2025 Cambodia And Vietnam: Angkor Wat (V)

 As the 12th Century A.D. advanced. a change was in the air in what we call Southeast Asia:  Buddhism was becoming a religious force in the region.  As part of that change, Angkor Wat transitioned from being a Hindu Temple to a Theravada Buddhist Temple.

The inner courtyard of the main temple.  The idea is that the temple was designed as an image of Mt. Meru, the home of the deities in Hinduism.  The various buildings around represent the lesser mountains, the moats the oceans.

This is the original staircase that ascended to the top of the temple.  At least one person on our tour had taken these steps 20 years ago.

Thankfully, there is a more modern option (with rails).

There are several inner courtyards on the top level. It is theorized these held water at one point.

June 2026 Grab Bag

It is hard for me to believe that in two days, we will be effectively mid-way through 2026.  Time seems to both have flown and not have moved at all, yet here I find myself of the cusp of Summer.

(Pictures today from our local Japanese garden; we missed the iris bloom by about a week.)

A 50 year old flowering rhododendron bonsai.  I do not believe I have ever see a flowering bonsai before.

I do not think I fully mentioned that at the end of last month, my job duties changed somewhat.

Instead of backfilling my previous manager's position, the company has elected to hire another individual at my level - or in this case, transfer a coworker in an adjacent department over.  The great news is that this is someone I have worked with since I started two years ago and we work well together.  My direct reports have dropped to more of a manageable level (from 16 to 8).

We are working on separating additional duties.  The next step, for me, is to start managing more and "doing" a little less.

The Allotment is coming along - I have yet to post pictures because (frankly) I am a little embarrassed by it.  This year really feels like I am just throwing things in the ground and hoping for the best - that said, I do have evidence that tomatoes, corn, and beans of various kinds are growing.

The Allotment is complicated by two factors.  The first is a pretty serious shade issue that seems to run 50% of the day (I see why this is the plot that was up for grabs).  The other has been our weather, which has whipped between the lower mid-90's and the lower 50's at night.  If this year is anything like previous years, this all gets sorted out starting in July, when we hit the hot and sunny season until the end of September.

In a bit of a genuine surprise, I was not going to make my minimum 4 hours of service commitment prior to the end of the first half of the year.  I reached out to the co-ordinator of the program and they offered - volitionally - to extend my timeframe, which was exceedingly kind and helpful (I missed the work party opportunities because of previous plans set earlier in the year). 

I have started re-tracking my food intake/macros.

The reasoning is two-fold:  The first is that with my upcoming hike in August, any less of me that I have drag around is a welcome thing. The second is with my recent knee/Iliotibial band issues, I do not wonder if the additional weight I have had for the last year or two have not contributed to the situation.

Breakfast, lunch, and snacks are pretty easy to manage during the week.  Dinner is more difficult, but mostly due to portion size.

Losing 10 lbs is the goal; losing 20 lbs would be the equivalent of the moonshot.

The Small Group I was co-leading is finished.

It ran the full 10 weeks plus a end of the session celebratory dinner.  Most of the credit for the success of the group (and arguably, it was successful) goes to my co-leader, who is a humble servant of God and great conversationalist.  My job was largely praying us in and out, smart quips, and (very) occasional insights.

We have a couple of activities planned for the Summer, then plan to merge into the larger men's organization come Autumn.

A Year Of Kindness (XXIV): Be The Thread

(Source)

One of the interesting things about participating in any sort of human association - work, religious group, volunteer, hobby - is that we are very often glazed vessels as we interact.

By "glazed vessels" I mean to say that we often present a hard shell of an image to the outer world and those we interact with.  Part of that is undoubtedly self-protection of course; there is nothing worse than exposing one's inner core and having it savaged or mocked.  But the other is a conscious choice:  it is not something we do.  There is a vague suggestion of societal impoliteness about the whole thing, whether it be inflicting ourselves on others or the idea that one simply does not impose one's own problems on others.

And so we clink off each other like marbles in a bag, a description I read long ago.

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The reality is that sometimes - through circumstances, odd comments, or simple observation, we learn more than we intend.

I am thinking of the moment of various coworkers I have that - although I officially do not "know" anything - know that they are going through significant life struggles and changes of their own.  Were I to ask after it, it would of course be denied or laughed off as a temporary state of affairs. And yes from the report of those I trust and are "In the know" (as the kids say), the events and struggles are real.

Everyone, they say, is fighting a battle no-one knows anything of.

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I have to remind myself of this when situations arise and I become frustrated or even upset with them (and yes, even I can become frustrated or upset with people).  I have to remind myself that sometimes they are reacting out of the place of their challenge or hurt or pain, that sometimes them showing up at all is a victory.  I have to remind myself that separating the situation and the person is necessary: as I have commented to my adopted work children, I always love the person, I may not always love them in their role.

Which makes going out of my way to practice kindness even the more important.  At the very least, I should not add to their load by my own behaviour; at the most, that one kindness may be the thing that helps them through day.

