Paymaan Jafari's brain overflow! http://blog.paymaan.com From robotics, to fishing, to gardening, to everything else! Fri, 13 Aug 2010 07:35:11 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 WordPress problem now fixed http://blog.paymaan.com/2010/08/13/wordpress-problem-now-fixed/ http://blog.paymaan.com/2010/08/13/wordpress-problem-now-fixed/#comments Fri, 13 Aug 2010 07:00:07 +0000 Paymaan Jafari Taayemeh http://blog.paymaan.com/?p=134 Upgraded my WordPress to 2.8.1 recently, and after login out of my control panel, couldn’t get back to it to post more.

After entering login info, screen goes blank, and this happens to any of control panel pages, anyway you want to enter, while the blog works correctly.

Read about of a lot of solutions, but the simplest worked best.

With those with a problem alike, simply ftp to your site, rename the content/plugin folder to something, now you can login.  Now upgrade your wordpress automatically (it is v3 at the moment).  Then rename your plugins folder back to what it was before (“plugin” exactly :) ).

Problem will be solved. log out and log in to check. now you can also update your plugins if you need any.

Update: Your plugins will be deleted, you need to reinstall them, take a list of them before doing that.

Paymaan.

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Tehran mountains http://blog.paymaan.com/2010/06/03/tehran-mountains/ http://blog.paymaan.com/2010/06/03/tehran-mountains/#comments Thu, 03 Jun 2010 06:11:09 +0000 Paymaan Jafari Taayemeh http://blog.paymaan.com/?p=124 Here is a very short video and some images I have taken from mountains located in north of Tehran. At this time of the year, it has the mildest weather and it is a great place if you really need some oxygen.

Please also visit my images on Google Earth or Panoramio:

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Changed my main desktop. http://blog.paymaan.com/2010/04/07/changed-my-main-desktop/ http://blog.paymaan.com/2010/04/07/changed-my-main-desktop/#comments Wed, 07 Apr 2010 16:47:46 +0000 Paymaan Jafari Taayemeh http://blog.paymaan.com/?p=118 Hi there,

Right at  new years eve of Iranian calendar  (21st March 2010), and the start of the spring, my computer shut down and never turned on again :)

I didn’t want to rush to fix it, as everything is being rushed here just like what happens at the Christmas eve, so I thought I have to put myself on computer-rehab for the holidays, and I did. Well, I used my mobile phone to connect to internet sometimes :)

After a week, as soon as shops opened, I went to the market, bought a new main board (GA-EP45-UD3L), a core2 duo E5300 Intel processor (I have been stayed with AMD since 5, 6 years ago), and 2GB of DDR2 dual channel RAM.

Seems not much, but I didn’t want to consume a lot as the old main board can be repaired for about 12USD and I will possibly put it up as a second system.

I had to also buy a new power for the computer, as it needed more wattage and I wanted the system to be stable. I also lowered the BIOS settings to have an even more stable system and it is still fast enough for my purposes.

Hard Disk and GFX board are still the same, and optical drives as well. This new Main Board has more SATA ports, lots of USB (10 at back of the case, 8 on board and I added 2), but no 1394 and no visible RS232C and Parallel. It has them on board but I need to put sockets there myself. Better than nothing though, as most other Main Boards lack RS232 and Parallel these days.

The funniest part was that although installing new Main Board drivers was very easy, there was no sound. It took me three days (nights to be correct), until I found a solution, and the main reason was that Microsoft has been forgotten to include the UAA Microbus drivers for HD Audio in its WinXP SP3!!!

Well, some good guy had a page to share his info to resolve this. Overall idea is to edit the registry so stupid Windows XP thinks it is SP2, installs the driver, and you again tell it that it is SP3!!!

Very idiotic I believe. I have never seen an OS so stupid :)

The other problem was with my Linux Mint.  Although I have not changed my Hard Disks, it can not find its /dev/sda5 partition to boot, although it is there.  I guess as main board is changed and probably I have changed the SATA ports for each of 2 hard disks, the UUID of partitions are changed.

I am working to resolve this one too, still no success.

and  I have turned 39 this last 4th April :)   and happy spring to all of you.

Paymaan.

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Long time no update… http://blog.paymaan.com/2010/02/24/long-time-no-update/ http://blog.paymaan.com/2010/02/24/long-time-no-update/#comments Wed, 24 Feb 2010 07:41:26 +0000 Paymaan Jafari Taayemeh http://blog.paymaan.com/2010/02/24/long-time-no-update/ Hi Everybody, sorry I have not updated the blog for a few month, just know that I am alive, and will work on putting more of what’s going on my mind here, if any sudden overflow happens again (which can be put openly :) )

Take care.

