Normal Is Boring

It's Not a Rapid, It's a Ripple (Cont...)

2011-04-09T19:22:00.003-05:00

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.

Its Not a Rapid, Its a Ripple

2009-01-26T08:06:00.011-05:00

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).

Part I

Part II

Left Bashing, Right Trashing

2009-01-24T11:41:00.011-05:00

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...

And The Great Ronald Reagan

2009-01-22T22:46:00.011-05:00

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!

#3, Scissors And The Old Woman

2008-12-14T17:43:00.004-05:00

"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.

Red or Blue?

2008-11-09T17:59:00.019-05:00

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!

Red, Blue and 150 Decibels

2008-11-09T17:47:00.005-05:00

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.

4000 Mile Drive - The End!

2008-10-02T16:31:00.004-05:00

The End!

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.

4000 Mile Drive (Part VI) - Yellowstone

2008-10-02T16:26:00.008-05:00

Day 7: Yellowstone

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.

4000 Mile Drive (Part V) - WY

2008-10-02T16:23:00.005-05:00

Day 6: Grand Teton and Yellowstone

We woke up to the alarm but were out of the bed only half hour later. The fatigue due to continuous minimal sleep nights started to catch upon us I guess. Also, this was a motel room and nothing around was enticing enough to re-invigorate us. We got ready, grabbed some bagels and muffins from the complimentary breakfast and once again were on the road by 7:15. Theoritically it was supposed to be an hour and a half drive. But due to construction almost all along the way, we were considerably delayed and reached the Craig Thomas Discovery and Visitor Center only at 10. This was a pretty interesting visitor center with quite a few attractive multimedia displays. We researched various attractions and activities in the park and decided to head for Jenny Lake.

Right next to the Jenny Lake Visitor Center was a trailhead and a boat dock. One can either ride the ferry that shuttles between the visitor center and the other end of the lake or rent a canoe and do the job themselves. For someone who would rather stick to land, there was a trail that went around the lake to the dock on the other side. We decided to hike this way and rent a canoe on our way back. Only to realize later on that the current is pretty strong in one direction and hence the canoes are rented only one way :-(. But it was too late and we were already more than half way to the other dock. From this dock there was another trail that went into the mountains. My friend and I decided to explore this trail as well while my friend's wife did not. So she headed to the dock and the two of us took to the trail. It was a decently steep hike but a beautiful day. The Sun was shining bright and the trail was nice and cool with the shade of the trees. We passed Hidden Falls and went a little further and ended up at an open area with an overlook to the falls and some valleys. From here, the trail got steeper and we had no idea how long it was and where it was going to take us, so stopped there. "My husband went into the mountains along with the rock climbers to do some photography." I overheard a woman. Then I saw a group of people facing the mountains and pointing to something over there. I looked into the direction of curiosity and found the "rock climbers". It was interesting sight to see how a bunch of beginners were being trained by pros. My friend and I spent a good half hour there and headed back. On our way back we saw signs to "Inspiration Point". This was a diversion from our way back to the dock but I did not want to let go after coming all the way. I asked my friend to go and accompany his wife while I decided to make a quick trip to the Inspiration Point. After a short while into the climb I realized that my friend could not let go the opportunity either. He was right behind me. This was a very steep climb (I don't exactly remember the altitude we gained or other specifics) and also very narrow. At some points, people going in one direction had to let go the ones going the other way first. It was tiring and definitely had an impact on the knees but not a big trade-off once we reached the top. The view of the lake was absolutely astounding. It did not have enough room to hold a lot of people at the same time. But everyone seemed to have managed their way. Things did not turn out to be all that good as the weather seemed to change. The sky got darker with thick rain clods and one could feel the inevitable thunder storms approaching. The rain itself was not to worry about but after the rain, the climb down would have been dangerous. The rocks slippery and the valley dropping down a thousand feet or more would have been a free ride to the dock at the bottom. Somehow we managed our way down to the more flat trail. By now, the nature had no mercy and it started to pour. We finally reached the dock and was greeted eagerly by our third teammate. While waiting for the ferry to take us back to the visitor center, we ran into a couple from Vancouver. They were extremely friendly and nice people. We had a very long conversation with them ranging from present life in New York (the husband was from NY) to various languages and different places to visit. They were excited to know that my friend was moving to Portland and invited him and his wife over to their place whenever they visited Vancouver. At last our ferry arrived, the rain stopped.
After getting out of the ferry on the other side, we went to the visitor center to get some information as to where we would find a restaurant or a cafeteria to grab some lunch. The answer was Dornan's, just South of the first visitor center we stopped at. The route was Teton Park Rd. South all the way to US 26/89/191 and then a small distance from there. "Jeez... traffic congestion even here?" my friend exclaimed looking at the long line of cars in front of us on the bridge across the Snake river. "Hey! wait a minute while I get down of the car." I said opening the door and jumping out of it. For a second the other two inside did not understand what I was doing then they realized that all the others cars were slowing down for wildlife viewing. There were two moose hanging out in the sun helping themselves to some green grass and fresh water. After crawling, running into bushes, slipping and falling and spending about 45 minutes, I managed to take around a hundred pictures expecting at least a tenth of them to come out good. Once again our biological clock started to set off it's alarm indicating it was time for lunch. We went to Dornan's, grabbed something to eat and got some ice cream. It was 6:00 PM and we thought it was a good idea to head for Yellowstone. Driving through the entire length of the park, it would take us around an hour to reach Yellowstone's South entrance and four more hours from there, we were expecting to be there at the cabin by 1 AM latest (we were not planning to drive non-stop right?). Not bad, we spotted some Elks in Rockies and Moose here but we wanted to see a Bear. This trip would be incomplete without one. Lucky enough we did run into one pretty soon. As we were driving, the bus in front of us stopped right in the middle of the road. We didn't know why, till we saw a Black Bear crossing the road. It was too late before I could get a shot of it and freeze the moment in my camera's memory. But still, it made our day and we were on our way to the country's first national park.

