farms and automation

i just finished watching a dirty jobs episode on harvesting walnuts in california. and one of the things that always strikes me when watching dirty jobs is how automated and efficient a lot of it seems to be. i mean, take the walnuts episode for example. the company used shakers to shake down the walnuts from the grid of hundreds of trees. these were vehicles with a clamp that could shake a tree till all the walnuts were down. then a little vehicle called a sweeper, this one from 1972 apparently, was used to sweep the walnuts into neat lines. these were then picked up by another vehicle to take to the processing plant, where the process upto shipping was all taken care of by machines. the humans only had to scrub, clean up the mess created and keep the plant running smoothly.

i can't say i have been to many farms in nepal, but i believe most farms here still rely on manual labor for the majority of tasks. with all sorts of specialized farm equipment available, i wonder by how much we could increase the productivity of nepali farms if these were utilized. and the machines don't necessarily replace humans, but instead provide them with the dirty job of cleaning up after them.

also there was this other episode on a californian egg farm. i had no idea how automated and mechanical even the process of egg production had become. about 1.4 million hens were simply laid out in little cramped spaces. chicken feed was supplied individually to each bird automatically via a system of pipes. and when an egg was laid, it rolled down a half-pipe into a processing plant that would take care of it until it was packaged and ready to ship. the farm shipped a whole lot of eggs everyday but something about the method makes me uneasy. the hens spent their lives in these little cages where they could barely spread their wings, their sole purpose in their pitiful lives to produce eggs for us. this is one area where i would rather have numerous smaller farms handled by people than a big automated one, even if it means limited productivity and profit.

alright, i'm off. have a great weekend!

my weekend in the alps

i'm still feeling a bit under the weather. i didn't get enough sleep tuesday night studying for the test on wednesday. the lack of sleep must have toyed with my immune system because i came down with a bad cold wednesday. i'm feeling much better, thank you.

anyway, yea, about the ski-trip. was a lot of fun!

friday: miserable morning, had to leave the house at 4am wearing our ski outfits because we were told we would be taken straight to the ski area. what made it worse was that there was no public bus at that hour, so we had to walk the 20 minutes wearing the uncomfortable clothes, heavy rucksacks on our backs, and the heavy skis and boots on our arms. then a 5-hour bus ride. the bus ride was uneventful but nice because we had an excellent view of the colorful sunrise against the light mist and pine trees. we hardly noticed passing the border into austria. we could see the abandoned border posts, and a lonely sign read "Austria". we didn't even have to slow down.

once we got off the bus at the ski area in mellau, freezing rain welcomed us. but we decided to go up anyway. the weather was getting worse all the time, the wind howling around us as we were pelleted by icy rain. we beginners braved it all to learn some skiing. walking uphill was a BIG pain, but the graduate student acting as our instructor said we weren't ready to take the ski-lift yet. anyway, after about an hour and a half, it was announced that the ski area was closing due to bad weather. Scheiße! so we went back to our lodge and did what the germans do... drink! a lot of glühwein this time. it's german hot wine and gets to you really fast. i love it! the lodge was a nice place, all wooden and warm... with a ping-pong table, a foosball table and a fire going.

saturday: today we left for the ski-area in damüls. it was a much bigger one. but with yesterday's lesson, i felt confident. i took the ski-lift and got up to the beginners piste. with the 'instructor' by my side, i started down the hill. i was picking up speed really quick! i tried using the slowing-down technique i had learned yesterday, but it didn't seem to help. so i just let go and crashed into the orange plastic barrier that they had on the beginning section of the piste. a little embarrassed, i picked myself up... though not without some help because one of my skis got entangled in the fence thingy.

i made sure to go slow from the very start this time and did better. but the next downhill was even steeper. i was actually scared to even start going down this one. but after much persuasion, i let myself slide into position. and soon i was skiing faster than i could control and just let myself fall. in fact, that became my new technique. everytime i felt myself going out of control, i would just fall into the soft snow. it worked great. this gave me confidence to go down steeper slopes. and as the day wore on, i was falling less. i had sort of mastered the slow skiing technique with the skiis in a V-pattern.

that night was another night of drinking. there were lots of drinks, glühwein, vodka, beer, chocolate milk with rum (or sth like that), but nothing for the non-drinkers. suffice to say, it was a crazy night.

