I know it has been more than a year since 'ano' left a comment to "write" something about this in addition to the videos. Guess I need to use the quotes,"it is better late than never" and "it is never too late" to justify my ridiculously delayed addition now. So here is how it goes:
It was... Jeez, I don't even remember when this exactly was. So let us say a very long time ago a bunch of my friends and I decided to do some white water rafting in West Virginia. That was how four of us drove down to Virginia Tech university in Blacksburg, VA and picked up the fifth one. Now before going to WV, we need to go back a couple more years from here.
The flashback begins; "is everyone here?" Someone from the group was yelling. It was a whole bunch of us getting all set for "white water rafting" at Delaware Water Gap in NJ. After a brutal winter, summer was a welcome sign. Not just a welcome sign but an amazing thing that we were not sure would ever come. So everyone was out running with joy with the least amount of clothes legally allowed. After about an hour, all the rafts were in the water sailing peacefully down the river. Once in a while there would be a wave half an inch high and we would brace ourselves to feel the impact and hug the rafts to avoid being spat out of the raft. After some time even this stopped happening and we started to churn the water with our paddles to "create" some white water. After we were done with this amazingly thrilling and dangerous activity two and a half hours from the start, we were curious to know what level of white water rafting this was. "it is level 2" we were told. Being ignorant of this activity, we were all overjoyed that we could handle something that was greater than 0. Trying our luck once again did not prove much fun either. So we ended up doing level 2 white water rafting twice in Del Water Gap and we were looking for something a little more challenging. This is how we ended up booking our level 4 white water rafting trip in WV.
Back to the present; one of my friends did a lot of research and settled with North American River Runners for a day of white water rafting in Gauley River, WV. We also booked a cabin in the woods for the night before. After driving for 6 hours from NJ to Blacksburg and picking up the fifth one, we headed to 'wherever' in WV. We reached our destination around 3:00 PM. Having time to kill, we went for paint ball and had a ton of fun. Then we had dinner and it was time for a camp fire and of course something tasty to go with it. It was an excellent night and the day ahead looked even more promising. We got up in the morning, had a great breakfast and went to the meeting place to pick up the gear (essentially life vests, wet suits, helmets and paddles) and from where the bus would take us up the mountain and leave us in the water. Starting there, you know what happened if you watched the video already. If not, then do it ;-).
Now, why is the title what it is? After we were given a brief description of what lay ahead of us for the day, all the rafts slowly slid into the water. They all formed a line in the river and were behind a bunch of them. "The first rapid is called the surprise rapid and it is a level 2 rapid" announced our instructor (Each raft had an instructor in it to guide the people along the rapids). Within seconds we knew why. The first raft in the line suddenly disappeared and a second or two later was thrown up into the air empty. When it was our turn, our raft suddenly dropped about 3 straight feet and was thrown up into the air on the other side of the dip. Luckily no one was thrown out though. Having passed this, I saw another sort of turbulence (at least according to me) ahead of us and asked the instructor what level rapid that was. "It's not a rapid, it's a ripple" she said.
Now we are talking "white water" rafting. All of a sudden we knew what we were up against and felt so ignorant having passed the still waters in Delaware Water Gap for white water.
Enough of politics! Its time for some good memories. While scavenging through my media, I stumbled upon the DVD of the white water rafting trip my friends and I made during 2005 Memorial Day weekend. I don't feel like writing anything about the trip right now but here is the video (split into two due to size and length restrictions).
Go straight past the checkout counter, turn right and go further down the aisle. This takes one to my favorite corner in my library - the audio books. The first thing I do is get my iPod Touch sniffing through Amazon for bestsellers while I browse for those titles. This time my eyes fell on "An Inconvenient Book". I took it out of the shelf and decided to borrow it as it sounded funny.