We reached the South end of Yellowstone at 7. We got the park map from the park ranger at the entrance and wanted to figure out the route we were going to take. There was only one road initially that one could take. This was 22 miles long and ended in Grant Village. From there it forked into two roads, one heading North-East (let us call this road1) and the other North-West (road2). One could take either of them to go to Mammoth Hot Springs (where we booked our cabin). Road1 went along the Yellowstone lake to the Lake Village. From there it headed almost North along the banks of the Yellowstone River to Canyon Village. Then it proceeded to Tower-Roosevelt and finally Mammoth before exiting from the North entrance of the park. Road2 on the other hand covered Old Faithful, Madison and Norris before joining road1 at Mammoth. My friend has already been to Yellowstone once before and suggested we take road1 so that we could cover Old Faithful the next day. Without any debate we headed North-East. Initially it was all pines on either side of the road, half of them burnt down from earlier forest fire(s). "This Yellowstone lake seems to be pretty big" I exclaimed looking at the size of it on the map. Once we crossed Grant Village and turned onto road1, the lake started to appear on our right. As we went further, we could see how enormous it was. From some places we couldn't see the other end of it. The sky started to fill up with thick clouds once again. The Sun was setting, the clouds were dark, the lake was blue, there was a colossal cloud of something rising into the sky (most probably a newly erupted geyser or a forest fire?) and lightnings were piercing through the clouds. The entire scene was absolutely marvelous. We made quite a few stops along the lake before we reached Lake Village. By now it was 9:15 and once again our hunger sensors started to signal. We decided to continue till Canyon Village and get something there to eat. By now it was dark and we couldn't see much. I think this sometimes helps as nothing grabbed our attention and hence drove non-stop to hit the food courts just before they shut the doors. First we wanted to dine at a nice restaurant but unfortunately they were closing pretty soon and there were no tables left. This is normal in Yellowstone during the summer months. Then we rushed to the cafeteria next door. I got a paella and some flavored yogurt with cereal on it. It costed about 12 bucks with taxes. The serving was generous and the food tasted pretty good for the price. After satisfying our hunger, we headed straight to the cabin. I decided to drive really slow for a couple of reasons. The roads were winding and there were no lights save the car's headlights. We were in the domain of the beast's natural habitat and hence had no idea when what is going to show up in the middle of the road. Finally we actually "wanted" something to show up because it was quiet and this might attract some nocturnal creatures to explore the surroundings. Our primary goal was to spot as much wildlife as possible. "WHAT THE HELL IS THAT!" My heart skipped a beat. As I was turning along with the road at a sharp curve, all of a sudden there appeared a huge dark object right in the middle of the road. I stopped and slowly proceeded towards it. Soon enough the object revealed itself into a Bison. I slowly crossed onto the other side of the road and passed him without arousing his curiosity. My slow driving paid off. We reached the cabin at half past twelve and called it a day.

4000 Mile Drive (Part IV) - CO

2008-10-01T21:55:00.008-05:00

Days 4 & 5: Rocky Mountain National Park, CO

Sound of chopping wood, kids shouting and running around, parents trying to keep their children from getting too close to the barbecue grill, all this chaos woke us up. It was just 7 in the morning. Once again just four hours of sleep. But the fresh air and the all the activity around invigorated us beyond words. It was absolutely fantastic. As we arrived really late the night before, we did not get a chance to pick up our campsite papers and the parking slip. We walked down to the guard at the entrance to the campsite and picked up the stuff. We also got information regarding hiking, places to go and also some pointers to the trails. He was very friendly and patient in explaining the details and doing the best he could to provide us with accurate information. Actually this was true with all the park rangers and other park staff we encountered till now. This being a campsite there were few common restrooms for all the campgrounds and no showers. This was the least of my concerns but my friend's wife wanted to be clean and tidy. So I asked them to go ahead with their chores while I planned to give myself some exercise and get close to mother nature. We booked our camp site at Glacier Basing that is a stone's throw from the Shuttle service parking. I walked down to catch a shuttle for Bear Lake Trailhead while my friend and his wife left to Estes Park, the town just outside of the park entrance where there are there are facilities like showers and laundry. We left the tent around 9 and the plan was to meet there again at noon. I asked my friend to get some food for lunch as well to save time. Now I was on my own and had to utilize my three precious hours in the most optimal way. I diligently studied the park map looking for different trails, calculating the round trip times and the effort needed to hike each of them. Bear Lake Trailhead is the main point in the park from which around half a dozen trails branch out leading to various valleys and beautiful lakes in the Alpines.

15 minutes and I was at the trailhead. The weather started to change. Dark clouds started to blanket the sky hiding the Sun. Rain was predicted for the afternoon. Did I say "rain"? No it was "thunder storms". This term is very important here because lightnings are a major threat for hikers. They spear out of the sky and strike mercilessly. Luckily it didn't start to rain yet. I decided to take the most popular trail that would take me to Nymph Lake, Dream Lake and Emerald Lake. This is an easy trail and suited my schedule perfectly. It was absolutely beautiful and a great opportunity for photography. After my fully satisfying hike, I returned to the base and took the shuttle back to Glacier Basin. I reached the tent before my friends did and was wondering how long I had to wait when the car pulls in. It was the most accurate timing. Totally unbelievable. One might think it is easy to synchronize with cellphones but luckily they don't work here. That's one thing I loved. No e-mail, no cellphone, no worries.

We quickly finished our lunch and set out for the next adventure. I educated them on the shuttle, the trailhead, roundtrip times and difficulty of different trails. We decided to hike to Andrews Glacier. This is supposed to be a "not so easy" trail that takes about two hours each way. This was perfect for us since we still had the entire second half of the day at our disposal and all the energy needed. We took the shuttle to Bear Lake trailhead and set out on the trail. The weather started to worsen. Now it started to drizzle but we did not pay much attention. We reached Alberta Falls, not very far from the trailhead. The rain started to get harder. Hey... did someone laugh when I indicated "trash bags" in my list under the backpack? They are the best. I could completely seal my camera and all the camera gear in my trash bag and carry on with my hike with peace of mind. Also, this is where the raincoat comes handy. Anyway, we ignored the rain and started to go further. Slowly we started to see a lot of hikers going in the opposite direction. Almost everyone was concerned about us continuing with our hike. A couple of them suggested we were going the "wrong way". Finally one pair pointed out that there were lightnings striking around there and it is not a good idea to proceed any further. They say a lightning does not strike the same place twice. Right. But one strike is enough to fry the omelet out of you (I made this up. I know it sucks). So we took the good guys advice and took a U turn. Sort of disappointed, we went back to the car. By now it was raining so bad that we could not do a damn thing outdoors. So we decided to visit some buddies of ours who live in Denver. We quickly drove to Estes Park and made a couple of phone calls. Within an hour I was under the hot shower. We had our dinner there and spent quite a bit of time chatting. Finally we were out of the house and back in our tent around 10 PM. "Now we can catch up with our sleep" we all thought.

No alarm to wake up and there was not even any chaos around because it was still raining. I missed both my Sunrises (this day and the day before) since we were surrounded by huge mountains and the damn sky was thick with clouds. After rolling in the sleeping bag for an hour, I decided I could not do that anymore. It was 9 AM and we decided to packup and leave. The campsite had to be vacated by noon. Since it was still raining we decided to drive head for the Trail Ridge Road. This road is US-34 and is the highest highway in North America. I heard a lot about it from a colleague of mine. This, we thought would be the best thing to do under the prevailing weather conditions. I took the wheel and we started our drive. We decided to go till the Alpine Ridge Visitor Center and then drive back. I was expecting the road to be really treacherous and exciting. But it was just like any other road except for the narrowness and the sharp curves. We pulled into a couple of overlooks and got wonderful views of the Alpine range.

