top row, from left, are: Steve Wood, Bob Wallace and Jim Lane;
second row, Bob O’Rear, Bob Greenberg, March McDonald and Gordon Letwin;
and front row, Bill Gates, Andrea Lewis, Marla Wood and Paul Allen.

Taken in 1978… the 11 founding members of Microsoft

The Adventures of Tintin and its lovable characters. I finally found this picture…

Characters includes:

• Tintin and his dog, Snowy

• Captain Haddock

• Nester, the butler

• Thomson and Thompson, the detectives

• Professor Calculus

• Bianca

And i finally found a list of the major castles in the Loire Valley, France:

• Château d’Amboise
• Château d’Angers
• Azay-le-Rideau
• Château de Beauregard
• Château de Blois
• Château de Brézé
• Château de Chambord
• Château de Chenonceau
• Chinon
• Château de Chaumont
• Château de Cheverny
• Château de Fougères-sur-Bièvre
• Château de Menars
• Château de Montgeoffroy
• Château de Valençay
• Château de Villandry
• Château de la Bourdaisière
• Château du Plessis-Bourré
• Château du Rivau
• Château de Clermont
• Château des Ducs de Bretagne
• Château de Langeais
• Château de Loches
• Château de Montsoreau
• Château de Saumur
• Château de Sully-sur-Loire
• Château de Talcy
• Château de Troussay
• Château d’Ussé
   

Place: Zaanse Schans beside river Zaan, North Netherlands
Famous: Windmills… there are still 6 working mills there
Best Time to go: anytime
How to go: some suggestions…

1. Amsterdam Central station to Koog-Zaankijk station
2. 15 min walk from the station by following the signs

or

1. Take bus 91 from Amsterdam Central station in 50 min

Cost: Round-trip in train costs about 7.5 Euro. Viewing the windmills is free.
Some links:

• link 1
• a blog entry
• some more related links

Place: Keukenhof, near Lisse, Netherlands
Famous: Flowers – tulips – flower garden of Europe… how can we forget Tulips when we are in Netherlands
Best Time to go: Mid March to Mid-May open only
How to go:

1. Rotterdam or Amsterdam Central Station to Leiden Station in 40 min
2. Connexxion Bus 54 (Keukenhof Express) in 30 min

Cost: Entry into Keukenhof and the bus journey if around 16 pounds

Some links:

• link 1
• link 2
• homepage in english

Some links on visa…

• UK Visa
• Schengen Visa for Europe countries
• US visa

Name: Grand Place
Object: Central Market place and Town Centre
Artist: Jacob van Thienen (probably)
Date of creation: 1402 to 1455 and more buildings are added on later
Style: combination of Gothic, Baroque and Louis XIV styles
Description: Centre of the city’s commercial activies
Where to find it: Brussels, Belgium

image source: wiki

Each day I live
I want to be
A day to give
The best of me
I’m only one
But not alone
My finest day
Is yet unknown

I broke my heart
Fought every gain
To taste the sweet
I face the pain
I rise and fall
Yet through it all
This much remains

I want one moment in time
When I’m more than I thought I could be
When all of my dreams are a heartbeat away
And the answers are all up to me
Give me one moment in time
When I’m racing with destiny
Then in that one moment of time
I will feel
I will feel eternity

I’ve lived to be
The very best
I want it all
No time for less
I’ve laid the plans
Now lay the chance
Here in my hands

Give me one moment in time
When I’m more than I thought I could be
When all of my dreams are a heartbeat away
And the answers are all up to me
Give me one moment in time
When I’m racing with destiny
Then in that one moment of time
I will feel
I will feel eternity

You’re a winner for a lifetime
If you seize that one moment in time
Make it shine

Give me one moment in time
When I’m more than I thought I could be
When all of my dreams are a heartbeat away
And the answers are all up to me
Give me one moment in time
When I’m racing with destiny
Then in that one moment of time
I will be
I will be
I will be free
I will be
I will be free

