Place: Mojave desert..

Mojave desert......the vast arid land dotted with creosote and the signature Joshua tree, among other xerophytes, stretches from California, Necvada, utah to Arizona..........

We often have to traverse it while accessing North-East California, Las Vegas, Utah....so, have travelled through it numerous times.....the stunning Hw395 runs through it.....also I-15, I-40, I-58....

The vast, desolate land can make anybody awe-struck......some shots...

Amazing geological features....

Painted hills...

Low altitude, saline flats....

Layers of hills which ultimately graduate to become the Sierra range...

On overcast day, the depth of the landscape is more spectacular..

Jagged granite rock formations..

A grey day with the Saline stretch of Owens Valley glistening in a never-ending straight-line...

The straight roads piercing through the desert floor........

Stunted bush..mostly creosote and sage scrub...

Abandoned houses and Metal sculptures......

An artist's palette-like structure in the desert...

Joy: Autumn girl all the way......

My blog reflects my unwavering love for Autumn season even though I am yet to see it in its glorious best......I am enamored with this season of  'senescence yet brilliance' to that extent that I put this word in almost all of my user account passwords :)...

Myself soaking in autumn...........among the splendor of green ash, black oak, sycamore and aspen...

Bird: Travellers of the blue sky....

Let the pictures taken at different places around California say it all........some quotes to go with them...

I like the idea of taking off like a bird.   ~Florence Welch

Time sometimes flies like a bird, sometimes crawls like a snail; but a man is happiest when he does not even notice whether it passes swiftly or slowly.  ~Ivan Turgenev

The greatest achievement was at first and for a time a dream. The oak sleeps in the acorn, the bird waits in the egg, and in the highest vision of the soul a waking angel stirs. Dreams are the seedlings of realities.  ~James Allen

It's impossible to explain creativity. It's like asking a bird, 'How do you fly?' You just do.  ~Eric Jerome Dickey

I wanted to know the name of every stone and flower and insect and bird and beast. I wanted to know where it got its color, where it got its life - but there was no one to tell me.  ~George Washington Carver

It's best to have failure happen early in life. It wakes up the Phoenix bird in you so you rise from the ashes.  ~Anne Baxter

Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly.  ~Langston Hughes

Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.  ~George Eliot

The bird of paradise alights only upon the hand that does not grasp.  ~John Berry

Birds sing after a storm; why shouldn’t people feel as free to delight in whatever sunlight remains to them? ~Rose Kennedy

God loved the birds and invented trees. Man loved the birds and invented cages. ~Jacques Deval

The bluebird carries the sky on his back. ~ Henry David Thoreau

Reflection: The agony of job search...........

Sometimes I feel money runs the world...not talent or merit...

I have solid reasons to feel so...

Every day, I find my email inbox crammed with myriad invitations to contribute journal articles, book chapters etc., from open access publishers  and get flooded with invites  to attend or be speaker at National/ International conferences.....

But at this juncture I don't need those......

Also, those calls are mostly interested in money, in the form of publication  charge or registration fee...

What I really need is a suitable job fitting my qualifications......which without being boastful, I must say is quite impressive to deserve decent jobs....

When I do apply to potential recruiters get that good old, formal reply..."...this time we decide to move on to other candidates, while wishing you best ......"....I wonder, if they even bother to look at my resume?.......

I get it, job search is not fun.....that too not any random job, but a highly-skilled, academic-research-software job.... compounded to the fact of foreign Nationality.....and further, the obligation to find it in a particular city, for personal reasons...

I hope (against hope).....this travail will be transient......Don't they say 'Every cloud has a silver lining'?...........

Though some might be lucky and not necessarily more talented to have escaped this despondent phase, I believe, most of you will resonate with my thoughts and apprehensions.....With this angst, here I browse for yet another potential job......

And for sharing my anguish, enjoy these delightful shots...

Photography: With the Ganesh idol as subject...

A friend had gifted this tiny Lord Ganesh statuette as a wedding gift exactly five years back...I carry it with me..and often use as a subject of photography...here, I have tried to capture the variable backgrounds....

Sometimes, I take the statue to places I go.....
Like this Pacific beach.....