As I drove further, I realized the true character of this road. It started to climb higher, got steeper and the side guard rails/walls disappeared. On side it was high mountains and the other , deep valleys. The views were breathtaking and the drive, exciting. Boy, now I understood what my colleague was talking about. By now the rain stopped and the sky was clearing up. It was turning out to be a lot better than what it was at the start. At one point we saw a long line of cars parked along the roadside (yes! Narrowing the already narrow road). This undoubtedly indicated existence of some sort of wildlife around there. We also joined the bandwagon. I quickly grabbed my camera, the tripod (because it was still cloudy and not enough light) and ran towards the slopes. Here we found a big herd of Elks. Cool! I got all the shots I wanted and we once again set out on our journey. Finally we reached the Alpine Ridge Visitor Center. Located at an altitude of 12,000 ft (2.3 miles) above the sea level, a small hike to the top of a hill provided breathtaking views of the Rockies. It was chilly at this altitude and I had to wear a sweatshirt to keep myself warm. After sumptuously devouring the beauty of this natural wonder, we headed back. We were back in Estes Park by 2 PM. We got some lunch there and headed for Yellowstone.

After punching the destination address into the GPS, the time it showed to the South entrance of Yellowstone was 10 hours. The cabin we booked was in Mammoth Hot Springs, all the way near the North Entrance. We called the park service and asked for directions and a time estimate. They said it would take 4 hours to get from the South entrance to Mammoth Hot Springs. This blew our fuse. It was 4 PM then and there was no way we were going to make it to the cabin before Sunrise. We gave up on the idea. Instead decided to lodge somewhere near Grand Teton since it is South of Yellowstone and would make more sense. First, we called Yellowstone to cancel our cabin for the first night. It was a piece of cake.
They right away canceled the reservation and refunded all the money. Then we called the Grand Teton park services for lodging in the park. The answer was a straight "booked". Unfortunately they were all booked. Then we started calling motels in a town called Dubois west of Teton. Even there everything was booked. After trying half a dozen of them finally we got one room available in Motel 6. We reserved it right away and changed our destination in the navigator to Dubois, WY.

Once again Wyoming! The large expanses of land, miles and miles of openness. This state, by far, became my favorite for Sunsets. We kept driving on the empty roads forever into the darkness. Initially we planned to have our dinner in Dubois but then changed our plan keeping in mind the 10 PM curfew. We grabbed something to eat on our way and started driving again. Finally we reached our Motel at 1 AM. We set our alarm to 6 AM next morning and went into a deep slumber.

4000 Mile Drive (Part III) - SD

2008-10-01T17:12:00.008-05:00

Day 3: Badlands, Mt. Rushmore and Wind Caves - SD

"Beeep.... beeep..." The alarm went off at 5:30 AM. Just about four hours of sleep once again. But already missed one Sunrise and did not want that to repeat. After all, these things will not happen everyday and I could afford to live with little sleep for a week. Since the place looked pretty plain last night I figured it wouldn't be difficult to get a glimpse of the rising sun from our cabin. I put my shoes on and went out fully equipped with my camera and extras. "DUDE WAKEUP!" I went into the cabin shouting at my friend. "Please get out of the bed and grab the car keys. We got to drive a bit to catch the Sunrise." When I went out the first time I realized that we were actually in a valley surrounded my huge hills. Whatever we saw the night before (the sand dunes sort of things) were actually sort of mountains. It took a bit of driving mostly guessing the direction of Sunrise and finally we ended up at this which, I would say, can be marked as the "Sunrise spot". I was extremely lucky to find this spot. Perfect for my photography.

After a hundred shutter clicks, feeling the magical touch of the golden rays and absorbing the warmth of the mighty fireball in the sky we headed back to our cabin. Time was very precious for us. That doesn't mean we had to skip something we wanted to do though. We happened to manage our time just right. I wish this time management works out in all other aspects of my life as well. We pulled over an overlook to look around a little bit. "Driving all the way from NY?" I asked the guys (most probably father and son). I saw the NY plates on their car. "Yep!" they answered looking excited. I came to know that they were actually doing a round trip. I just wish I had the time to do something like that. We went back to the cabin and got ready for the day in no time. We went to the Visitor Center and handed over the keys to our cabin. We then got some breakfast and decided to take the guided tour. The tour started at 8:00 AM and lasted for about 45 minutes. It was very informative and the guide was well versed with the park. It was interesting to know that literally every inch of this park was accessible to the visitors. I mean, there was nothing "off-limits". The reason is that the analysis showed that the erosion occurring in the park was mainly due to natural sources like rain and wind. The affect of human influence was insignificant. After the tour we strolled around a little bit into the gorges, onto the formations and around some puddles resulting from a earlier downpour. It was not easy to roam around in 108 degrees of heat. We repeatedly saw signs that said "make sure you drink at least a gallon of water a day". Are you kidding me? I would gulp down a gallon an hour in that weather. Finally we picked up our car and headed to Mt. Rushmore. Luckily we could pick a road that went around the park before getting onto the main road. We made couple of pit stops to get different views of the valley and the mountains around.

It was almost 2:00 PM by the time we reached Mt. Rushmore. We still had Wind Cave National Park in our itinerary before heading to the Rockies. We were not that concerned though. This being a national monument, there is only so much time we could spend here. None of us was interested in any of the light shows in the evening or the rock climbing. It was a very nice place and shows you what people can do. We grabbed some lunch from the cafeteria and proceeded to the Wind Caves.

Wind Cave National Park was just about an hour drive from Mt. Rushmore. It was almost 6 PM by the time we reached there. We had an idea about the cave tours. Both my friend and I have been to Luray Caverns in Virginia before and were not very keen on spending a lot of time here. Even my friend's wife was on consensus with us. Cave enthusiasts might say one can not compare Luray Caverns with Wind Cave and that each of them are unique in their own way but I'm sorry I'm not a "cave" man. We took the "Garden of Eden" tour that costed us $7 per head. It was 1/4 mile long and lasted about an hour with 150 steps along the route. The park claims it to be the least strenuous among all their tours.

Good bye South Dakota. Our next crash site was the Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado. It was roughly 350 miles from here with most of it going almost due South in Wyoming. "I'm pulling over guys. There is no way I can drive staring into the marvel." I said to my co-passengers and puled over the car on to the shoulder. The horizon was on fire. I have never seen so much land sky at the same time and actually the horizon stretching into the infinite. The only place I see horizon where I live is from the beach with the sky above the Atlantic. Of course, that view is also breathtaking. But this was something totally new to me.

We just stayed there gazing into one of the most beautiful natural scenes I have ever witnessed. I got behind the wheel only after the Sun fully set and it was dark. Now the weather started to get nasty. This unexpected stopover pushed us behind our schedule and we wanted to catch up. The only way we could catch up to our schedule whenever we fell behind it was to speed. This comes naturally to people from where I'm used to driving :-). Now the elements started to compete with each other and there came the thunder storms. I stepped on the gas a little more, passed a pickup and got back into the right lane. "flash flash" there were the most unwelcome lights flashing in my rear-view mirror. I got pulled over by a cop for the first time ever. Damn! Luckily the cop let me go with just a warning. That was relief and I stayed within the speed limits (not literally) thereafter till we reached our destination. It was almost 2 AM by the time we reached our campsite and luckily it didn't rain here. We had to pitch our tent very carefully so as not to wake our neighbors up. "Good night!" We retired for the day.