Name: La Chambre
Object: Painting
Artist: Vincent van Gogh
Dimension: 72 × 90 cm
Date of creation: 1888
Method: oil on Canvas
Description: Van Gogh’s Room at Arles
Where to find it: Musée d’Orsay, Paris, France

some examples that i can see… mainly in politics (but not all)

1. Indira Gandhi – Jawaharlal Nehru
2. Benazir Bhutto – Zulfikar Ali Bhutto
3. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo – Diosdado Macapagal
4. Megawati Sukarnoputri – Sukarno
5. Aung San Suu Kyi – Aung San
6. Laila Ali – Muhammad Ali
7. Sheikh Hasina – Mujibur Rahman
8. Irene Joliet-Curie – Pierre Curie

Book Title: Einstein, Picasso – Space, Time and the Beauty that causes Havoc
Author: Arthur I. Miller
Year written/published: 2001
Book Source: Google Books, Library
Summary: Biography of Einstein and Picasso – the 2 geniuses who lived around the same time and created revolution in science and arts
Some extracts:

solitude…

Nor were the 2 men’s personal working styles dissimilar. Both came to terms early on with loneliness of the creative effort. As Einstein wrote some years late, “I live in the solitude which is painful in youth, but delicious in the years of maturity.” Picasso recalled the “Unbelievable solitude” he felt when working on Les Demoiselles d’Avignon.

many influences…

In this provincial hotbed of modernist debate, he found himself discussing Friedrich Nietzsche, Henrik Obsen, Oscar Wilde and Arthur Schopenhauer, all read in Spanish translation. … … God is a creation of one’s mind, and so the mind is the highest level of existence. Such ideas, on the threshold of the new century, were inspiration to produce new and strikingly different art and literary forms.

Wonder… and curiosity….

Einstein’s first inkling of such worlds has occurred at age 4 or 5. Ill in bed, his father bought home a compass for his entertainment. Einstein was amazed: No matter which way he turned the compass, its needle always pointed in the same direction. … … The boy concluded that “something deeply hidden has to be behind things.” Later Einstein referred to a phenomenon that dramatically conflicts with our everyday expectations as a “wonder”.

in search of…

Thus, while Uncle Jakob supplied mathematical grist for Einstein’s mill, Max Talmud broadened his horizons to include issues of science and philosophy. This potent mix exploded the boy’s “religious paradise of youth.” Einstein realised that “Out yonder there was this huge world, which exists independantly of is human beings and which stands before us like a grea, eternal riddle, at least partically accessible to our inspection and thinking. The contemplation of this world beckoned like a liberation.” Einstein had found his calling: solve the riddle.

 

Name: The Scream
Object: Painting
Artist: Edvard Munch
Dimension: 91 × 73.5 cm
Date of creation: 1893
Method: Oil, tempera, and pastel on cardboard
Where to find it: National Gallery, Oslo

image source

some links about city tours… and i’ll update it as and when i find some other links. Google “city sightseeing tours” to know many related links.

France:

• Loire, Normandy, Brittany – acc-dispo
• Mont Blanc – excursions

Britain

• Londond – sightseeing

Netherlands

Amsterdam

Germany

Austria

Belgium

•  Brussels – Open tours

Book Title: Surely You’re Joking Mr. Feynman!
Author: Richard P. Feynman
Year written/published: 1985
Book Source: Google Books, Library
Summary: Colletion of very short stories about Feynman’s adventures of being an inquisitive person.
My Comments: This book is so humorous that instead of being in the physics section of the library, it must be in the  fun section. Through these little stories you get the lessons out for life – learning and investing is all about having fun and being inquisitive!!
Contents page:

1. Far from rockaway to MIT
2. The Princeton Years
3. Feynman, the Bomb and the Millitary
4. From Cornell to Caltech, with a touch of Brazil
5. The world of Physics