Though I liked "An Inconvenient Truth" by our buddy Al, I don't really agree with him on quite a few things. I agree we are contributing towards global warming but if someone says we are "responsible" for it, nope! Hey I don't mind making millions selling green underwear saying "we gotta go green". I believe in capitalism my friend. I know the conservatives are loving me for this. But before it gets too far, let me make it clear, I'm not a blind supporter of either of them but guess I can call myself center-left. Let's go back to the book.
I didn't pay much attention to the author of the book and hence had no idea what to expect except for some Al Gore ass kicking. The first chapter was funny with a lot of stats rebutting Gore's data and analysis. I could easily tell this guy was way on to the other extreme but was a welcome change from the stereotypical green mania everywhere nowadays. The second chapter was about life and I was really lost. As I heard more and more of the book, I knew there was something wrong with this guy. Not only did he sound demented but I could also see the poor dude getting abused when he was a kid - a disturbed childhood, that's what some people call it. While some of his statements/allegations sounded like nonsense, some were ridiculous and the reset were absolute bullshit. Clinton's name (both Bill and Hillary) would pop up out of nowhere and he would go behind them. Then came Edwards at random intervals. Finally came the point when I could not bear it anymore. Glad that I returned the CD to the library before I broke it. Now, the author of the book is none other than Glenn Beck - total jackass. There's also another author, Kevin I Don't Care Who.
After all this left bashing, now I had to go get a right trashing book that would compensate for the damage done. "Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them" by Al Franken. With more than 3000 reviews on Amazon and 4/5 starts, this was the obvious pick. Two CDs into it, no regrets. Obviously this is an extreme left leaning liberal dose but nonetheless funny. Don't get me wrong, I ain't saying what Franken says is right or it makes sense. Though he may be showing only one side of the story, at least it is not total nonsense like the Beck dude. It's just ass kicking Ann Coulter followed by Rupert Murdoch followed by Bill Oreilly followed by Hannity followed by...
For about a month (sometime during Nov/Dec last year), I was constantly observing the Google Talk status message of a friend of mine. It said "xyz - and the great ronald reagan". This "xyz" kept changing every day and was nothing to do with politics. He is a very good friend of mine. We went to Rutgers together and the last time we met was more than 2 years ago. While I remained in the NY area, he started to migrate towards the mid-west. A migration from Blue to Red. This became more and more evident as he was pretty smart when he was here but his brain cells (not all. Only the rational ones) seemed to start dying gradually as he moved more and more inland, away from the coast. No wonder he was turning red. To be honest with you, this new development in him did not really concern me as much as the next one did.
Just before the swearing-in ceremony of the new president Barack Obama, my friend had "one more day and all good is going to end" as his status message. Wait a minute... "all good?" excuse me but what is "all" good that one can imagine, even in the wildest of ones dreams, in the recent past? The record home foreclosures? The collapse of Wall St? The sky high gas prices till recently? Is it all the good the last president uh, um... who the hell was the president before Barack? I knew my friend was a little biased based on "color" but, oh well, let me not go there. Moreover, as far as I can remember, I was taught that "white" was a color. Hope it still is and if it still is, who are you in favor of, if you are against colored people? Boy, see how many questions I have. I'm really ignorant. Coming back to the point, I was very curious to know if my friend's behavior was "Oklahoma Effect" (he lived in OK* for a couple of years) or some conservative girl friend he might have found. Well... will come to know of it when I talk to him the next time. By the way, I don't really have anything against conservatives in general. Its just the 'religious' type that I don't like. This is nothing to do with religion in personal life, its none of my business but trying to influence the state is what throws me off.
*I saw a lot of stuff that said "We are OK, you are not" when I visited Tulsa, Oklahoma. Sort of punch line for them I guess. Well... get this guys. You are just OK, everyone else is awesome!
"Is this the same one?" I pondered for a while looking at the grayish hair and the frail figure sitting in the chair facing away from me. Before my memory cells could wade through the millions of memory lanes encoded with all my past came out with a plausible answer to this question, there came a question shot right at me. "How may I help you?" the woman turned around to face me and it was her. Before you get too excited expecting any romance, let me tell you that I'm talking about the old lady who screwed up my hair last time. I still distinctly remember the woman ("distinctly" only form the front though) because of who I wish I had completely shaved my head and pretended I had lobotomy.
