In the last week of our recent trip to India, Jenni and I went on an overnight trip from New Delhi to Agra to visit the Taj Mahal.
We arrived at the site a couple hours before sunset so the Sun was about halfway down which meant that as we walked around the campus, and the light changed color, we could see it all on play out the Taj. This was especially delightful. The primary stone in the construction is Makrana marble, which is famous for being strong and translucent.
The center of the main gate’s arch is perfectly aligned with the center of the main arch of the Taj Mahal, and both are perfectly aligned due North. Our guide, Tarun, made us aware of this and challenged us to check using the phone’s compass, which I did!
We walked the charbagh garden pathways, and made our way as Tarun took some photos of us all the while sharing the story of the Taj.
The work to cut stones and inlay them is very intricate and labor intensive and there’s a large industry that continues to do this work, the knowledge of which has been passed down for generations since the time of the Taj’s construction.
Inside the mausoleum, photography is prohibited, and the outer rooms are cordoned off. The replica of the graves of Mumtaz Mahal and Shah Jahan lie in the center, and one can walk around that in a designated path. The actual graves are in the basement underneath but that is inaccessible to the public. This is the original design.
A man with a small flashlight demonstrated how the stones in the inlaid flowers glow when light is applied on them. It is really a wonderful effect, and one that I don’t recall seeing on previous trips. This same man asked for our names by turn and said it out loud as he looked upwards, to sound an echo.
After walking around the inside, we made our way to the outside on the provided path. As we did so, the light of the setting sun made lovely patterns as it made its way in through the carved and perforated marble walls.
Even a Tuesday afternoon brought a lot of visitors.
As we made our way back to the exit by the main gate, the Sun set completely and so the Taj appeared a cool white, which was very different from the vibrant yellow and orange it had been in the hours before. I’m pretty sure that previously I had only visited in mid-day so hadn’t seen this effect. Experiencing these changing colors on the Taj was my favorite thing about this visit, which was my third or fourth.
Maybe someday I’ll even see the famous full-moon-lit shade of Taj.
We’re expecting some extreme cold weather tomorrow but Apple’s Weather app is not showing the alerts that have been issued. It’s really weird and many people are going to get caught off-guard. Every other weather app is showing the alerts.
I’ve just returned from a three week trip to India which was full of spending time with family, events, some sightseeing. It was a whirlwind, but thankfully everything went smoothly 🥰. Been decompressing at home with jet lag, while catching up on work.
Just noticed that my Obsidian notes folder was missing a lot of files. I use iCloud to sync it. According to Time Machine, the data loss happened almost two months ago. Restored from there to separate folder. About to work through identifying changes with git and restoring. Ugh.
When President Biden visited Portland recently, his motorcade went down the road that’s two blocks from our place. We were away at that time. So now, Mr. Momo, our indoor cat, who never leaves home, has been in closer proximity to POTUS than either of us will likely ever be 😐
My iPad was cold to the touch this morning. Then I started reading Viticci’s Stage Manager article, enabled it for the first time, and started to play with it. Five minutes later my iPad was nice and warm. I like this feature!
You can now write alt text for any image in Recent Uploads. Tap on an image. Write the text. Hit Save. This is attached to the export snippet at the time of export.
Support for both export options, Markdown and HTML.
It can be filtered in the Recent Uploads with the filter button on the top right.
Not familiar with Alt Text? The editor includes a short summary with links to more information.
As part of this Recent Uploads has been redesigned to show every image in proper aspect ratio and with an indicator to show whether it has alt text attached.
Also in this release:
Fix for issue with image orientation being messed up when uploading in rare cases.
Small UI improvements related to the alt text feature.
Grateful to @maique, @pratik, @pcora, and others for help with testing and fixing issues in this release 🙏
I’m not a big fan of cheesecakes but I took a chance on one this year. Although it was great, I’ll continue to choose regular cakes for this tradition.
Mt. Adams cake remains my favorite. It is described thusly,
Fluffy hazelnut-coconut cake, praline Viennese buttercream, wild huckleberry compote, and huckleberry Italian buttercream.
The cakes were sourced from Papa Haydn, which is about as old as me.
A few years ago we did a bike ride that went along the Columbia Slough and some wetlands to Kelley Point Park which is at the confluence of the Wilamette and Columbia rivers. At the time it was the longest bike ride either of us had done. We have recalled that ride fondly over the years. Today, on a very pleasant and sunny Fall day, we did it again!
Activity Stats
Distance: 20 miles
Elevation Gain: 155 ft
Time (including breaks): 2h 23m