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My summer fishing trip video clip http://blog.paymaan.com/2009/09/22/my-summer-fishing-trip-video-clip/ http://blog.paymaan.com/2009/09/22/my-summer-fishing-trip-video-clip/#comments Tue, 22 Sep 2009 17:39:48 +0000 Paymaan Jafari Taayemeh http://blog.paymaan.com/?p=112

This video contained a great Greenday music synched to it beautifully, but unfortunately Youtube forced me to remove the music for copyright problems.  If you wanted the original version tell me directly please.

Paymaan.

]]> http://blog.paymaan.com/2009/09/22/my-summer-fishing-trip-video-clip/feed/ 3 Michael Gray; aka KD7LMO is dead since April 2009. http://blog.paymaan.com/2009/09/22/michael-gray-aka-kd7lmo-is-dead-since-april-2009/ http://blog.paymaan.com/2009/09/22/michael-gray-aka-kd7lmo-is-dead-since-april-2009/#comments Tue, 22 Sep 2009 15:19:26 +0000 Paymaan Jafari Taayemeh http://blog.paymaan.com/?p=106 It is so sad to hear a legend of your dreams, somebody who you have learned alot from, or at least from his knowledge shared on his website, has died when you haven’t been looking at his site.

The story is about somebody who taught me a lot through his website, and his near space electronic projects, who showed me lots of what I know about electronic and hardware design.

I have been forgetting his site name (which was also his HAM radio sign), and I was trying to recall his code, and when I finally recalled and googled it, the page told he has been killed when bicycling back in April!!!

May he rest in peace, Michael Gray, AKA KD7LMO, KD7LMO.net a real professor and engineer.

His website is now archived at http://www.ansr.org/kd7lmo/www.kd7lmo.net/index.html

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Fishing for Brown Trout, 2009! http://blog.paymaan.com/2009/08/09/fishing-for-brown-trout-2009/ http://blog.paymaan.com/2009/08/09/fishing-for-brown-trout-2009/#comments Sun, 09 Aug 2009 10:12:02 +0000 Paymaan Jafari Taayemeh http://blog.paymaan.com/?p=57
looking west south, in the  middle of lake (a point of soil is out of water) is where I was fishing last year, when water level was so low!

looking west south, in the middle of lake (a point of soil is out of water) is where I was fishing last year, when water level was so low!

For 3rd year on, I decided to go to Laar lake at Damavand peak foot fishing for the rare brownies, yes these are really rare, at least in Iran, where this lake is the only lake holding them.

Line of cars waiting to enter the protected area and get permissions, Fog everywhere.

Line of cars waiting to enter the protected area and get permissions, Fog everywhere.

Well past 2 month have passed very hard in my country, so I really couldn’t go sooner, and it is about the end of the legal fishing season (for this species of course).   I thought I need to go there before I totally miss this year’s chances.

after environmental post, I am waiting for Sepehr to take the permissions.

after environmental post, I am waiting for Sepehr to take the permissions.

My cousin and I got on road at 3 in the morning and went along Haraaz road.  When we were about to turn to the Laar road at Polur, 3 hitchhikers asked us to give them a ride to the lake, and we made friends along the way.

Before reaching dam, fog everywhere

Before reaching dam, fog everywhere

They were enough enthusiastic for this species that they have been came all the way from Amol at northern province of Mazandaran.  From Imamzadeh Hashem peak The way was all in the fog, and it continued to be the same along the Laar road.  Near the environmental post, it was a long long line of cars waiting to get permissions and enter the area.  Believe me, some of those are so eager they almost race this last part which is not much paved and has no asphalt.  They all want to get to the lake to get the best place and also to not lose the morning, you will find out why this one is important later.

Delichai river

Delichai river

In that day, they started giving permissions at 5:30, so everybody lost at least 30 minutes of valuable time. I guess we lost even more, as line was long.  So we continued towards middle of the lake.  This year the lake contains much more water due lots of rains in the spring, and my last year’s fishing location was totally under water.  That is good news for Tehran of course, we have enough water this year.

camera looking south, My cousin Sepehr, we are walking toward the lake.

camera looking south, My cousin Sepehr, we are walking toward the lake.

After parking at side of road and 20 minutes of walking, I decided on a location eastward which was under a hills shadow at least for an hour or two, we started at about 7:00, finally.

looking east, still foggy, but sun has rose and still ok for fishing

looking east, still foggy, but sun has rose and still ok for fishing

Some other people have been reached there before us, and their lines were casted already, but we had a 100 meter area to our own.  I used a 3 string trout rig (a last night’s work), used earth worms on two bottom ones and 1/4 of Kilka (some kind of Caspian Sardine) on the top hook set.  Casted about 50 meters and started to prepare the second rod.  The first fish was caught in a few seconds.

looking east, laar lake, still foggy, cool, best conditions for brown trout fishing.

looking east, laar lake, still foggy, cool, best conditions for brown trout fishing.