Likely those simple acts cost me little except inconvenience and perhaps dealing with my own issues of pride and always needing to be right.  The benefit they provide may be immeasurable - after all, who among us knows if we are that one particular thread of kindness that day, perhaps the only one they may see?

Numbers And Views

 One of the ongoing "surprises" as someone who writes on Blogger is the rather vast difference between the views I am supposedly getting versus the actual views I see.  For example, here are today's (26 June) numbers:

And here, the grand all time total:

Wow!  Look at that climb starting 2025!  You would think at this rate, I would be some kind of award winning writer.  

Sadly, no.

Earlier this year, Google seemed to have a glitch whereby links to the most current post were offset by a day or two.  I could notice the difference:  unless I went out to "the usual suspects", I would not have known that they had updated their blogs.  Based on that impact, I started - as a lark - to track how my individual posts were doing.

I have about six weeks of data or so (I say "or so", as I did not remember to record the numbers every day).  Some interesting highlights:

1)  Generally, my "Open posts" (Monday/Friday/Saturday) an average 92 views.

2) Travel (Tuesday,/Wednesday) generates an average of 42 views.

3)  Haikus (Thursday) generate an average of 47 views.

4)  A Year Of Kindness (Sundays) generates an average of 70 views.

I do not know there is much to read into that, as (generally speaking) my travel posts have much less text and many more pictures.  What I do find interesting though is that big disconnect between a daily count on the post and a daily count of total views.  For example (again, at time of writing) the past 24 hours which had a crossed two posts has 96 post views, yet 12,375 views total.

It makes me wonder:  Who are these other 12, 279 people (or entities, I guess) that looked at my post in the last 24 hours?  What did they look at  (older things, apparently)?  Was I a better writer then or now?  Or is simply that I, like many others, are somehow caught in the crosshairs of spamming and scraping?

It is all just data, of course - except everyone that actually reads this blog.  You are who I get up in the morning to write for.  From the bottom of my heart, thank you for your continued support.

Memories And Data

 This past week, with the purchase of a tripod for to use with my Computer In My Pocket for remote iaijutsu class (we do not always have access to our facility), I seemed to acquire yet another cord for yet another small device to be charged.  I went to put in the basket I had allocated for such things - and now found it full not just with other random cords, but with a pile of thumb drives.

Memories and data, frozen in time.

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I remember when all you could save on personal computers was what your hard drive allowed you to and what you could fit on a floppy disc.

Oh, the hard decisions - What do I keep, what do I dispose of?  Do I really need this program or this file?  Can I do without?

And then - wonder of wonders - came the Read/Write CD, and then the Zip Drive, and then (or maybe simultaneously) the USB Drive (or Thumb Drives or Memory Stick, or whatever one likes to call it).  Suddenly, everything could be saved.  Memory was nothing we paid attention to at all:  Make a thing?  Save it.  Make ten versions?  Save those too.

Until the technology moved on.

First, floppy drives moved from internal drives to external drives and then disappeared.  Next was the Zip Drive (probably because it was a single use item instead of Read/Write CD/DVD drive).  The CD/DVD drives became external and then disappeared.

Only the Thumb Drives remained - likely because the port was useful for other things as well.

Suddenly, memories and data were frozen in time.

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Over the years my data storage has migrated: the Zip drives were copied to CDs when the Zip Drive itself was no longer manufactured and obsolete, the CD files migrated to USB Drives when CD/DVD drives were no longer standard fare in computers. 

The Zip Drives are long gone into a shred bin; the CDs are still on a shelf as I cannot bring myself (yet) to get rid of them (in the event I failed to copy something over).  The USB drives now sit in my validated storage device, there if I need to find a file from years ago.

(Validated Storage Device)

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I do not know why I am particularly nostalgic about data and data storage devices, other than as passing student of history, I am aware of how much effort has been expended up through the latter half of the 19th Century to the preservation of data.

We have lost whole slews of works from the Classical World - books that are referenced by authors but not now in existence or authors we only know from references because nothing of them survived.  Knowledge used to be painstakingly copied into books or imprinted upon memories.  

Now, we just through everything out to the wilds of the InterWeb and assume that it will always be there when we need it.

I admit I am a curmudgeon and Luddite, but even to me that seems like a highly risky decision.

A Year Of Haiku (XXIV): Orange

 Flaming Orange ball

in Summer's sky recharges 

the small Orange cat.

2025 Cambodia And Vietnam: Angkor Wat (IV)

 Out the outer edge of the ground floor:

This bas relief is a series of pictures of the 32 hells and 37 heavens of Hinduism:

The third bas relief  (159 ft/49.5 m long) is a picture of The Churning of the Sea of Milk, a Hindu story in which the asuras and devas agree to churn the sea of milk to produce amrita, the elixir of immortality.

2025 Cambodia And Vietnam: Angkor Wat (III)

 View of the outer wall:

Walking through one of the libraries:

The outer edge of the temple complex:

Entering the main complex:

Angkor Wat is the home of some of the greatest (and longest) collections of bas relief  in the world. This sequence (308 ft/94 m) memorializes  King Suryavarman II in a military parade:

An officer on an elephant: