So daydream about spring, which arrives officially on March 20. Does it mean buying a spring purse? Putting fresh tires on your bicycle? Getting the garden ready for planting?

A peek into the world of intensive

Every health care facility has its complement of caring nurses, Nurse Sandy Ferguson, however, is an exceptionally gifted nurse. Apart from her many professional accomplishments and vast experience in nursing, she is a tremendous woman of faith who is willing and ready to take the hand of her patients and pray to her God with them, as they face some of the most terrifying moments known to the human condition.

One wonders how a human being could cope with such high levels of stress, but, in the case of Nurse Ferguson, she seemed to thrive on it.

Escape to Orlando

It was just beginning to rain when I got out of the car. Not rain, really, more of a sprinkle, the kind that's warm and touches you so gently that you don't think of it as getting wet.

This wasn't my first sighting of Lake Eola. There was something about the lake that had instantly charmed me, kept me coming back for drive-bys so that finally I just had to park the car and get out, walk on the grass, take a few pictures--a welcome escape from the thrill-a-minute overload of the theme parks this city is best known for.

Here, no movie theme songs blared, no cartoon characters awaited. I didn't have to worry when the next performance would start, because there weren't any. And I didn't have to stand in line; there weren't any of those either.

Spontaneous catastrophe: Notes from a recent 'Bakken Evening Out'

Behind the thick stone walls and arched windows of an impressive 25,000-square-foot home on Lake Calhoun, one might expect to find fine wine and food, enlightened conversation, entertainment and music. And one would find all of these things in this beautiful structure, mingling with some lunatic dressed as Ben Franklin, a machine that electrocutes you, strange fish, Frankenstein’s monster and a little miniature house that explodes. Welcome to the Bakken Museum, second Tuesday of the month.

The home sits tucked away on the west shore of Lake Calhoun, almost out of sight from those touring the lakes by bike or car. No extravagant sign marks the spot, although being a museum of electricity, the proprietors could surely think of something to grab the attention of passersby.

Universal brotherhood prevails at SGPC press

The capacity of SGPCs Golden Printing Press at Gurdwara Ramsar here is likely to be doubled soon. It supplies Sikh devotees all over the world with holy birs of Guru Granth Sahib.

The press prints less than 40,000 birs in a year while the demand is much more. Chief of the SGPC Jathedar Avtar Singh, who took up the matter with the state and centre governments to impose a ban on the publication and sale of the Guru Granth Sahib by private publishers and booksellers, has said the capacity of the press would be doubled shortly.

He said a new press would be established where holy birs would be published as per Sikh maryada. The process to publish the birs was lengthy since these were published keeping in view the Sikh traditions, he added.

True to the teachings of Guru Granth Sahib, which preaches universal brotherhood, the publication of the birs in the press is being looked after by the machine men and workers who are mostly non-Sikhs from Nepal, Himachal Pradesh, Kerala, Bihar, UP, New Delhi and other states.