It was not a big catch, but very encouraging.  Kilka bait worked there. and as it was still foggy and cool, I believe this was the perfect condition.  caught the first one, again caste the line and tried to prepare the second rod, again the first one caught some fish!  I was really feeling lucky :)

a 39 cm brown trout, with black and red dots, and almost green top

a 39 cm brown trout, with black and red dots, and almost green top

This one was 39 cm long, and kind of heavy for this species, maybe about 1 kg or so, I didn’t weight it as sun was raising and clouds were disappearing.  Then it seemed no luck, and I was also trying different combination of baits.  Nothing except Kilka seemed to work, and overall we got another big brown trout which was both big and fighting.  Unfortunately (for me, not for the fish :) )  after I removed hooks from her, she put 2 of hooks in my finger and jumped in the water, and danced all the way to the deep lake :)

My fishing rod still waiting more fish, but no fog and it is getting warm

My fishing rod still waiting more fish, but no fog and it is getting warm

We got nothing as clouds were gun, and nobody in our area caught anything.  We stayed untill 3:00 p.m. and at the same moment the small one found a way in my keep net to get out, right when we were about to get back.  As it was too small, we didn’t anything serious to stop him, and he went back to the lake as well.

05082009203

Overall, this time it was much more fun than those times before, and also warmer.  weather is so clean and cool, so wind is cool, but sun burns your skin.

Damavand peak inside clouds.

Damavand peak inside clouds.

And last but not least, as always, I bought a few big rainbows from a Haraz river fish farm, it is always nice to buy fresh from the source!

I am not sure if I can og again this year, but I will if I can.  only one week remains from the legal season.

Paymaan.

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Snow in Spring! http://blog.paymaan.com/2009/03/31/snow-in-spring/ http://blog.paymaan.com/2009/03/31/snow-in-spring/#comments Tue, 31 Mar 2009 11:20:23 +0000 Paymaan Jafari Taayemeh http://blog.paymaan.com/?p=56 Something funny happend this morning,  we have had a strange Noruz holiday this year. One day was so cold, one day was so warm, and today a close friend called in the morning and told me to look out of the window, believe me, we had not such a snow the whole winter!  it snowed and snowed and I guess whitened all the mountains around Tehran and now a few hours later, there is nothing at least in our part of the city you could call snow.  Of course it is still cold, so maybe it snows again tonight.

Overall, it is really strange in this time of year in Tehran to snow.  Not that Tehran is a warm city, but we have had quite some not so cold winters in the past few years.

Cheers,

Paymaan.

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Nowruz and Persian New Year 1388 Solar Hejri http://blog.paymaan.com/2009/03/19/nowruz-and-persian-new-year-1388-solar-hejri/ http://blog.paymaan.com/2009/03/19/nowruz-and-persian-new-year-1388-solar-hejri/#comments Thu, 19 Mar 2009 16:12:10 +0000 Paymaan Jafari Taayemeh http://blog.paymaan.com/?p=55 Persian Girl miniature

Hi Everybody,

Tomorrow is the beginning of a new spring, NowRuz (new day), and the day after tomorrow will be the first day of Persian new year 1388 Solar Hejri.  So I use this opportunity to say a happy new year to all the friends and family and all those good people who read this, and I wish a happy and joyful and prosperous new year for all Persian, and a new spring for all the rest :)

I hope you enjoy your holidays, and be happy.

Paymaan.

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Flash CS4, ActionScript 3.0, and I know Jujitsu! http://blog.paymaan.com/2009/01/31/flash-cs4-actionscript-30-and-i-know-jujitsu/ http://blog.paymaan.com/2009/01/31/flash-cs4-actionscript-30-and-i-know-jujitsu/#comments Fri, 30 Jan 2009 21:31:58 +0000 Paymaan Jafari Taayemeh http://blog.paymaan.com/?p=54 For 2 weeks in a row, I was tryng to peneterate into the world of ActionScript 3.0 language, the one used in Flash CS3 and Flash CS4, to program the flash animation.  It has never been easy for me to think and develope programs in the way Flash works, as it mostly conflicts with my methods.  Till know, Flash to me has been an environment which you both have to set the objects manualy into the environment, and then program them individually or in groups, and you could not just start writing a program which does load the objects or creates them and use them to animate or whatever you like to do.

I still believe this system is very unusual, but with the introduction of ActionScript 3.0 language and huge changes they have made into its basics, Now it is like a real computer language, to me.  Maybe I am wrong, but this is the way my brain works.

I tried two weeks and 5 books and lots of good hints on the web to find a point where I can understand the language and basically start the learning curve, which is the hardest point in learning a new language.  2 nights ago finally, I guess I did it.

Suddenly I had a feeling just like what Neo had, in the movie Matrix, where they upload the instructions to Jujitsu into his brain and he knows how to fight like a Jujitsu pro. And in the middle of the night, when my first pieces of ActionScript3.0 worked, I told myself; I know ActionScript3.0!