4000 Mile Drive (Part II) - The Journey Begins

2008-09-29T21:21:00.012-05:00

The Journey Begins:

Friday, 10th of Aug, 2007. It was a bright and sunny day in NY. In addition to the entire next week, I took even this Friday off from work. Had to pick up my cousin from the airport and also get the last minute shopping and packing done for the long drive. After dropping off my cousin at his place in NJ, I picked up the food and drinks we were planning to take with us along with other stuff like trash bags and toilet paper. Only thing missing was my Canon Rebel XT's extra battery. I ordered one on eBay but unfortunately did not receive it yet. So I rushed to BestBuy just before they closed and picked one up for $50. This was a ripoff as one can get a brand new battery along with a charger for $15 on eBay including shipping. This broke my heart but I felt it would be worth every penny spent when I capture the real beauty of the heavens and the earth, the bird and the beast. My friend and his wife packed everything at their end and we were all set for the long awaited cross-country road trip. The plan was to pickup the car from Hertz as soon as they open on Sat, come home, dump everything into it and take off.

Day 1: NY to Chicago
"Bye Bye!" It was 11:00 AM on the 11th of Aug and my friend and his wife say their god byes to New Jersey. As for me, I would be back again in a week, so no emotions. We switched on the GPS device and punched in our friend's address in Chicago. It's not that we do not know the route but one feels that obligation to do justice to the gadgets available, whether needed or not. We knew that it was going to be an uneventful day. All we would be doing was to drive, pullover into rest areas for food (for both us and the car) and drive again. During the planning stage I decided that I would capture all possible (possible being the operative word) Sunrises and Sunsets on our trip. The first Sunset happened to be in Ohio. This was captured while cruising at 85 mph on I-80 W.

"Don't give way to that asshole. He is trying to squeeze in. We are not idiots waiting here forever being good drivers" I shouted to my friend who was driving. It was midnight and we were still stuck somewhere in Indiana. We could see lights flashing at like a mile ahead of us. There seemed to be an accident and the traffic was moving at snail's pace. We finally reached our destination at around 2 in the morning. Our good 'ol buddy in Chicago was waiting with his wife for our arrival. We chatted for a while and crashed into deep slumber. "It is going to be another long day driving once we wake-up tomorrow" we thought.
Day 2: Chicago to Badlands, SD

We woke up at 7 AM the next day. Hardly four hours of sleep we were still tired. If it were just any other day when I'm supposed to go to work, I would have said "screw it" and snugged back under the covers to catch up another couple of hours of sleep. But this day was different. I saw an exciting schedule ahead of me and the energy oozed out of nowhere into my body. Our hosts served a nice breakfast and also something to-go for lunch on our way. We jumped into the car and set out on the second leg of our journey by 9.

Our next stop - Badlands National Park, South Dakota ('mon... don't count the rest areas). The distance was just over 850 miles and we were aiming to reach there latest by midnight. We got out of IL pretty soon, in and out of WI, cut across MN and entered SD. Not surprisingly there was one car that passed us for every million of them we passed. Jeez... these guys stick to speed limit like leeches. "Look at that crank head from NY" other drivers might have thought of us. But who cares, I loved it :-). The change in the landscape as we passed each state was wonderful. We had to cut the entire width of South Dakota to get to Badlands. We already crossed one time zone and I knew we would cross another one before reaching our destination but not sure where. Halfway into this vast barren state we saw the Sun setting. Just as we took an exit to get some gas, there was the Sun god right in front of us kissing the earth. "Wow! The heavens meet the earth" I thought to myself.

We ended up in this gas station that did not have a slit to insert my credit card. "What the hell..." both my friend and I exclaimed at the same time. The whole ground started to shake as soon as we started to pump the gas. Then the expression slowly turned into a smile. "Boy, I loved this!". Still we were clueless of the time zone. Not even the other lady pumping gas at the gas station or the guy who owned it knew. "Well, who cares about the times zone. Let us go by the Sun" we concluded. But wait a minute, unfortunately we had to go by the time to wake up the next day, start our tour of the park and to do almost everything thereafter. Alas! The world has become so complicated (I think we are working towards making life simple with all these new fancy "technology" stuff right?) that one can not completely depend on the nature for anything anymore. We continued our journey till the point when our tummies started to rumble. Our biological clocks said it was time for dinner. We pulled over into a Subway near a town called Chamberlain. "Can I have a 6 inch veggie patty on Italian Herbs and Cheese please?" I asked the guy at the counter. "Sorry sir. We don't have that". He told me all the Subways don't necessarily carry the same menu. Ooops isn't the whole point of "chain" is that you find the same damn thing anywhere you go and hence makes you feel like you are at home? I guess not. "I get that pretty much everywhere in NY" I muttered. "What? Are you from NY. I'm from Brooklyn man". I could see the glow in that guy's face. He was so excited to see another person from there. Then he explained how he ended up in SD with his mom and said he was planning to go back to Brooklyn as soon as he earns some money there. "This place is dead after 10 dude. I don't know how anyone can live here. Back home I could just walk out and get a beer even after midnight." He complained. I could see his point. Personally I don't think I can survive there. But I feel the people who have been living there forever think the same way about NY. Every place has it's own personality and it's just a matter of getting used to the lifestyle. We once again took off after dinner and reached the gates of Badlands by 1 AM. It was pitch dark and we couldn't see a thing. Then all of a sudden there appeared the faint outline of a sand dune sort of thing in the light of our car's headlights. We got out of the car and saw a couple more around us. Now not in the light of the car but under the light of the millions of starts in the absolutely dark heavens. It was extremely beautiful. Never did I see so many stars in my life before. I could actually see our Milky-way. Looking at the piles of mud we thought some construction was going on and drove down to our cabin. The place looked pretty plain and barren except for the mounds. Too tired we called it a day and crashed in to the bed.

Wait a minute... there is the Sunset alright. Where did the Sunrise in Chicago go? Give me a break! I was too tired to get one.

4000 Mile Drive (Part I) - How It All Started

2008-09-28T21:56:00.020-05:00

I had this travelogue on SpongeFish but not sure what happened to the site as I'm getting a server error all the time. So decided to put it here as well.

How it All Began:

"Good morning! It is 7:30 already. Let us keep everything in one place so that we can just load the car and get our asses out as soon as we can" I point out to my friend and his wife. It was Sat, the 11th of August and the first day of our 8 day cross-country road trip. I wanted to do this for a long time and have planned it twice unsuccessfully the last two summers. It is not fun driving
alone and getting a group together is not easy especially when all your buddies are working full time. Not used to giving up so easily, I made a few phone calls again this summer. "Hey what's up! Are you game for a cross-country road trip this summer?" I asked a friend of mine, who used to live in New Jersey, over the phone. "Great! I was also planning to contact you in this regard." He said. Then he told me that he was relocating to West Coast and that he planned to drive down. That put an end to my phone calls. I was not planning to persuade others any more. I knew this guy was going for sure irrespective of others and this was my best opportunity to tag along. That's how it all started. My friend, his wife and I decided on a one week drive to Portland, OR. They would settle down there and I was going to fly back to New York.

Checkout my flickr albums for the entire collection of the pictures. Also, feel free to click on any text that changes your mouse arrow to a hand. Those things belong to the species hyperlinkus webisitis that are normally dormant but spring to life on a mouse click. They also take you to a whole new world. Thank you for checking this out and have a pleasant time reading!

