So Random

Enjoy the below pictures of our Mother Nature

TELL ME... I'LL TELL YOU

Vicky is a friend of mine, a poet by hobby and a good one too, here is some of her recent work, of which I liked

We all need love and we all have people that we love to death. There are things you don't want to hear from those you love and you wish that those unpleasant things said to you can only be sweet words. 

Words to take you through the day and night, words to bring a smile on your gloomy face, words to make you glow even when you have a million pimples/acne.
We are all human, giving and receiving love is inevitable. Whether it's from/ to the people you love or not.
Cheers!

Tell me you love me and I will tell you I love you too
Tell me you hate me and I will tell you I still love you
Tell me I irritate you and I will tell you I'm amused by you
Tell me I get in you nerves and I will tell you I'm made happier by you

Vicky Mwakoyo© 29th May 2012

Famous Photographs

 01. Afghan Girl [1984]

Photographer: Steve McCurry

And of course the afghan girl, picture shot by National Geographic photographer Steve McCurry. Sharbat Gula was one of the students in an informal school within the refugee camp; McCurry, rarely given the opportunity to photograph Afghan women, seized the opportunity and captured her image. She was approximately 12 years old at the time. She made it on the cover of National Geographic next year, and her identity was discovered in 1992.

02. Omayra Sánchez [1985]

Photographer: Frank Fournier

Omayra Sánchez was one of the 25,000 victims of the Nevado del Ruiz (Colombia) volcano which erupted on November 14, 1985. The 13-year old had been trapped in water and concrete for 3 days. The picture was taken shortly before she died and it caused controversy due to the photographer’s work and the Colombian government’s inaction in the midst of the tragedy, when it was published worldwide after the young girl’s death.

03. Portrait of Winston Churchill [1941]

Photograph from: Yousuf Karsh

This photograph was taken by Yousuf Karsh, a Canadian photographer, when Winston Churchill came to Ottawa. The portrait of Churchill brought Karsh international fame. It is claimed to be the most reproduced photographic portrait in history. It also appeared on the cover of Life magazine.

04. The plight of Kosovo refugees [1999]

Photographer: Carol Guzy

The photo is part of The Washington Post’s Pulitzer Prize-winning entry (2000) showing how a Kosovar refugee Agim Shala, 2, is passed through a barbed wire fence into the hands of grandparents at a camp run by United Arab Emirates in Kukes, Albania. The members of the Shala family were reunited here after fleeing the conflict in Kosovo.

05. Stricken child crawling towards a food camp [1994]

Photographer: Kevin Carter

The photo is the “Pulitzer Prize” winning photo taken in 1994 during the Sudan Famine.

The picture depicts stricken child crawling towards an United Nations food camp, located a kilometer away.

The vulture is waiting for the child to die so that it can eat him. This picture shocked the whole world. No one knows what happened to the child, including the photographer Kevin Carter who left the place as soon as the photograph was taken.

Three months later he committed suicide due to depression.

06. Segregated Water Fountains [1950]

Photographer: Elliott Erwitt, Magnum Photos

Picture of segregated water fountains in North Carolina taken by Elliott Erwitt.

07. Burning Monk – The Self-Immolation [1963]

Photographer: Malcolm Browne

June 11, 1963, Thich Quang Duc, a Buddhist monk from Vietnam, burned himself to death at a busy intersection in downtown Saigon to bring attention to the repressive policies of the Catholic Diem regime that controlled the South Vietnamese government at the time. Buddhist monks asked the regime to lift its ban on flying the traditional Buddhist flag, to grant Buddhism the same rights as Catholicism, to stop detaining Buddhists and to give Buddhist monks and nuns the right to practice and spread their religion.

While burning Thich Quang Duc never moved a muscle.

08. Bliss [~2000]

Photographer: Charles O’Rear

Bliss is the name of a photograph of a landscape in Napa County, California, east of Sonoma Valley. It contains rolling green hills and a blue sky with stratocumulus and cirrus clouds. The image is used as the default computer wallpaper for the “Luna” theme in Windows XP.

The photograph was taken by the professional photographer Charles O’Rear, a resident of St. Helena in Napa County, for digital-design company HighTurn. O’Rear has also taken photographs of Napa Valley for the May 1979 National Geographic Magazine article Napa, Valley of the Vine.

O’Rear’s photograph inspired Windows XP’s US$ 200 million advertising campaign Yes you can.

09. The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire [1911]

Photographer: International Ladies Garmet workers Union

Picture of bodies at the Triangle Shirtwaist Company. Company rules were to keep doors closed to the factory so workers (mostly immigrant women) couldn’t leave or steal. When a fire ignited, disaster struck. 146 people died 

Falling in love

Its a beautiful feeling. The way your stomach will ache painlessly as you are waiting for the reply of a text message, or a chat.

You know, the way you hope that he will say what your heart longs to hear and feel and praying that you wont mess up when you reply.

But that's the least of the problems, the main issue is that lingering worry of "Is this it?" deeply hoping that this is the one while trying so hard to suppress your feelings and make sure that you do not look like you are rushing things? I know exactly how that feels, been there done that.

Take your time, be patient and be yourself. Its important to remember that the first impression is going to define the rest of your relationship. Do not fake anything because you should expect the same from the other side, its good to know true colours of the people that we are getting involved with. 

All these are just precautions, the important thing is " Enjoy every moment of it, there's never a better feeling that falling in love" 

This is for my best friend. Love you and always praying for you. Fingers crossed. 

wink wink ;) 

SLAVERY

Africa,

Do not forget where you came from

Do not let yourself be fooled by them

Never forget what they did to your children

Never forget how they tied your children like dogs

And treat them no better than bugs

Never forget the cries our our forefathers.