Some extracts:

about symbols… seriously this is what i call true learning… often kids just gobble up what’s given to them and take these representations as unchageable and the ultimate truth

While I was doing all this trigonometry, I didn’t like the symbols for sine, cosine, tangent and so on. TO me, “sin f” looked like s time I times n times f! So I invented another symbol, like a square root sign, that was a sigma with a long arm sticking out of it, and I put the f underneath…. … I didn’t like f(x) – that looked to me like f time x. I also didn’t like dy/dx – you have a tendency to cancel the d’s – so _ made a different sign, something like an & sign. … …  I thought my symbols were just as good, if not better, that the regular symbols – it doesn’t make any difference to what symbols you use.

fixing radios as a kid…

SO the guy says, “ What are you doing? You come to fix the radio, but you’re only walking back and forth!” I say, “I’m thinking!” … … So I changed the tubes around, stepped to the front of the radio, turned the thing on, and it’s quiet as a lamb… When a person has been negative to you, and then you so something like that, they’re usually a 100% the other way, kind of to compensate…. … kept telling everybody what a tremendous genius I was, saying, “He fixes radios by think!”

in front of eminent scientists…

A day or 2 before the walk I saw Wigner in the hall. “Feynman,” he said, I think that work you’re doing with Wheeler is very interesting, so I’ve invited Russell to the seminar…” Henry Norris Russell, the famous, great astronomer of the day was coming to the lecture! Wigner went on. Wigner went on. “I think Professor von Neumann would also be interested.” Johnny Von Neumann was the greatest mathematician around. “And Professor Pauli visiting from Switzerland, it also happens so I’ve invited Professor Pauli to come” – Pauli was a very famous scientist – and by the time, I’m turning yellow. Finally Wigner said, “Professor Einstein only rarely comes to our weekly seminars, but your work is so interesting that I’ve invited him specially, so he’s coming too.”
Bt this time I must have turned green, because Wigner said, “ No no! Don’t worry! I’ll just warn you!…. ….”

Name: Eiffel Tower
Object: Observation tower for broadcasting
Artist: Gustave Eiffel
Dimension: 324m tall with antennae
Date of creation: 1889
Method: Iron tower
Where to find it: Champs be Mars beside Seine River, Paris, France

one of my fav pics of the Eiffel tower has to be its construction pictorial…

image source

Book Title: S.U.M.O. Your Relationships – How to handle not strangle the people you live and work with
Author: Paul McGee
Year written/published: 2007
Book Source: Google Books, Library
Summary: Dealing with People
Contents page:

Part 1:

1. reality Rules
2. E+R=O
3. A Bit about the Beachball
4. Stress makes you stupid
5. Investment Pays
6. Give yourself the VIP Treatment
7. Beware of Light Bulbs

Part 2:

1. Arouse your interest – The Ditherer
2. Humility Helps – The commader
3. Listen Loud – The Hijacker
4. Excel in Encouragement – The awfuliser
5. Express your expectations 0 the Happy
6. Positivity Plays – The whinger
7. Confrontwith care – the Swinger

Some extracts:

Some really short clips from Brian Tracy…

Name: Priest King
Object: Statue
Artist: from the Indus valley Civilisation period
Dimension: 18cm tall
Date of creation: Mature Harrapan Period (2600BC – 1700BC)
Method: statue made of fired steatite
Where to find it: National Museum, Karachi, Pakistan

image source

Mughal Empire (1526 – 1857) rulers…

• 1526-1530 Babur
• 1530–1539 and after restoration 1555–1556 Humayun
• 1556–1605 Akbar
• 1605–1627 Jahangir
• 1628–1658 Shah Jahan
• 1659–1707  Aurangzeb
• Later Emperors = 1707-1857

Name: Water-Lily Pond
Object: Painting
Artist: Claude Monet
Dimension: 90 x 90 cm
Date of creation: 1897
Style: Impressionism
Method: oil on Canvas
Where to find it: The Art Museum Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey USA