks that show where I met Aaron (of protoforge.org) in Phoenix, plus old university friends in Las Vegas for Chris's bachelor party

View Larger Map

The original files are located on my wiki:

• The static file, which is nice if you want to view the placemarks in Google Maps: link


• The network link file, for Google Earth users (this will be updated automatically when I update the static file): link