Believe me, aside from jokes, it is always very nice to know you have another language (or computer language) available in your brain.  It feels you are a little stronger in understandings.  It will take me a while before I’ll be using it like a pro, but I have already started using it for a project, and I know I will finish the project using this.

So, where to start?  Try this books and sites:

1- OReilly Learning ActionScript 3.0 A Beginner’s Guide.  This is a great book!

2- Flash CS4 for Dummies.  I guess this one is a good one as well, although it talks too much.

3- The Flash Blog http://www.theflashblog.com lots of articles

4- GoToAndLearn(), http://www.gotoandlearn.com lots of video tutorial on flash!

And lots of other sites like Adobe itself, although Adobe is containing the worst set of information, they are actually useless for an starter unless you try seaching though google on their livedocs, and that is still no use to somebody who still doesn’t know where to start.

Try finding small samples on other people’s site and be careful as they don’t put most of needed headers and starter code on theirs, considering everybody knows what they already know.  Find small, working demos and then read them and try to recompile them to get sure the code is complete.

Paymaan.

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Update in life, projects, OS, Linux, and everything else! http://blog.paymaan.com/2009/01/02/update-in-life-projects-os-linux-and-everything-else/ http://blog.paymaan.com/2009/01/02/update-in-life-projects-os-linux-and-everything-else/#comments Fri, 02 Jan 2009 10:06:33 +0000 Paymaan Jafari Taayemeh http://blog.paymaan.com/?p=53 Hi everybody, and Merry Christmas and Happy new year and everything else. I wish joy for everybody out there, and peace.

Lots of things are going on here, and I have been under lots of stress in the past monthes, two heavy website and multimedia software design and development at the same time, and some other unpleasing life issues.

Of course I don’t claim only bad things are happening, I am also having many good things happen to me, but ok, let internal issues aside :)

While I am developing this two projects, I am also exploring new topics in software and web design.  So far I have gone deeper into many languages, from deeper usage of Javascript, to CSS2, changing my priority web design language from HTML to XHTML and XML.

I am really going to like this change, XML is something I can not describe, but I feel enjoying using it, and for my other project, I am exploring things like Adobe Flash CS4, to Adobe AIR and Adobe Flex, to Pure Basic and even some VisualC++ of Microsoft,  while almost everybody knows I prefer ANSI C/C++ over anything which involves some kind of work from Microsoft :) .

Some other changes in the past months have happened which I have really enjoied it. First, my daughter have gone to first grade and after almost 3 month now, she can read and write and I believe this is an evolution for every person.  This is were we got our power to learn more.

Then I did something really relieving. My Windows were killing me after 4 years of not being re-installed, it would crash several times a day and you know how dumb WindowsXP is, and it can’t even keept itself clean.  MY registery was 180 MB, can you believe that?!  I tried every piece of junk software I found to clean up my registery and Windows, to no avail, and it got worse and worse, and in the past 7,8 years which I have been forced to use Windows I have always been unhappy, and missed my good old Amiga.

I have been downloading several versions of Linux since end of summer, planning to make a really big change, and to ease the life, and to get rid of Windows, finally.

I had Ubuntu Hardy Heron, Novell’s SuSE and Open SuSE, Linux Mint Elyssa, and afew others.  I have been recently uninstalled my older SuSE as it was heavy and wanted to update it in whole, but my 160 GB hard disk was almost filled and I needed its space, but I changed my mind and got a new 320GB for more freedom and for those projects I mentioned in the beginning.

I wanted to chose one of those Linux so I habe another option on this machine in addition to WinXP, and suddenly I tasted this Linux Mint, I have played with all of these diferent linuxes on different machines and none is as great as Linux Mint.  Some of Linuces can not read your Windows partitions.  Some can only read it but can not write to it. Some have fonts very different than what a WinXP user have experienced with.  Some are also very heavy, even being a Linux, consume your CPU power so hard your machine will actually work slower than with Windows!

But, Linux Mint, which is based on Ubuntu itself, which based on Debian itself, is almsot the fines of all I have ever experienced.

It is a Linux, who can read, and write to your Windows partitions so easily that I have shared all my pictures and music and video folders with it on windows partitions.

It is very efficient (I use the Gnome desktop on it and I am used to it very fast, it is very easy to use) and works much faster on my 4 year old machine, that I am relieved and feel no need for a new machine now.

Then its graphics power is so high, I actually have a much more fancy desktop effects on this machine using my old NVidia 6600GT than what you can see on most Vista machines.  The Desktop is actually liquid, you can make ripples on it, you can trun it and see the other 3 desktops with your mouse or key combinations.  It has some carousel like application chooser, a four side desktop cube etc. etc.

Then something really funny when you install it. It actually asks you if you want to import your windows accounts into it!  It can migrate your windows to Linux without any hassles!

Ok, I am not affiliated with authors of Mint, and they also provide it for free so this is no advertising, explore the rest your self, using its live CD.