Google Maps and NPS:

Everyone with common sense knows that two points can be joined by a straight line. NY and Portland are no different. In this case it is not exactly a straight line but you know what I mean. Dedicating 8 days for this trip didn't justify driving in a straight line though. Here came my friend's wife to our rescue with this wonderful itinerary. The two basic tools she used... Google Maps and the National Park Service website. The NPS website is an encyclopedia of National parks of this country (duh!). There is no point explaining the details of the website here as you can just scroll your mouse button half an inch north-eastwards and click on the link. But to provide an overview, you can find any national park in the country and obtain the pertinent information such as the location, history of the park, travel tips, tours and attractions if any, accommodation, what to know before visiting the park etc. Now this input can be fed into Google maps to obtain the final product that looks like the one below. Click on the image to view bigger version.

One might wonder why we decided to just drive through the entire North East and almost all of Midwest while stopped at like a million places in the West. Well... We have been living in North East forever and moreover there are so many people here and so little land that mother earth ain't have no room for parks like in the West.

Why pick these places?

These places fell, more or less, on our way from NY to Portland. We did not want to exactly follow a straight path but we did not want to veer off a lot from that course either

We had to keep in mind the 8 day limit we had on our trip

Tetons and Yellowstone were a must and the rest had to be picked based on this requirement

Based on the valuable information provided on NPS website and feeding that information into Google maps, we could approximately calculate the driving times between places and also the time we may have to spend at each place to get the best out of it. On a side note - this trip was more of a "cross-country road trip" and not really "explore the national parks trip"

Last but not the least, inputs from different people who have been to some of these places

Bed and Bath:

We knew where we are going and when. Hence we had to reserve hotel rooms/cabins/campsites wherever we were planning to crash for the night. Once again it was the NPS website. Only problem we had was with Badlands. Could not find lodging information for this. So we used Forever Lodging. Here is what we ended up doing at each place.

First night in Chicago - Crash at a friend's place. Lodging - FREE, Breakfast - FREE, Hospitality - PRICELESS

Second night in Badlands - Cabin with private bath- $70 per night. Up to four people

Third and fourth nights, Rockies - Campsite (holds up to two tents) - $20 per night

Fifth night - Motel room in Dubois (near Grand Teton) - $125 per night - Up to four people

Sixth night in Yellowstone - Cabin with common bath - $110 per night for three people

Seventh night - Ford Explorer. basically driving to reach Portland by Sat morning

Did you observe that we picked a different type of accommodation at each place? Also summer usually is extremely busy and hence it is better idea to reserve accommodation well in advance. Especially at places like Yellowstone and Grand Teton.

Home on The Wheels:

Having decided on the day to leave, the places to visit and the time we had to reach our final destination, it was time to look out for a car to rent. Wait a minute, did you think we were going to drive in our own car? Not a bad idea. Since my friend was not coming back, we could have taken his car. Well don't forget that this gas guzzling beast on the wheels was going to be our virtual home for all the time we spent on the road (which turned out to be almost 100
hours). It had to be spacious to sit and stretch legs, comfortable and big enough to carry all our stuff. We had to find a car rental that would rent us an SUV with unlimited miles, navigation system, full time roadside assistance and most important - one way. Price was also a factor. The best bet for this was Hertz!

We picked up a Ford Explorer with just 3000 miles on it. It had a GPS navigation system and a 6 CD MP3 player in addition to other standard things. At the end of the trip, we ended up paying just above $1000 for two drivers including bumper-to-bumper insurance coverage and coverage up to $100,000 in case some jackass decided to sue us (like in an accident or something). The bugger was giving approximately 19 miles a gallon while it was fully loaded throughout the trip. Not at all bad. I think this was a pretty good deal. Coming to gas, we
might have spent around $750 at an average price of $3.25 per gallon. Can you believe that gas in "middle of nowhere" in SD was more expensive than in NJ?

The Backpack:

Good, we got the car in place. What we rented was an SUV and there would be plenty of room with just the three of us in it. What shall we fill it with?

Food

Canned food
Microwaveable stuff
Snacks (cookies, chips, crackers)
Fresh fruits
Dry fruits

Drinks

Water
Gatorade
Soda
Red Bull

Cooler big enough to hold at least 6 bottles at a time with ice
Paper towels

Toilet paper

Book and a pen/pencil

Cash

Camera

Extra batteries
Enough memory

Printouts of

confirmations for lodging
important contact numbers
directions
brochures of visiting places (if downloaded from the web)
maps of parks downloaded from NPS

Camping / hiking gear

Tent
Sleeping bag
Self-inflatable camp mat
Flash light
Lantern
Extra batteries
First-aid kit
Swiss army knife
Bug repellent
Sunscreen
Raincoat
Hiking boots
Two-way radio

Duffel bag

Toilet Kit

Toothpaste
Toothbrush
Body wash
Face wash
Deodorant
Moisturizer
Shaving gel
Shaving razor
Whatever you want

Clothes (you know what to wear)

Audio CDs

Cellphone charger (both travel charger and car charger)

Air freshener for the car

Trash bags

Sun glasses (extremely helpful while driving right into the Sun)

Tent - Three people Jeep tent. Bought it from Dick's. Easily fits 3 and totally waterproof. Requires two people to assemble. It is a very nice tent. I like it.

Duffel bag - I picked up a 30" duffel bag for around $30 from Walmart. Initially I was not sure about the quality of the bag but it turned out to be pretty good. Unfortunately I could not find a better one of this size anywhere else. It easily fit my tent, camp mat, boots and other small camping gear like first aid kit.

We were not planning to barbecue and hence did not carry any grills and stuff with us but we did run into a lot of people who did.

In "Dependent" Study!

2008-04-01T05:35:00.012-05:00

"A new study links cell phone use to cancer"
"Danish study finds no link between cell phone use and cancer"
"Hyperactivity in young linked to smoking during pregnancy"
"Smoking in first four months of pregnancy 'does not harm the baby'"
"Study: Drinking Coffee Has Health Benefits"
"Coffee can kill your unborn child: Study"

Don't these studies drive you crazy sometimes? These are supposed to be 'independent' studies but I strongly feel they are very much 'dependent' on who conducts them and who backs them up. Even when someone conducting such a study tries to be fairness personified, the circumstances may result in a totally misleading outcome. Who to believe and who not to? What to believe and what not to?

Pretty much anything and everything can be interpreted and presented in different ways conveying different meaning without a need to distort the truth. Unfortunately this is what leads to multiple studies on the same subject conveying varied messages. It is not that fair and simple though. There definitely have been situations where the outcome of research was tailored to the advantage of the researcher / sponsor. One of the best examples, I know of, is the drug ecstacy. I got this information from one of the Discovery Channel's episodes on ecstacy. I won't be surprised if your immediate question is "why should we trust Discovery's study?". Well, first of all I don't think it was a study. Instead, they took the facts associated with the drug and presented them as a documentary. Assuming whatever Discovery Channel presented was true, there were a million contradictory statements about the drug. While one group finds it non-addictive and wanted to use as a genuine drug for patients, another group wanted to ban it. Eventually the drug was banned from legal use based on a 'study' that linked the drug use to cause neurotoxic damage to the central nervous system. According to the program, there was no substantial scientific proof for this though. So, who sponsored this research? Eventually a million other researches proved this wrong.

