August 24, 2008 by Soma.

IUCr 2008 Conference

OICC, Osaka, Japan

Sunday, August 24, 2008

I picked-up my registration at the counter for the IUCr 2008 Conference at the Grand Cube Osaka (aka Osaka International Convention Center) and picked up my bag and headed straight to the mini symposium. I attended several mini symposium in the macromolecular section in the morning. I ran into couple of my former colleagues and spoke with them,  had coffee and late lunch with them.

In the afternoon session I attended two talks at the macromolecular section and two at the powder diffraction section. There were couple of more I wanted to attend but they were at the same time slot and so I had to miss them.

I also attended the Bruker-AXS Lunch-on session

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August 16, 2008 by Soma.

Jhansi Rani Lakshmi Bhai

Indian Freedom Fighter

Speech by VTS on Saturday, August 16, 2008

RA Gray Building, 500 S Bronough Street

Tallahassee, FL 32399

VTS gave a speech about Jhansi Rani Lakshmi Bhai, who as a queen of Jhansi,  a Maratha kingdom in northern India participated in the First War of Indian Independence. He emphasized the fact that not all Indian Freedom Fighters were men. He spoke about her early child hood, her courage in standing up to the British Raj and her bravery in the battles of Jhansi, Tapli, and Gwalior

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August 15, 2008 by Soma.

PTO Table at Fall Orientation

Friday, August 15, 2008

10:00 AM to 2:00 PM

Today to coincide  with the Fall School Orientation Day, we set up a Parent Teachers Organization Table. With that we distributed flyers about PTO Welcome message, Home Room Parent Volunteer form, and first and only fund-raiser Classic Cookie Dough Fund Raiser.

Those who received the packages were happy to see the first half of year’s meetings are already planned. We also gave a way to communicate with the PTO.

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August 8, 2008 by Soma.

AR to RA

Friday, August 8, 2008

08/08/08; 08:08 AM

I will become a RA today from AR

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July 23, 2008 by Soma.

New Travel Log and Blog

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Tallahassee, FL

I started to update the new sub-domain in our main website www.somasundaram.us. The sub-domain name, travels.somasundaram.us was registered a while ago but I started to add contents to it.

I had started another blog in Blogger mostly about our travels. I started to blog more here too. The name of the new blog is: t-somasundaram.blogspot.com

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July 19, 2008 by Soma.

Batman Movie

Saturday, July 19, 2008 1 PM

AMC Tallahassee

VtS and I went to see the new Batman, the Dark Knight movie at the AMC theaters in Tallahassee, FL, USA. We had bought the ticket two weeks ago and the movie opened two days ago at midnight.

The movie was long 2 1/2 hours and it was okay. But VtS enjoyed it.

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July 7, 2008 by Soma.

Saturday-at-the-Sea Summer Camp

Monday-Friday, July 7, 2008

Tallahassee, FL 32306

Today was the first day of the Saturday-at-the-Sea (SATS) Summer Camp for VTS. There were 12 other people who went to the camp. The camp is for a whole week and will end with a presentation to public about the camper’s project. Each project will have three or four people in it.

The day started out with some rain but VTS says the rest of the day went very well indeed. They all are looking for the rest of the days at the camp.

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July 1, 2008 by Soma.

Replace the back door

Tuesday, July 1, 2008

Tallahassee, FL, USA

We went ahead and replaced the back door since part of it had rotten over the years and we were worried about frogs and beetles living the crack. We also added a screen door. All the work was done through Home Depot Door replacement service. We paid them and two contract workers came and completed the job over one afternoon. They have done a good job!

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June 25, 2008 by Soma.

Heavy Downpour, Hail, Thunder and Lightning

Wednesday, June 25, 2008; 6-11 PM

Tallahassee, FL 32317

The rain started to come down around 5:30 PM. As we were driving home from work at the intersection of Miccosukee and Magnolia garbanzo  bean-sized hail started to fall on our car. The hail then quickly turned into heavy rain drops. But the rains stopped around 6:15 PM. We thought everything was OK.

Then around 9:45 it started again. This time around our neighborhood there was less of rain and hail but we couldn’t sleep due to the loud and constant rumbling of the thunder and almost blinding lightning. Most of the thunder and lightning seemed to be confined to the south and southeastern part of the Leon county. It went on and on for about 1 1/2 hour. Then it started rain slightly. When it was done it was almost 11:45 PM.

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June 21, 2008 by Soma.

Hot air balloon over our neighborhood

Saturday, June 21, 2008 7:45 AM

Gardens of Weem Plantation

Tallahassee, FL 32317

We spotted a descending hot air balloon on early this morning. It looked like the balloon was touching some of the tree tops north of our neighborhood, Gardens of Weems Plantation. We could spot couple of people inside. Soon it landed near the east side of our neighborhood. One of my neighbors went and spoke to the riders. They mentioned to her that the winds were not good and therefore they decided to land sooner than they had anticipated.

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