After I installed Mint (version 5 is called Elyssa), I simply migrated all my email from Thunderbird on WinXp to Mint, also my book marks from FireFox to FireFox on Mint (and almost every software there has a twin sister here on Mint).  I also took a copy of my Windows main partition, formatted that partition, and reinstalled windows, just for when I need to play a windows only Game, or for when testing my web designs on IE, and for when clients want a Windows only software.

Now I spend most of my time on Linux, and have installed Apache 2 server as well as everything else on it, and when I am designing web sites, I design and run them on my machine and when evrything is fully tested, mirror them to the client’s web host.

I feel really free now, every tool you need, you go to package manager, search for the proper keyword, and when you find the proper program, you simply ask it to install, no money is going to be paid, and your software is ready in a few minutes.

And please don’t kill me before I say this, you have almost no virus there, although you can be extra careful and install a free virus killer like ClamAV, with just asking package manager to install it for you :)

Ok, enogh for now, my brain overflows are finished for now, I guess.

Paymaan.

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Just a note http://blog.paymaan.com/2008/10/24/just-a-note-2/ http://blog.paymaan.com/2008/10/24/just-a-note-2/#comments Fri, 24 Oct 2008 14:31:32 +0000 Paymaan Jafari Taayemeh http://blog.paymaan.com/?p=52 Hi Everybody,

This is a long time I have not written anything in here, but I am still alive (for those who prefer not :D )  but just either not have been in the mood to post, or havn’t had time.  Actually, as the name of the blog says for itself, this is the place for whatever which overflows from my brain, if any at all.  Sometimes my mood is not that exciting and so it makes some kind of hibernation to my brain, and it prevents me from being creative or making new ideas (even if they seem crazy :) ).

Anyway, I’ll try to be better soon, and I am aslo planning to release one of my embedded processor board designs, for Microchip PIC18 CPUs containing 4 wire LCD output, power stabilizer, dual serial (RS232) ports, I2C interface and a very low noise design.  If anybody has a need for this, let me know so I put it here sooner.  I want to release it under GNU licence for free, although it first ment to be a source of funds for me :)

Send me your ideas.

Paymaan.

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Smart Brown trouts! http://blog.paymaan.com/2008/06/16/smart-brown-trouts/ http://blog.paymaan.com/2008/06/16/smart-brown-trouts/#comments Mon, 16 Jun 2008 15:23:58 +0000 Paymaan Jafari Taayemeh http://blog.paymaan.com/?p=30 9th June 2008 was the beginning of the fishing season in the Laar reservoir at Laar dam, right at west of Damavand peak, and east of Tehran province, Iran.  This year, I had the chance to go there to have a great adventure and fishing experience.  The lake is native environment of an special species of fresh water fish; Brown trout.  This kind of brown trout is called Red-Dot trout locally or in Farsi: “Khaal-Ghermez, خال قرمز”, because most of the fish are silver colored trouts with black and red dots on them (other varieties exist as well).

I tried to get some sleep the Sunday 8th June, as I didn’t get a good sleep for a few days before, thinking I needed to gather my strength and wake up very early and I was to drive about 90 Km to the Laar reservoir and Damavand peak.

I waked up at about 3:00 a.m. Monday 9th and get ready, I drive towards the gas station at about 4:00 filled the tank (for USD2, you won’t beleive it no?) and got to the road at total dark. an hour later I have been passed the Emamzadeh Hashem peak, were people stop to take a rest, buy things, do their prayers etc. etc. after riding such a hard ramp road. The sun was not yet up, as it was hidden behind the beauty of Damavand peak. about 15 km after Emamzadeh Hashem, you reach the Polour, were its mineral water is so pure and famous in Iran.

before you leave the Polour, you have to turn to the left and get out of Haraz road, there is a sign about Laar Dam and also an statue of a mountaineer so nobody can miss the entrance. You have to go about 20 km more in a very calm and pretty asphalt road. normally at fishing days, it is not so calm, but I was an hour late from other faster enthusiast, so I was almost alone in the road).

Imagine this, a great peak at your right Damavand stays still covering the sun at 5:40, at the left side you see a huge field of wild tulips, specially at these time of year. It is a great experience. And believe me, the temperature was so cold I was shaking, I didn’t want to forbid myself from feeling the pure oxygen in the air.

After reaching the Dam entrance, asphalt road ends and you enter a very very bad road to the right which goes towards the lake and peak (there are other ways to the peak as well). Preferably you need a 4×4 not because the road is not suitable for normal cars, but becuase there are a lot of stones in the road you don’t want them to hit below your car, and also that on a higher car you can go much faster, I had to keep the speed under 20 km/h but still the sound of ride was so annoying.