Two months ago: "#3 on the side and scissor on the top please" I told the woman at the salon. I also happened to ask her till what time they are usually open as the 'Hours of operation' sign on the front door never seemed to have coincided with the actual operational hours. "It depends. We have things to do at home too you know!" She responded. That's how it started and was downhill all the way from there, both her mood and the hair on my head. Never knew what happened but couldn't even remember what I actually wanted, what she did and how my hair looked at the end. I just got out of the chair, paid and walked out. All I know is that I decided never to get another one from her.
Never realized my decision would be overturned so soon and so easily. When I figured it was the same woman again, I could have pretended I had Alzheimer's and forgot why I was there. Instead, I yielded to those painful looks, went to the chair and sat. Guess I was just being nice to the old lady. But at least this time I was determined to get my hair cut right. So, did I? Well... "almost" and I'm never going back to her for sure.
Now that the election is over and Barack Obama is ready to take office soon, I managed to get myself away from the idiot box and the stupid "News" channels to spend some time on sharing what I have learnt. Consider it an overly liberal view point or whatever you want. This is simply what I felt during the course of campaigning till the final election day and what I gather from people around me even today.
Ignoring the primaries and starting with the actual Presidential race between Obama and McCain, there were a lot of things I learned. Why does someone lean right or left? Does anyone pay attention to the candidate or just the loyalty they have with a party regardless of who is representing it? How strong and hard are the feeling for and against a particular party? It was amazing to see, on certain occassions, how personal things got and to what extent people went to defend their choice.
To begin with, I do not support either party blindly and I'm not against any one candidate just for the heck of it. Initially, I was looking at both Obama and McCain. Why should anyone trust Obama when his very short political career reflects very little of what he accomplished? Just 'coz he is an eloquent speaker does not mean one should fall for it. On the other hand, McCain belongs to a party that did more harm than good to this country and the world in the last eight years than anyone else did in the past. How much ever of a "maverick" the old man is, one does not expect his fundamentals to be much different than the Republican party. If at all he were so different, he wouldn't belong to that party in the first place. He would have been with the Democrats or ended up an Independent. So the bottom line is both of them had their pros and cons. So why did I eventually end up leaning Obama? It's 'coz of Mrs. Palin, the VP candidate (not Vice Presidential but Viciously Painful). Also, because of Mr. McCant's performance in the debates.
I always felt all of NY ("all" being the key word) is strongly Democratic and hence a "blue state". I was surprised to realize that I was surrounded by so many Republican supporters around me at work. Primarily I could see three reasons why anyone supported the Republican party.
- Anyone who is against the "spread the wealth" ideology
- For national security reasons (I'm still not sure what exactly this means)
- Religious conservatives
The first one is pretty straightforward and when asked what they meant by that, the unanimous answer was "I worked hard to get to where I'm right now and why should the Government tax me more 'coz I'm more successful and give it to someone who does not want to work?" I really did not have answer for this. This is not a communist country. It is capitalism and everybody earns their own bread. But then, someone else raised an interesting point. What makes you think everyone on welfare is being a grabass and that most of them are actually not fortunate to get a job anywhere? Now - how do we define "unfortunate" here? Boy... you see I'm having so much trouble defining certain terms in this context. In any case, do I really want to believe that 'fortune' plays a role in the land of opportunities? I think this Q&A session can go on forever.
National Security: Very sensitive issue and it is highly personal. So unfortunately I could not get much of logical explanation for this kind of support. One resounding phrase was "country before anything else". Of course, that is the most important thing but does that mean the Democrats don't put their country before anything else? I would guess the liberals are, every inch, as patriotic as any conservative.
