Firstly, my supreme apologies for the site's down-time this weekend. I suffered a minor hard-drive blip this weekend and had to rebuild the file system on the web server. Things should hopefully remain sane for awhile.

Secondly, this week will wrap up the series on India on the site. Nearly 150 images in total. Next up with be imagery from Japan! Now onto the image on hand:

I asked the hotel staff if they would please take a picture of me to send to my loved ones at home and abroad for the holidays as I would be staying over Christmas and New Years in Hyderabad wrapping up the project I was working on. Amrita and Pavitra were more than pleased to turn the camera on me for a change. However they felt that perching me on the couch in front of the decorations wasn't quite enough. The picture needed something...extra...

From which level of hell they brought the Christmas demon, I have no idea. But frankly I told them it was one of the scariest most terrible things I had ever seen. Of course it belonged on my lap.

As with most people I've talked to I'm not much for portraiture of myself but this is one picture that features my face that I get a good chuckle over.