After 2km in the bad road, you reach to the environmental post which you have to obtain both fishing license and entry permission. I have a one year permission for fishing, but for this special kind of trout you have to obtain a one day permit as well (for about USD 3.60). I got it in Tehran the day before, so I only had to pay about USD 1.20 for the entry and entered the area. From this point on, you can see the lake at your left side, and the sun still was hiding behind Damavand. Here, the wild tulip fields are ended and many other plants are seen, mostly yellow flowers, but also Lavender and others which I don’t know their names.

You go down and down very slowly, until you reach the Delichai river. It is an small but very fresh river, the first of about 250 waters which enter the reservoir, and you can start fishing right here. Most people prefer to go were this river enters the lake, about 500 meters to the south of road, but some also prefer to continue to explore the 11Km northern border of the lake, many like me go about 3 km more from this point, but I wish I hadn’t. I could park the car here and go on foot to the beginning of the lake, because all my plans were changed as water level was unbelievably low even at this time of year.

I have been planned to go 3 more km from Delichai river, were there is a cut in the water, and then go about 170 meters on foot, sit at lake side and start fishing. Unfortunately, although I go were I was planned, water level was so low I had to go about 1 more km on foot walking in the now dry part of the lake to reach the water and all good places were occupied by then :D

At about 6:36, I was reached the water. I was pretty hungry by then, but preferred to set up my rod and reel and attached one of my mepps lures and spinners to try a few times and also wet my line in a shallow part.

Then I went to an stationary position which was still not that deep and set up my trout rigs. I tried that location for an hour or two, using my spinners and lures, and also tried my MisterTwister plastic lures both as jigs and also as trout rigs to no avail. nothing happened, even a professional spinner fisher man came by and used his proven Mepps #3 or #2 Aglia with red dots (faking the exact same species we are looking for in Laar Lake; Brown trout) and still he caught nothing at my location.

So I tried to change the location and went somewhere closer to those who could be able to catch some fish since early morning.

Other than not being able catch fish until 18:00 which I left the lake, I really enjoyed of being right in front of a gigantic, 360 degree, wide screen view of Damavand peak. It was a really great view. The weather went from very cool to a little warmer, to windy, and finally to windy and so cool I couldn’t stay.

I found some new friends there, and they had much better skills and baits and they caught fish up to 40 cm untill around 11:00, but fish stopped feeding until 15:00, nobody caught any in that period.

After talking to those friends, I found out that these Brown trouts are seem very smart, unlike rainbow trouts down in Haraz river which are mostly around a few monthes old, these Brownies (or as we call them red-dot trouts) are around 3, 4 years normally. They seem to know the tricks, and they don’t get attracted to fake lures and silicon and plastics!

The bait people were using was parts of Kilka (a kind of Caspian minnow or shad) plus night crawlers and earth worms. I got a few from friends and tried them, and although I caught nothing, fish were biting actually, and they ate all the worms so fast.

The other problem was fish were at very deep waters, after 8:00 there were almost no surface feeding. Most results were at deepest parts. spinners got good results, but you need a shorter and faster rod and a thinner line, say 0.20 mm was the thickest possible. otherwise you could not get the farthest distance needed for light spinners.

Back to the car, I picked a whole bunch of several species of herbs, which had pretty flowers, and then after I reached the wild tulip field, I also grabbed a big bunch of that as well. 2 hours of driving to the home, and the moment I entered the Tehran area the heat was so high breathing was hard.

I also got a lot of sun burns at ankles and face even having a hat.

Next time, I will not forget to bring my Kilka and earth worms, maybe I find it even more entertaining and funny. I may also park the car at entrance and walk all the way down, as it was so hard to take out all the dirt out of the car. A 4×4 car is a must.

Paymaan.

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Season beginning for brown trouts Laar lake! http://blog.paymaan.com/2008/06/06/season-beginning-for-brown-trouts-laar-lake/ http://blog.paymaan.com/2008/06/06/season-beginning-for-brown-trouts-laar-lake/#comments Fri, 06 Jun 2008 19:02:32 +0000 Paymaan Jafari Taayemeh http://blog.paymaan.com/?p=28 Damavand Peak, Alborz mountains, Tehran, Iran, 2 June 2008

Hi everybody,

Monday 9th June 2008, the fishing season at Laar dam reservoir will start.  I see people are planning to be there for brown trouts (native to Iran and specially to Laar river), so although I have been at Caspian shore just a few days ago, I am planning to be there, probably to also participate in the season competition.

I am not sure if I can really be prepared in 3 days, but everything of my tools are in my car’s trunk and I am really eager to start the season wih everybody else.  I also had the opportunity to take some pictures during my past trip to the Caspian, including a few from the road, which is very beautiful in this time of the year.

I will try to put these on Google Earth as soon as I can, so everybody else enjoys.

Paymaan.