sunday: i went up on the ski-lift with much more confidence on sunday. my last run on saturday had been very promising. but i soon found out i had gotten much worse! i was falling more than ever again! maybe i was taking it too fast. a slow run, and things began looking up. in fact, i started to get the hang of it. by the end of the day, i could do runs without falling once! and then, while i was enjoying it most, it was time to go! :(

the weekend was the most fun i've had in a while. so although it's left me almost broke, it was well worth it. and it's always nice to be able to say i learned to ski in the alps!

back in one piece

i know i should have posted earlier, but i have been procrastinating. i got back sunday night but i was too tired to do anything. i slept most of monday. and this evening i'm studying for my test tomorrow. there's a lot of material i need to cover so i'll skip writing a long post today. but i'll try and do a long one tomorrow.
so until tomorrow, then. enjoy whatever you're doing while i slave away into the night studying for the stupid test.

a busy day

it's been a day abuzz with activity! was up really early to pay a visit to the laundromat. i hate the one in my dorm because the dryer seems pathetically incapable of drying my clothes within 2 hours. my german flatmates don't mind because they would rather hang their clothes to dry, energy conscious as they seem to be (or short on change). anyway, at the laundromat at around 7 in the morning, there was only one other lady. she seemed nice and friendly at first, but then she started singing out loud! i didn't think much of it. and then she started talking, i turned, but no, she was talking to herself! she did this the entire time and since we were the only ones in the huge place, it was starting to freak me out! thankfully i got done quick and sprinted out of there.

i took the bus and tram this morning because i had my laundry with me. german public transportation doesn't cease to amaze me in its efficiency and punctuality. i had the entire timing worked out on the transportation website, from leaving my dorm to getting back, everything to the minute. but on the return journey, the bus dropped me a stop further from mine! ahhh... i had been used to the bus stopping at my stop since there are always people getting off there. so i just stood in front of the door and forgot to press the 'stop' button. most of the time, the driver notices you and stops, but not today. and as i found out, the next stop was a lot further than the normal distance between two stops. i had never really ventured into this part of the city, not least because there is nothing but trees there! i checked the schedule for the next bus going in the opposite direction, 20 minutes. so i decided to walk. and, got lost! took me a lot of wrong turns and help from strangers to get me back. the only good thing to come out of this is i found a wonderful bike path through the woods that i definitely plan on using.

then i spent the next hour with a friend shopping for food for the trip tomorrow. then we went to get the rental ski equipment that we had reserved. i was dreading having to carry all that on the tram with us and getting weird looks from people. but thankfully, we didn't attract much attention.

then, i had to get a rucksack that i had been meaning to get for a while. and this trip seemed like the perfect opportunity to get one. and after selecting a decent one, i discovered that i had left my EC card at home. the EC card is like the european debit card. germany isn't big on credit cards. even though this was a relatively big store, they didn't accept credit cards. so i had to get money off an ATM and incur a some extra charge. :(

that brings me to now, i'm taking a break from packing to write this post. planning on going to bed early since the bus leaves at 5 am tomorrow and i'm supposed to be there by 4.30!

i'm gone for the weekend so i won't be able to post until monday! have a great weekend! bis dann!

obama, and the usual

obama! yep, he's the reason i skipped writing my blog yesterday. excited for him, and for the end of the bush regime. i wish there was as much enthusiasm for the nepali leaders. but in our country we have a who leader threatens to wage a war against his own people! i definitely hope there will come a day when we can be proud of our leader, a leader who actually represents the people rather than the interests of the various parties.

moving on. today i finally worked out the postponement of my test on friday! only after i produced a letter convincing my professor that it was not simply an attempt to get extra time for the test that he agreed to let me take it next week instead. which means, i am going skiing after all this weekend! i'm excited. but did i mention i've never skied before? i'll worry about that later.

i have also been working on the kathmandu wiki. the link is http://ktmwiki.murkha.com. I put up a few, very roughly written, articles. but i'm hoping we'll eventually have an enormous depository on everything kathmandu. i can only hope it won't be one of my many failed projects. so, if you are reading this, please help the wiki by adding something to it! anything! oh, and while working on the some server files this morning, i somehow ended up mislinking the logo! so please don't mind the blank area on the top left. i am working on fixing it.

ciao, leute! bis morgen!