Without going that far back into history, one can look at the recent exposure of tobacco companies influencing the studies on smoking. All I want to say is that most of these independent studies may not really be 'independent'. Even if they are, they might not be self-sufficient. I mean, they might cover a very tiny portion of the big picture and hence can not be depended upon on their own.

Tips for Tips?

2008-03-27T00:22:00.012-05:00

Is there any general rule as to who to tip where how much and under what circumstances? Well... let me answer the question myself - No!

Last Sun I landed in the new Hyderabad international airport. After an almost 15 hour non-stop flight from JFK to Mumbai and an overnight stay at the airport, I was totally exhausted and was just waiting to get to my destination. My flight being one of the first to land in this brand new airport, I got a royal treatment. I was so happy by the time I got into the cab, that I wanted to genuinely appreciate the airport personnel's services. I tried to tip my porter but he refused. I insisted saying I was very happy with the entire experience and that I wanted to express my gratitude. But he was reluctant to take the money. Well... there were quite a few of his superiors right there and I'm sure the poor chap was under pressure not to accept the treat. Somewhere deep down in his heart, there was an urge to stretch his hand and grab the bill but his mind knew better. He could see the circumstances were not right for him. If he were alone with no one watching, I'm positive he would have seized the opportunity. That would have made me happy because I felt he surely deserved it.

I believe all of us run into similar situations. One example is the Full Serve gas stations. Of course, this 'used' to be a question earlier but my time in New Jersey answered the question. What about the autowalas in India? We sure tip the cabbies in the U.S. A buck or two will throw a smile on the doorman's face at one of those restaurants as well. Ok, at least I think there are a couple of places where it is pretty much clear what to do. Waiters at the restaurant and bartenders at the bar. Once you get the check, just add the tip and pay. If it is a group of 6 or more, the restaurant itself adds gratuity (usually) to avoid the servers getting pissed off in case a cheap-ass group decides not to pay a tip which obviously would be big for a big group. But wait a minute, a Chinese colleague of mine claims you actually bargain in restaurants in China. Instead of paying a tip, you can actually walk out paying less than the check amount. Now that's awesome but unfortunately that breaks our, just formalized, rule that everyone pays a tip at a restaurant.

Finally do you agree with me that it is awfully complicated to decide when to tip who, where and under what circumstances?

Update: What about the barber/hair stylist?

Going Green! Think Outside The Box

2008-02-24T18:50:00.008-05:00

pneumonia
rendezvous
eight
aisle
knee

I know you thought I have gone crazy. Not really. Everyone starting from my 2 1/2 year old nephew to the 212 year old grandpa next door keeps talking about "going green" now a days. I know, while Al Gore's revelation of "truth" to the mankind drove half the literate world switch from H3 to Prius, the ever opportunistic media and the smarty-pant entrepreneurs coaxed the rest into going for things like some cheap-ass, non-recyclable, cancer-causing plastic bottles just because they are 'green'. All this started to challenge my semi-functional brain. When so many people are trying to save the mother nature from the cruelty of this selfish human being, I can't just sit in my couch writing some useless blogs. Since I want to write a blog, I decided to gear it towards the 'green factor' and see if I can be of any use to the humanity. Only thing is that this approach of going green is a little (or a lot?) different from almost everything else. I'm sorry, but thinking outside the box gives me kicks.

numonea
rondevu
ait
ile
ne

Wait a minute... did you just go through this list of words, like 30 seconds (even if you are the slowest of the readers) ago? Hhhmmm, I think they sound pretty much the same but don't seem to spell right though. Does the spelling really matter? Do you understand that I conveyed the same message as above but with 11 less characters (33.33% less)? From one of the billion forwards I keep getting every hour, I also came to know that the human brain can decipher a word just by looking at the first and the last letter though everything else is messed up. Assuming this is true, there opens another avenue for possible character cutting. Let's not go there for now though. If you are wondering how this is anything to do with going green, here is how.

In a nutshell: typing more characters means increasing the size of the files and hence hogging up more memory. Though pretty much everything is "soft" now a days, unfortunately all the soft things need to be stored on something hard. These hard things are not easy to dispose without messing up the mother nature. Want to print it? That's going to be a direct hit as it means chewing up more paper. Now I don't need to mention that paper comes from trees.

Honestly speaking, I picked these words at random and did the calculations later. So, the savings are not predetermined. Assuming an average of 25% savings by removing the "silent" letters from words, I think we will be making a move in the right direction. Not just documents, think about stuff like chatting. Actually the young ones, knowingly or unknowingly, are already doing this. "howz u doin?". Jeez! That sounds awful but you know that the communication process is still alive and in a smarter way, fewer characters. Now how is chatting going to help, as most of it is not stored or printed? Think about all the electricity you are burning. Breaking it down to a single person, whatever I said till now translates simply into utter nonsense. But put it in the perspective of hundreds of millions of "I can't live without a comp" dudes and you will know what I'm talking about.

By now you are 100% sure that I have gone insane right? Somehow I think this is exactly what "thinking outside the box" is. Now you know another way of GOING GREEN!!!

Disclaimer: The content in this blog is just for entertainment purpose. I'm not responsible if kids who read this start challenging their teachers and/or parents about some spellings. This is not targeted towards any particular language or group of people.

I Don't Hate Microsoft

2008-02-07T22:07:00.006-05:00

Most of them who know me conclude I'm a Microsoft hater. Though this is not completely wrong, it is not 100% true either. I'm not a big fan of Microsoft (actually I don't like MS) but I don't really hate the company. Another conclusion people arrive at is that I'm one of those blind, band wagon followers of Apple. I'm sorry but that ain't true either. I know I express my dislike towards MS and appreciation of Apple's innovation and creativity pretty loud and clear but do not mistake that for a bias towards or against a particular company. I think neither of them is self sustainable. They both have their pros and cons. While I admire Apple's marvelous "original" products, I do respect MS's marketing. No, I do not agree with their business strategies.

Well, I started my computers 101 with Windows when I got my first PC a decade ago. I eventually was curious about Linux starting with their command based version and moved to Mac. Even today while my laptop is a Mac, my desktop is a dual boot with Linux and Windows on it. Bottom line is that none of them is self-sufficient. While I want Windows for video chatting using Yahoo! Messenger (because YM is pretty lousy on a Mac), I would not play with Adobe Photoshop on anything other than my iBook. Linux provides me with the greatest avenue of exploring almost anything I want. Mind you, only from a development point of view though. I do not claim myself to be an expert on any of these but all I'm saying is that both as a developer and a user, I need all the three.

I'm sure most of you might have already seen this video a million times by now bust one more view doesn't hurt.

Unfortunately I could not find the entire (1 1/2 hour) video on YouTube but you can get it from Apple as Podcast.

So, what do I have for or against any of them? Here is what I have to say. First of all, if Apple is Obama and Microsoft, Hillary. My vote is for Obama.