Coming to religious conservatives, this is again something to do with "belief" and hence no room for logical argument. But I definitely have something to say here. I, personally, don't see any room for religion in politics in a secular country.
The Palin Affect: Quite a few of my Republican supporter buddies had issues with the media screwing Palin left and right. I know what they mean but if you look at it, why will the media "unfairly" target only one candidate and not the other as long as they prove to be entertaining enough? If you are talking about Fox or MSNBC, I can see why but with CBS, I doubt it. She proved herself to be ignorant. I was even asked why Obama isn't put in that position. Give me a break, he had three debates with McCain and he definitely proved he "knows" what he is talking about and what is needed. Another question was "why is everyone stressing so much on Palin when she is simply a VP candidate?" Absolutely! But one gotta keep in mind that she would have been a 72 year old president's one breath away of becoming the next commander in chief in case the Republican ticket won (I didn't come up with this statement. Copied it from some reporter). As a colleague of mine put it, looking carefully at both, the Democratic and Republican VP candidate would never had been more important ever before. While the analysts put one presidential candidate's probability of making it through his first term at not a very impressive number, the other might face threats from some radicals. Well... look at the skinheads who already tried. Then comes the negative campaigning. McCain was sensible enough not to encourage his supporters to say anything nonsense while Palin said "people may say this is negative campaigning but all they are saying is true". Funny - I guess "Obama is Muslim, he is an Arab" is all "true" according to Palin.
Bottom line - None of the parties / candidates is perfect for obvious reasons. But one gotta just pick the better of the two. Is Obama a good choice? We just have to wait and see!
I started to write this blog exacly six months ago. My hectic schedule (both work and otherwise) kept me from completing it. Finally I decided to finish it off. Though I'm not in that mood anymore, don't want to leave it sitting in my "saved" list. So spitting it out. If you want to know why I simply did not delete it without publishing, well... I like the title. That's why! However ridiculus it may sound :-)
The chill in the air, the wet rain drops, the sweaty guy in the front, the chic dipped in perfume in the back and the two ton bouncer barrier - one bears all this for eternity just to get a foot on the magic floor that transforms the world around into heaven. Dance clubs seem to be a refuge for most people, whether to escape from or looking for something. Had a good day? Time for a shot and a foot tap on the floor. Want a break from everything that went wrong? May be a drink would help to forget everything and swinging to the tune takes the stress off. In most cases, everybody may want some space around them but here, its just the space that you don't want. More, the merrier! One look at a packed dance floor makes one wonder how on earth so many people seem to be having the best time of the day in so little space. Nonetheless, it happens. One may feel extremely embarassed even to swing the hips to a tune normally but may be ready to embarass even Shakira once on the dance floor. Regardless of what is responsible, it makes one forget who one is, what one knows or doesn't know.
It seems to work like a polar opposite of the outside world. While same old faces and so much monotonicity everyday sucks the energy out of anyone, hardly anyone you know, blinding lights and deafening music seem to bring life into the body and soul. A place to have a great time with your partner or find one in case of you don't have one; works either way. There simply doesn't seem to be anything that can go wrong with this place except for two things I can think of; getting the attention of the bouncer or end up with a massive hangover the following day that needs a bottle of Advil.
I still felt like I was calling my friends and trying to convince them to go on a cross-country ride but the fact was that I already did it and was on the last leg of that four thousand mile, eight day blast. Seven days went by with every single moment being relished in one way or the other. Now, here we were in Idaho, cruising at 90 mph with vast expanses of open land on both sides and the golden tinted sky above us. "Let me get the last sunset of our journey". I said to my friend who was driving. He pulled over and I captured the moment forever. This, I can share with everyone but not the millions of other moments I froze in the hard drive of my brain. 12 more hours of driving and it would be the end! Life would return from the state of natural bliss to the state of materialistic dependency. Cell phones, e-mails, TVs and what not. Worry about deadlines, competing with colleagues and impressing the boss. Life would run by the clock and dictated by the gadgets.