How their fathers saw your fathers
Is how their children sees us
Ignorant dumb brainless Monkeys 
Who do not know where they go
Who needs a whip in order to move
No better than the monkeys in the wild


Africa, Never forget where you came from,
What they made your children go through
 How they ripped you off, and sell your children like peas,
And call your children animals,
And kill them like wild geese
And work your children like donkeys
And whip them like wild animals. 
Do not let their glittering golds get to you, because initially they were yours

Mother Theresa's Anyway poem

A friend of mine reminded me of this poem today, and I thought I should share it with my viewers. And what's funny is that she isn't a Christian, she is Hindu. This poem is exactly what she needs right now, to keep her believing in what is right. 

Its a good reminder to us all, that we shouldn't be heart broken simply because people do not appreciate us, or treat us right.  Because in the end its simply between you and your God. Thanks Dev, for reminding me of this poem

African Blackwood (Mpingo)

Common Name(s): African Blackwood, Mpingo (Swahili)

Scientific Name: Dalbergia melanoxylon

Distribution: Dry savanna regions of central and southern Africa

Tree Size: 20-30 ft (6-9 m) tall, 2-3 ft (.6-1.0 m) trunk diameter

Average Dried Weight: 82 lbs/ft3 (1,310 kg/m3)

Basic Specific Gravity: 1.08

Hardness: 4,730 lbf (21,060 N)*

*Estimated hardness based on specific gravity

Rupture Strength: 31,000 lbf/in2 (213,790 kPa)

Elastic Strength: 2,980,000 lbf/in2 (20,550 MPa)

Crushing Strength: 10,470 lbf/in2 (72.2 MPa)

Shrinkage: Radial: 2.5%, Tangential: 4.5%, Volumetric: 7.6%, T/R Ratio: 1.8

Color/Appearance: Often completely black, with little or no discernible grain. Occasionally slightly lighter, with a dark brown or purplish hue. The pale yellow sapwood is usually very thin, and is clearly demarcated from the darker heartwood.

Grain/Pore: African Blackwood has a fine, even texture, with small pores that should not require filling; the grain is typically straight.

Endgrain: Diffuse-porous; both small and medium sized pores in no specific arrangement; solitary and radial multiples of 2-3; dark brown deposits present; growth rings may be distinct due to marginal parenchyma; rays not visible without lens; parenchyma banded (marginal), apotracheal parenchyma diffuse-in-aggregates, paratracheal parenchyma can also be vasicentric, and aliform (winged).

Durability: Heartwood is rated as very durable in regards to decay resistance, though only moderately resistant to insect attack. The sapwood is commonly attacked by powder-post beetles and other borers.

Workability: Very difficult to work with hand or machine tools, with an extreme blunting effect on cutters. African Blackwood is most often used in turnery, where it is considered to be among the very finest of all turning woods—capable of holding intricate details, and is reported to hold screw threads nearly as well as metal.

Mpingo, the East African Blackwood tree, is used to make clarinets and oboes, and is the medium of choice for local wood carvers. Its dark, lustrous heartwood is one of the most valuable timbers in the world. The tree is under-threat from over-exploitationand could become commercially extinct.

This tree is great for those who do agricultural work as it is known to improve the fertility of the soil as well as the soil’s stability. The Blackwood is a great source of food for various herbivores as well as livestock as these animals will eat its leaves. Despite being a very hardy tree (most of the mature trees are even able to survive a fire), the population of the African Blackwood has been on the decline. 

In Swahili, the population of the African Blackwood continues to diminish. The name comes from the color of its heartwood which is a color closely resembling black. The tree is said to grow in areas where most other trees or plants couldn’t, as it prefers infertile and rocky soil. The Mpingo is also very slow growing, taking between 70-200 years to grow to a mature size and many only grow to be able 9 feet. tall. It is the national tree of Tanzania even though the tree can be found in about 26 different African countries, including Ethiopia, Angola, Senegal, and many others.

What’s the cause of threat of extinction?

The extremely dark heartwood of the Blackwood is definitely one of the most widely sought after timbers in the entire world. Some of the highest class instruments, mostly woodwinds, are made of this wood. It is also used to make furniture as well as for carving purposes. Carving this wood has been done since the 1930s, but today it’s extremely hard for the carvers to find enough wood to use, which means many times that the timber is imported. The trees are often harvested for this timber and other seedlings are rarely planted in their place. Even though mature Blackwoods can survive a fire, the seedlings cannot, which greatly slows down regeneration.

The African Blackwood Conservation project is working each day to help regenerate these trees because they are declining in population so rapidly. The group plants new trees each year in hopes that the tree population will be replenished. Seedlings are grown at the Moshi Mpingo Plot and the transported to a place where the tree can mature. 

Harvesting and Products

It takes about sixty years to produce a commercially viable specimen (straight trunk, large diameter), and today there is an estimated 3 million trees, with only 20% or 600, 000 of them suitable for harvesting. In the market, the wood can be found in different grades, depending on the use, with Grade A often calling for a hefty sum. 

The wood is commonly used for musical instruments as it is strong, moisture absorbent and withstands the carving process. It may also be used for knife handles, boxes, jewellery, furniture, bowls and ornamental objects. It is also used for carving prayer beads, one of the most noble uses that a wood can be put to. In the pictures below, you can see the slightly reddish tint that may appear in different pictures

BEST SLEEVED WEDDING DRESSES

Apparently nowadays I am totally addicted to googling wedding gowns, and not just any wedding gowns but the ones with sleeves in particular. So below is the collection of just a few of them. Enjoy