I'm, without doubt, a hardcore fan of Apple's innovation. Jobs is my favorite CEO any day. Obviously I cannot generalize this statement for everyone because I think Apple's business models and marketing strategies suck but I don't care. My decision is purely based on innovation. Microsoft, as I see is a genius in marketing and making money. But I don't consider anything from them creative enough. Going into more details and some specifics...

Apple's iPod is such a blockbuster. But I never wanted to buy one. I saw quite a few other mp3 players in the market. There is no doubt some of them are better than the iPod in terms of the functionality (simple example is a built-in FM radio) and cheaper at the same time. You want to rate based on aesthetics? Of course, it is the iPod. But now I own a Touch. That is because there is nothing out there like this one. What is pretty shitty about Apple? I have an iBook with Mac 10.3.9 and I cannot use my Touch with this. This pissed me off real bad. I think it is insane.

Bottom line... I'm not a blind follower of Apple and not a MS hater. I just have a soft corner for one and not the other.

Show Off

2008-01-09T21:51:00.000-05:00

Do you have the cool new iPhone or the iPod Touch? Do you have anything that is a little expensive and attractive? Hide it right now and do not use it in front of other people. Though you genuinely like it and have no evil intentions whatsoever, you hear everyone around you say you are trying to "show off".

It did not strike me till recently when I got my new iPod Touch. I also have a Blackberry 8830 World Edition and that also grabs a lot of people's attention. Everyone exclaims that it is an expensive phone and is curious to know how much my plan costs. How do they know that I have this phone/PDA? Well, they see it when I use it. This is my phone for god's sake and I use it when I have to. It has nothing to do with showing off, my friends. Say, I'm playing pool with my buddies and all of a sudden my phone rings. What do you want me to do? Run out into my car, close the doors and then try to whisper so that no one notices me? I should also bend down or else someone can see me through the window and say I'm trying to show off. The whole reason I have this device with a data plan is so that I can use it to check my e-mails when I'm on the go or access the Internet when needed. It is a convenience. Now one day, a couple of friends and I went to a sports complex to check out their membership details. Unfortunately they were closing for the day and there was no one to help us out. They just gave us their website information and asked us to try contacting them the next day. On the way to the car, I started to check out the website for membership details and got almost all the information I needed. What do I hear my friends say when they saw me do this? Show off! After that night, no one ever tried to either check out the website or call them. Everyday they keep asking one another if they contacted the the place but the unanimous answer is "no". "We got to check out their website today" would immediately follow. It has been a month and no one ever did anything about it. The five minutes I spent as soon as we came out of the complex was to avoid this forgetfulness and procrastination. No sir, it is nothing to do with showing off.

Coming to my iPod. I did not even buy it. I recently won it for a blog of mine. I love it and it is great. Now that I have it, of course I will use it. But whenever someone sees me listening to music on it, their immediate reaction is "show off". "What the hell!", I think to myself. "I'm trying to just enjoy what I have got. I don't want to hide it and use it in secrecy just because people like you think I'm showing off". But surprisingly it did have some affect on me. Even if I want to listen to music while I'm working, I'm thinking twice before I plug the phones into my ears as I'm afraid I will make my colleagues think I'm "showing off".

'mon Buffalo, Go!

2008-01-05T14:47:00.001-05:00

Check out the video "Battle at Kruger" below, if you haven't already done so. It is from YouTube and can be found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LU8DDYz68kM it is almost an eight and a half minute video. So have patience and watch the full video. There are unexpected twists and turns and a happy ending (well... happy for who?).

I guess you will agree that it is a pretty interesting video revealing one of nature's amazing spectacles. This reminds us of Charles Darwin's theories about 'struggle for existence' and 'survival of the fittest*'.

The lions chasing the buffalo, the crocodiles trying to steal and the comeback of the herd kicking the shit out of the lion pack, were all interesting but they did not grab my attention as much as the background voices did. One could find quite a few such chases and hunts on National Geographic or Discovery but the curiosity, excitement and concern of the people who shot this video raised a lot of questions in my tiny little mind.

You could feel the sadness and concern in the voices when the lion grabbed the calf. Now take a step back and think. What is veal? Where is it coming from? I'm sure most of you out there know how the calves are abused before they are magically transformed into that expensive mouthwatering dish on your plate in the restaurant. One doesn't mind paying big bucks for this piece of meat but feels sorry when a lion tries to catch it's prey, which is what nature made it for. You can hear one voice say "come on buffalo, go" almost at the end of the video clearly indicating the person's support for the buffalo and hatred towards the lion. It surprised me. I'm sorry but I don't think we can take sides here. It's the freaking nature and that's what animals do. If you don't want the lion to kill the calf and eat it, would you then mind being it's food? Come on now, the lion should survive as well. But no. You would rather kill the lion and make a blanket or coat out of it's skin and pendants out of it's finger nails.

By now you might have concluded that I'm a meat-eater hating vegetarian. You are correct on the vegetarian part but I have nothing against non-vegetarians. As a matter of fact, I don't call myself a vegetarian as everyone wants to get into argument as for the definition of the term. So I very clearly indicate I'm not a meat-eater. All I want to point out here is the human approach to packaged meat versus the raw flesh. We don't mind abusing animals to satisfy our palate but feel terribly sorry when animal hunts it's prey. In this context, let me also bring up the recent tiger attack in the San Francisco zoo. I feel really sorry for the kid who the tiger picked. But regarding the discussions after the incident whether to put the tiger down and if he is a threat to others and stuff were ridiculous. Of course damn it! He is going to be threat to others as he is a freaking tiger. He is wild, supposed to be wild and not made to be sitting in a hole or behind bars. Why the hell does everyone think of "putting him down" and to leave in the middle of a forest or something where he actually belongs?

* survival of the fittest is actually a term coined by Herbert Spencer motivated by the Origin of Species by Darwin.

My Personal Storyteller

2008-01-03T19:11:00.000-05:00

How long has it been since you actually picked up a book and started to read with an intention of completing it? I'm not talking about your text books in case you are attending a school to attach more suffixes and/or prefixes to your name with an anticipation of earning more bucks. I'm referring to a fiction/non-fiction novel, a (auto)biography or you know what I mean. I should say it hasn't been that long in my case (something like an year if I'm not wrong) but the trend is soon changing. Last year, namely '07, I hardly could steal any time at all to read a book. Both, pressure and responsibilities at work and other activities kept me really busy. The only book I could do justice to was Calvin and Hobbes. I have tree sets of the entire collection in three different form factors and I absolutely love it. I'm so attracted to Calvin and Hobbes that I can go on talking about it forever. So let me stop right now continue from where I stopped. I'm sure you are already lost as to where I digressed. To drive you back to the point, I had no time to read any book in the last one year. As the saying goes "everything is for one's own good", this situation gave me an opportunity to dive into the world of 'audio books'.