Though Portland is almost due West (a little North) of Yellowstone, there is no direct route in that direction. One has to either drive up into Montana, go through Washington and then come down, or go down in Idaho and again back up into Oregon. This would increase the drive time considerably but there is no other option. We entered Oregon sometime after midnight. Not sure how the night passed but the last Sunrise of the trip was caught right on time. The drive was awesome on the banks of the Columbia River and then the Hood River. Mt. Hood in Washington was playing hide-and-seek and we could see the landscape slowly change from uninhabited thousands of acres of land to sparsely populated pieces to townships to a fairly congested city. It was an uneventful journey except for the time when I was half asleep while driving as we lost the Red Bulls we were carrying. We reached the car rental by 9:00, Returned the SUV and my friend rented a regular sedan for the rest of the week till his car would arrive. We picked up the keys to their new apartment and checked in. It was a very pretty, quite big two bedroom, two bath apartment for a lot less cost than a very basic one bedroom apartment over here. We were tired but completely satisfied. It was a successful trip and a happy ending. Ooops... not yet an end for me. I had to catch the flight back to JFK the same night. We had our lunch and started to transfer pictures from their camera onto my USB flash drive and from my camera into their laptop. It took more than an hour to transfer the 5 Gb worth, 2000 odd pictures, from my camera to their laptop. Now I had the duty to filter them and post them on my website once I returned to NY. I knew I would be busy for at least half a dozen weekends after going back home. My friend and his wife gave me a ride to the airport that night and I was in New York once again the next morning. Luckily it was a non-stop flight and I slept almost every minute I was in the air. We took a full week to to go there and I was back in five hours.
Wildlife (except Bison and Elk) is not very easy to spot during the day and where people loiter. The best time is dawn as the animals have their breakfast and go to the brook/creek/lake to get a drink. Also there will be very few people to invade their space. With this piece of precious information we woke up before Sunrise, got ready , handed over the keys to the cabin and set out on our exploration in our explorer. We drove very slow not to scare any wildlife away and also not to miss an interesting sighting. The weather was not very pleasing. Cloudy and drizzling all along, it was not an attractive time for the animals to take morning walks. Two hours of driving and nothing interesting except for some Bison and Elk grazing the grasslands.
Finally we ended up at Canyon Village. We were there last night for dinner and now it was breakfast time. We grabbed something quick to eat, raided the visitor store, bought some "chachkas" and planned our itinerary for the rest of the day. We decided to head back to Mammoth Hot Springs all the way North and start our tour from there. First checkout the Geysers at Mammoth, then drive down along road2 (remember it from last night?) to Norris, Madison and finally Old Faithful with, maybe, one or two diversions to cover anything interesting.
"Pull over here. We will check this out before we go back since we are not going to come back on this road again." I said to my friend as we were passing the signs to Upper and Lower Falls. We pulled over into the parking area and got out. It was still raining (now it was a little more than a drizzle). I took a trash bag out of the cargo in the car and made a hole to it. Unscrewed the polarizer on my lens, carefully wrapped the trash bag around the camera with the hole providing a view through the lens and put back the polarizer. This was perfect. I could now slip my head into the bag and take all the pictures I wanted without messing up my camera except for the polarizer that would get wet. Not a big deal. Only danger with this was that I had no idea where I was, what was around me once I was in the bag. All I could see was what was visible through the viewfinder. Of course I trusted the people around me not to push me into the 1000 ft canyon below. The canyon through which the Yellowstone River gushes was beautiful. The Falls were enthralling. It was not an easy task to get good shots of the gorges, the river and the falls with low visibility and continuous rain. But I did everything I could to get a couple of good ones. How much ever time one spends there would not be sufficient to absorb the heavenly beauty completely. But unfortunately we are mortals. Once again we took off and were on our way to Mammoth Hot Springs. By the time we reached there it was still 9:30 AM. This is always the best part about waking up early, plenty of time in the day.
