Failaka, Back and Forth.

First day of work, with no mood for anything really. I feel numb and sluggish, just like how it was in summer days. Yet, lot of work is waiting to be done, that is work-related work. Real work if you'd like to call it? Anyway, the job involves visiting some places and taking readings from various places.

Images wise, I've been somehow idle with pictures from Ireland but on the other hand I've been trying to process some images taken recently from Failaka, but unfortunately because of memory limitations and my laziness to restart the PC, I didn't do much about it, but at least I stitched one panorama that I specifically went, last Friday, to Failaka for. It is that spooky place that was filled with bullets.

The place of the panorama. A Bank?

The day was not really quiet one as it was a weekend and some foreigners were there as well as locals, and all in all it was annoying, specially those teenagers who were on bikes or teen girls with their families. Upon arrival to the island I directly drove to that place which until that moment and since I started visiting the island back in 2008 - didn't know what it was at all. When I parked there it was few seconds and another car parked beside me and 2 ladies with a man got inside with cameras taking pictures as I was setting my monopod with the VR-head and the camera, another man then got in, a local, greeted me and tried to start a conversation but I didn't really give a chance to. He was asking me about this place and what it was, and I simply replied "I really don't know" and went on setting my things up. Later on, and after the man and the group of 2 ladies and man left, a family came in; a mother and her teenage daughters (and maybe not all of them are her daughters). They started crossing over as I was trying to take photos in the process already.

The problem was that, in fact I finishd the panorama already just after the 2 ladies and the man left the place, but I discovered all the camera settings were wrong and I had to start all over when then the family came in and started moving around the place. Once they went upstairs, I started working as fast as I can and hoping the camera won't shake much with this simple monopod. As I was finishing, the mother came to me to ask about my work with the camera and gave me her email to send her some photos! Which I did upon my arrival back home then.

I had the chance to go inside and upstairs looking for some nice views or something. The surprise was when I got into one of the rooms and saw a great safe-like door, and then I realized that this building probably served as a bank! Which bank? I don't know. Just a bank. I took pictures of that door but until now I didn't process anything. Will do later on for sure. Nothing was out of the ordinary there and I drove all along the island here and there trying to look for someting interesting to catch, but not much was to be done in fact. The weather was good, but in my opinion, a good weather is not good weather; in other words, a good weather is not a good one for taking photos. Notice the image above, which was taken in April 2010, and notice the clouds. It was taken at the end of winter back then and the weather was sort of good to the senses but with some unexpected rains sometimes, yet the view was dramatic.

My brain started to organize some words and I've put it down in some poem (if so to be called). I think the heart is on the move and got me some sparks on my fingers. This time however, I didn't write it down, but typed it directly into my computer. I called "Wherever, Whenever." I was reluctant about the name and I was going to name it "May there be," I think I do have already some piece of likely close title. I hope the gas in this brain won't be over and I would need some time to fill it again, to be able to write. I think I'm still in the greasing mode, when I would look for my life pace as before.

Isn't it hard, when you just can't help it but to love, yet can't help but to keep silent about it?

Alexander 6, V40.

Well, here I am. The first day of work after the accident (and not the vacation). Yesterday was sort of an idle day. After the accident I called my work place to send a letter requesting an extension for my leave for 2 more days. By luck, Monday was the day of some seminar about nuclear power and I was almost sure that I would be invited to it and pushed to attend, but I was not there luckily! Somehow, my mood is not for socializing at the moment.
Too much work awaits me here. The spare car I have (my sister's old one) needs some work. Oil change, balance for the tires and other stuff. I'm planning to do this today. Add to that, I have to ask and investigate about some weird amount of money that got into my bank account. It's not a salary, but entitled as some "Student Allowance", and yet, I'm not a student at all! The amount was almost 75% of my own salary. Spending such money can be troublesome indeed if it is not mine and got into my account by mistake. The money was added to my bank account on 14th of April, the day I went to Failaka last week, and hence I didn't pay much attention to my mobile and the messages in it. There was a message already about putting that up in my account!

Now, let's talk a bit about the procedures for logging into my bank account:
1. Go to website (Not mentioning it here).
2. Click Login.
3. A new window opens and you put the ATM card number, and click Login.
4. A secret question is asked (???).
5. If the answer is right, a small thumbnail of some picture shows up with a button to proceed.
6. Now, put your password and log in (???????).

Can someone please explain to me what is going on here?

For the current time, I've been having troubles with one of the panoramas here. I must restart the PC just to do tone-mapping for this one, and I really got issues with restarting my PC. Ah! It's a case of honor! However, I did a tone-map for a smaller version:

The problem is, I wanted to make this out as a 360 spherical panorama and encode it with QuickTime for 3D viewing as in the place itself. The nadir (bottom point) was not a good shot so I canceled it out, and for this, I got a black space after the stitching process (and it was such a huge image, around ~14,000x7,000). I cropped the black space below and tone-mapped the rest. After encoding it for QuickTime Virtual Reality (QTVR), the image was bulged from the bottom like if the viewer was always looking into the sky with a fisheye lens! Hence I recognized that for a spherical panorama, you must have quite a constant proportions for width and height (and also when you tone-map with Photomatix, you must check the 360 image button to equalize the tone between the left and right side of the image). From this moment, my problems started and I couldn't tone-map the other (original) version and even after minimizing it down to 10,000 x 5,000. I don't want to minimize it more than this to keep it large somehow. As for the black space, I think it might be fixed somehow since it is all a texture of sand, hopefully. The first step is just to tone-map it!

I discovered some profiles of some people on Photobucket who had been to Failaka and I think they were mostly archaeologists. It was nice, but I didn't imagine some people do wear bikinis on the shores in this land. The law is applied only for us natives but not for foreigners? Other people have more freedom in our lands more than we do ourselves. Yet, no one respect us in the outside. Well, not all, but you can check the news and the procedures taken against muslim women for wearing simply a head cover as an example.

My transliteration process is still on hold. I need to figure out the car problems and finish them. My mind is so busy that I can't concentrate on the transliteration right now, but I'm hoping with me being back to the office, that I would do more since I stopped idle the passing week. Remembering that also reminds me of the book that I MUST read as well!
_________
937. then Alexander continued his speech to Birbuár
938. "all what I would ask from you is to answer a question,
939. and to guide me through these lands that I do not know"
940. and then Birbuár answered with no hesitation
941. "O good king yes I will with no doubt, just let me rest!"
942. then Alexander noticed something he never noticed before
943. and he asked Birbuár: how come you speak Caqobian?
944. did you not say that you never heard of such names before?
945. then Birbuár answered and was amazed like Alexander
946. "but O king, I am asking myself how you speak Ayvar?"
947. and the two of them were amazed for what is happening
948. verily both of them spoke different tongues
949. and yet both of them understood each other perfectly
950. and Alexander said to himself: what weird world is this?
951. then he dedicated the speech to Birbuár and said
952. "come and let us see how to bury your body,
953. guide me through these lands and tell me where to go"
954. and Birbuár got up from his rock and held the hand of Alexander
955. and it was two or three steps only on the ground
956. while Alexander saw everything passing so fast
957. so fast that he could not open his eyes at all
958. and when the hero felt the ground is not moving
959. he opened his eyes slowly to see what happened
960. so he found himself standing at the gates of the village