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Peppers, easy to grow! http://blog.paymaan.com/2008/04/15/peppers-easy-to-grow/ http://blog.paymaan.com/2008/04/15/peppers-easy-to-grow/#comments Tue, 15 Apr 2008 08:28:17 +0000 Paymaan Jafari Taayemeh http://blog.paymaan.com/?p=25 a young pepper plant in a container

I was shopping for a Laurel in the plant shopping center at the beginning of the spring and some old ladies started to ask about cherry tomatoes and what they can plant in containers in their apartments, so I tried to help them choose what is easier, what is pretty enough, smells good and can be planted in containers and indoors.

Well, this is a question to many people who love plants and greens just like me, but don’t know what they can plant in their apartments or balconies wihtout much need to light and soil.

I always have an answer to this question, it is simply: plant pepper!

Pepper plants have some characteristics which make them perfect for indoor and containers.

mild Kavalerov Paprika is a nice pepper to plant in container

There is a huge variety of peppers you can grow at home.  It doesn’t need much sun light, so you can plant it in small containers and put them behind the windows.  I normally use 8 liter containers and although I put them in my balcony, they are still under a shade (preventing summer heat).  The leaves of pepper, are shiny and in some varieties they are very wide,  which makes them perfect add on to house greens, and it is a really clean plant.

The blooms on pepper which are in most varieties small white flowers, add to to its value, and then comes the smell.  I really like the smell of fresh peppers,  specially the mild smell of bell peppers which make you feel so fresh and relaxed.  and when the peppers are hanging finally, it is one of the best add-ons to your  cooking food, and to be honest, I love to use vegetables grown on my small containers instead of those somehow artificial crops bought from store, which have no smell and no taste at all, and I don’t know with what kind of water and soil they are grown.

Anyway, so the process is easy, in a suitable season get some 8 liters containers, stuff hem with soil, and put a seed or 2 half a centimeter in the soil and spray some water over it for a few days. I prefer light container soil I buy from plant center near me, for about 1.5 USD a 10 kg pack.   The prices may vary in your place and your country, I am shopping in Tehran and right from the center.

If you want to plant indoors, the season doesn’t matter much, just keep the temperature so plant doesn’t freeze in winters.  15 degrees centigrade to 20 makes a perfect conditions I guess.  If you don’t have enough light, put them under fluorescent lamps.

Remember, Pepper seeds are very slow, so you have to be patient.  It normally takes more than 12 days before you see any sign of the plant and it may take even more, so just keep the soil moist and let the nature do the rest for you.

Now how to select seeds or how to find the seeds yourself?  You can either buy from shops, or you can use the available seeds in the peppers you see.

Shopping, everybody knows how, ask your local stores, or simply type “pepper seed” in google and you will find a thousand sellers, I have used seedfest.co.uk and I guess north Americans are also easy with burpee.com.

But if you prefer not to buy seeds, it is still easy.  Find a perfect pepper of any kind you like to grow, preferrable not a hybrid type (hybrid seeds don’t grow exactly like their mothers, and they don’t smell or taste like those we like, and market is filled with them).  The pepper you want to use must be fully grown, I mean it must be colored other than green for most species.  If you use seed from a red pepper (which is still green), then the seeds are not grown enough.

So select the perfect pepper, open it and use seeds.  put up to 3 seeds in the container and cover it with soil, and if more than one came out, trim the weaker ones.

Be careful with hot chilli peppers, Habanero and every other kind of hot pepper.  When these grow, they start getting very hot and even the smell might be hot, so keep the kids away from them.

Peppers don’t need much attention as I said before, if you wanted to give them some food, after a month give them a tiny bit of an slow release fertilizer like green KRISTALLON dissolved in water and that’s all.

Enjoy while your plant are slowly growing, giving you some taste of the nature.

Paymaan.

]]> http://blog.paymaan.com/2008/04/15/peppers-easy-to-grow/feed/ 2 Fishing Basics: Know your fish! http://blog.paymaan.com/2008/04/03/fishing-basics-know-your-fish/ http://blog.paymaan.com/2008/04/03/fishing-basics-know-your-fish/#comments Thu, 03 Apr 2008 10:27:51 +0000 Paymaan Jafari Taayemeh http://blog.paymaan.com/?p=24 I believe knowing the target species of fish is very important. Almost everything is related on the species and its behavior.

If you are fishing for fun, or just playing by the lake or river in a good day, you may use a single line of any type, a wooden or metal hook made by yourself and a branch of a tree and it may work, but here I want to share tips which can help us achieve better results, and have more fun or more fish for the dinner :)

Fishing by rod and hook is actually tricking the fish to think she is reaching for food, hunting for it,  finding it or anything else you like to name it.  We want to fish to eat the bait or whatever we have on the hook so it traps himself and we catch it.

So first of all we have to know the feeding behavior.

  • Some fish are visual feeders, they “look” for food, by their eyes I mean.
  • Some sense the smell of the food rather than seeing it.
  • Some are like filters, they eat whatever comes forward and filter out the waste and keep the food.