By now the sky cleared up a little and the rain stopped. We took a walk along the Lower Terraces Area and the Upper Terraces Area viewing, enjoying and analyzing all the different types of Geysers that came in multiple colors and oozing various levels of steam. The scene was fascinating. Especially imagining standing on top of a unimaginably huge volcano that is expected to unleash itself at any point of time now. "What lies beneath?" is a million dollar question. After the stroll through one of nature's outdoor chemical laboratory, we took to the wheel and started driving towards Norris. The weather god was still considerate to the outdoor enthusiasts and it was a nice time to take another stroll along the Norris Geyser Basin. This was more like a graveyard with a mile long trail through the basin. Steam jetting out of the earth in pretty much any direction one looked. Halfway through the trail, my friend and his wife decided to step on it and go to the car while I fell behind trying to capture anything and everything I could. 'mon... 5 GB of memory, why would I not do that. Three quarters of a mile and I could see the commotion going on in the troposphere above us once again. Thick dark rain clouds appeared in no time. It was just a matter of minutes and everyone knew there was going to be a downpour, an extremely heavy downpour. Now I had to reach the parking lot before things kicked in because even if the rain started when I was 10 ft away from the car, I knew i would get soaked horribly before I actually got into it. Now I started to run like crazy. Luckily I had company. "That was close!" I exclaimed as soon as I got into the car. The second I closed the door, the rain was so heavy that the windshield wipers were useless. People were driving with instinct. Luckily this chaos did not last long. Once again the sky was clear and we were on the wheels. We passed the Gibbon River and decided to take a small detour to the Firehole Canyon Drive. "Glad we took that detour" all of us thought once we got back onto the main road. The drive was beautiful. It was a winding one-way drive. Halfway through the drive we reached the Firehole River and were driving on it's bank. The panorama was splendid.
It was almost 2:30 and 16 miles to the destination. As soon as we reached Old Faithful, we headed to the visitor center to see when the faithful one was going to keep it's word. There was more than an hour to go for that and hence a good time to grab a bite. After lunch we strolled around a little and proceeded to the benches around the geyser so as to get a good view. I did not want to miss this opportunity for photographing, most probably, the most popular geyser in Yellowstone. Since we were almost half hour before time, we ended getting
pretty much whatever seat we wanted. Obviously it was the front row. It was an uneventful wait for more than 20 minutes when all of a sudden everyone started to get up and turn around to see something. "looks like an alien just landed in his UFO. What else can grab these guys attention so much?" I thought. Why not share the excitement; I also made a 180 degree turn to see a huge Bison running around crazy. Obviously the poor thing was minding it's own business when he realized he wandered into this place with weird creatures walking on two legs, with some weird stuff instead of hair on their bodies. After he gave a thousand curious humans (including me) a photo-op, he left the place. I'm sure he would have gone back to his herd and told the story and they might have had a kick-ass laughing session. Once again everything went back to normal and the wait began. After a never ending wait, enough pressure started to build under the surface and the old man started to throw up. It started with two to three feet jets of water and slowly rose to more than 20 ft. The entire session lasted about fifteen minutes. Not bad. It was worth the wait.
By the time the spectacle ended, it was 5 in the evening and we wanted to get out of the park by 6. We had just the right amount of time to exit Yellowstone via the West Entrance (funny - you exit from an entrance :-)). We started to head out of our final stopover in the road trip. Till now, everything worked out really great. There was no time when we were bored, disappointed or fed up. Everything fell into place everywhere and every time except for some very minor hiccups. In a way, it was not a very happy moment leaving all this pleasure behind and go back to the materialistic world but I think that's where the beauty lies. If I were to do this for a year, I don't think I would appreciate it as much as I did now. A break from the routine is what defines this enjoyment. If this itself were routine, there is no escape. Anyway, everything was already decided and obviously nothing would change. As planned, we were out of the 2 million acre park right on time.
Cool post you got here. It would be great to read something more concerning that theme. Thnx for sharing this material.