For visual feeders, we need baits which attract the fish visually, for those who smell, we need smelly food and bait, and for the third we can almost do nothing if we use hook instead of the net. Mullet is of the last type, ofcourse it too has some ways of catching which we can later talk about.

The other thing we have to know is that in what condition they start feeding. If you have everything ready and fish is not willing to eat or attack, then you will not catch it. I have stayed at a lake full of brown trouts for several hours without any fish even trying to bite the tons of different lures and bait I had with myself. Well don’t be scared, even if I didn’t catch anything, I enjoyed the lake side and the weather and the nature so much! that is the good thing about fishing.

Then in some ways, consider planning what size of fish you want to catch. The size really matters in this case, you have to have proper line, hook and rod, as well as proper reel.

As we go, you will learn more about this kind of fish behavior. I’ll try to share my knowledge of the some of fish so we can better decide to how fish for the target species.

As an start know that Sport fish like trout, bass and pike are all visual hunters and this is really good for us. Then species like carp, chub (white fish or Sefid Maahi as we say in Iran), catfish and surgeon are more likely to hunt for the smell of the food, smell attracts them more than the visuals, although not absolutly.

Because of this big difference, we normally take two kind of strategy for this two major groups.

More on this in the next post.

Paymaan.

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Blog software updated! http://blog.paymaan.com/2008/04/02/blog-software-updated/ http://blog.paymaan.com/2008/04/02/blog-software-updated/#comments Wed, 02 Apr 2008 06:53:03 +0000 Paymaan Jafari Taayemeh http://blog.paymaan.com/?p=23 Hi Everybody,

Noruz and Spring holidays are finally over in Iran, and as a new version of WordPress (2.5) is out there, I decided to update the blog.  So we are now using WordPress 2.5. please enjoy and let me know of any possible problems.

Paymaan.

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Happy Noruz and New Persian year! http://blog.paymaan.com/2008/03/20/happy-noruz-and-new-persian-year/ http://blog.paymaan.com/2008/03/20/happy-noruz-and-new-persian-year/#comments Thu, 20 Mar 2008 06:51:08 +0000 Paymaan Jafari Taayemeh http://blog.paymaan.com/2008/03/20/happy-noruz-and-new-persian-year/ Noruz painting, Haft Seen

Hi everybody!

It is finally Noruz, the new year and new spring for we Iranians and Persians and whoever who celebrates the start of the life in nature around the world!

I wish everybody this new year and spring will be full of joy and happiness, and success.

Be Happy,

Paymaan.

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Arthur C. Clarke dies at age 90. http://blog.paymaan.com/2008/03/19/arthur-c-clarke-dies-at-age-90/ http://blog.paymaan.com/2008/03/19/arthur-c-clarke-dies-at-age-90/#comments Wed, 19 Mar 2008 08:13:13 +0000 Paymaan Jafari Taayemeh http://blog.paymaan.com/2008/03/19/arthur-c-clarke-dies-at-age-90/ Arthur C. ClarkeWhile it is just the day before the new Persian year of 1387 and also spring, I get a bad news for Sci-Fi world and all space enthusiasts.  The very respected pioneer in Space, Radar, and Sci-Fi writings, Arthur Charles Clarke died at age 90 today morning.

I was always a fan of his, and while volunteer at project SETI, I could see how strong this man is, still help SETI sending emails to people to support the project in any form they can.

He was part of Radar development project, he was the man who worked on now called Clarke Orbits, actually making sending satellites to the sky possible.

His latest three wishes at his 90th birthday back in December 2007:  Extra Terrestrials be found some day, The civil war in Sri Lanka ends, and the world to go for cleaner sources of energy.

After a work on Great Barrier Reef, he moved to Indian Ocean and stayed in Sri Lanka till the end.  He also remained an scuba diving enthusiast; “I’m perfectly operational underwater,” he once said.

Peace be Upon him.  World very rarely gets men of such quality.

Yahoo! news article.

Washington Post Article.

Paymaan.

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FireFox 3 is much faster than rivals! http://blog.paymaan.com/2008/03/14/firefox-3-is-much-faster-than-rivals/ http://blog.paymaan.com/2008/03/14/firefox-3-is-much-faster-than-rivals/#comments Thu, 13 Mar 2008 23:37:28 +0000 Paymaan Jafari Taayemeh http://blog.paymaan.com/2008/03/14/firefox-3-is-much-faster-than-rivals/ Recreated FireFox 3 logoJust read the news on the new Mozilla FireFox 3 Beta 4 and how it is faster than all rivals (3 times than IE7!!!), downloaded it as my first Beta of version 3. I guess soon V3 will be stable enough for all to upgrade, but in case you too are well confident in using the new Beta as I am, then try downloading it at http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/all-beta.html

Enjoy using the world’s best and fastest Open Source web browser!

Paymaan.

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