Lucky enough, my town library is one of the best I have seen and has a mind boggling collection of digital media. Also, a colleague of mine introduced me to audible and the concept looked very interesting. I'm not sure what audio book I first borrowed from my library but the whole idea definitely influenced a lot of things in my everyday life. As soon as I stepped out of the library with my first audio book and got into my car, I slid the first CD into the MP3 player. Within minutes, I was in a totally different world. It was as if there was a storyteller in the passenger seat devoting all his time to narrate a beautiful story to me. He was my personal story teller. Someone who does not get tired of speaking. Someone who does not take a gulp of water to wet his throat even after hours of continuous speaking. The guy never gets pissed off when I ask him to repeat whatever I missed, how many ever times I wish. I could control my storytellers voice according to my preference. This was perfect. Now for someone reading this and thinking it is dangerous to drive while listening, I'm sorry but there ain't no problem. Lord almighty put a lot of time and effort in designing this magnificent brain. There is something called multitasking and this kind of multitasking is far more safer than talking on the phone while driving with a coffee cup in one hand and lipstick in the other.

Finally I found a way to get back in touch with reading (or listening?). 'course, this can't be a solution for someone who wants to feel the book, smell the ink and turn the pages while reading but sure enough filled in the void created by not reading, for someone like me. Earlier, did I say I did not have enough time to read a book? Well, I devoured Two Lives, The Glass Castle, The Little Book That Beats The Market, The Lemon Tree, State of Denial, When Genius Failed and now I'm in the middle of The World is Flat.

Apart from getting back in touch with books, this storyteller of mine made another really big, remarkable and never thought of difference in me. I started to drive slowly (slowly does not mean below speed limit), be more patient with other idiot snail-pace drivers in the left lane, not take off from red lights even before the cars in the cross-street stopped and control the urge to jump thirty odd traffic lights on my way that always decide to turn red when they see me. I never really figured out if they turn red from blushing at my appearance or with anger. The bottom line is I turned into a more careful driver. I know it is difficult to imagine a "careful driver" in New York. The two terms can not go together.

This 21st century storyteller does not stop at CDs in the car, he sits in the iPod, on the hard drive of your laptop and soon, on a memory chip that will be embedded into your brain.

Ooops... I'm Sorry

2008-01-01T04:00:00.000-05:00

First of all... wish you all a very Happy New Year! I'm sure almost everyone's head is spinning as fast as the days, months and years are flying. 2008??? What the hell! It's as if everyone was getting hysterical about the Y2K bug just two days ago and it's already 8 years past. In any case if I go on cribbing about the speed at which I'm growing old, that will be a pretty damn big book on its own and that is not the intention of this blog entry.

"Hey. What's up for the new year?" I got a call from a friend of mine who lives in Jersey. "Nothing special. Just planning to go to the temple". I said. "Not a bad idea. I think I will join you". This conversation lead me into planning to drive to my buddy's place sometime in the afternoon on the 31st. Then the idea was to go to the temple around midnight and drive back home the next year. Also, there was a plan to go and pick up the car, my friend recently bought, from the dealer.

"Any special plans? Want to join us for a private party for the new year?" I got another call. "Not really. planning to move into the new year with a peace of mind contemplating everything I haven't done this past year." I replied. 'mon, I was just kidding.

"When is your flight?" I asked another very good friend of mine. I knew her from Rutgers and she moved to Europe recently. She was visiting her family here and I definitely wanted to take this opportunity to see her off at least at the airport. "I'm flying on the 31st." She said. Here I go. Another addition to the plan. So now I decided to see her off at JFK and drive directly to my friend's place in Jersey.

"Going to the temple tonight?" Another pal and another call. "Yes". I reply. "You will cut across the city and pass Holland Tunnel right? Can you give me a ride to the temple? My girlfriend also wants to join us." This friend of mine lives in Jersey City and works in the big apple and his girlfriend both lives and works in Manhattan. So obviously neither of them own a car. It was not a big deal for me to give them a ride but I already made a commitment. Now I tried to do all the calculations to see how I can manage it all. It was not an easy task. Driving all the way to my first friend's house and driving back to pick the other and then go to the temple was a little too much to do. After breaking my head and burning a million calories, I decided to drive to the temple directly while I pickup my friend and his girlfriend on my way. My other buddy decided to meet me at the temple.

After all these complications and indecisive nature of mine, I made myself a flip-flop like Mr. Kerry during the '04 presidential elections. My friend who was supposed to meet me at the temple (whose house I was initially planning to go to) dropped the idea. As I couldn't (rather didn't) make it to his place, his new car spent the first day of the new year at the dealer's instead of it's loving new owner. Neither did I see my other friend off at the airport as I had to get my car inspection done and it took longer than expected. What can I do. I'm sorry. Sometimes things get really complicated. Or do I make them complicated?

Friends Don't Let Friends Teach Friends

2007-12-29T18:36:00.001-05:00

I know the title sounds a little weird-ass. This is what I saw on fliers at the Shawnee Mountain Ski Resort tickets sale counters. At first glance, I had no clue what the hell that meant. Then I slowly realized it made complete sense. Being a novice to skiing I took one, approximately 30 minute, lesson in which I learned the basics. That was good for the bunny and to come down the greens without falling. But there I hit the barrier. Though I could manage myself from the top to the bottom of the slope without breaking someone's nose, throwing others off the cliff or hit anyone like a canon ball, I was not having much fun as I lacked the right technique to ski. Some friend's of mine did try to teach me but for no avail. This experience did suggest that one needs some professional guidance and hence a proper trainer and not really friends trying to teach friends. After all, the signs did make a valid statement. But it turned out not to be 100% accurate by the end of our stay at Shawnee.

Among the three of us - a colleague, a friend and myself - my colleague was an experienced and seasonal skier and obviously didn't need someone to tell him what to do. So my friend and I decided to get a private lesson. The instructor was to spend one hour with us. Now, my friend and I being at different levels, the instructor had to design a custom package so that both of us could benefit from that one hour. Well, it was not a complete waste and both of us did make some progress but unfortunately for me, the progress was not enough to break the bunny-to-blue barrier. Lucky for me though, there were my two buddies constantly trying to give feedback and suggestions. I totally knew what mistakes I was making but the solution was not that clear. My friend's suggestions made complete sense but putting them into action was not easy. The simple reason being, I admit, I'm scared of death. For the rest of the first day I did my clumsy sliding, slipping and falling maneuvers.

The second day was warm and the slopes became icy and very unpleasant to ski. Also, a million other enthusiasts joined us to make the mountain look more like Times Square. I was totally pissed off with the existing conditions but could not give up. Once again my friends assisted me with all the patience in the world. Finally I broke the barrier and was all of a sudden very comfortable. Forget the greens, I was fine on the blue as well. What the instructor could not do, my buddies did. Nothing against the instructor though. He had only one hour in which he had to train two dudes of different levels of expertise. At the end, while leaving Shawnee, I once again glanced at the signs and said to myself "friends don't let friends teach friends unless there exists a great instructor in those friends".

Skiing Breaks Your Bones - Part II

2007-12-15T23:21:00.000-05:00

A couple of my friend's and I decided to head to Lake Placid to spend this year's Thanksgiving weekend there. We decided to ski entire day Fri and most of Sat and head back Sat night. Since this conversation is not related to the trip, but skiing, I will jump to Sat when we actually hit the slopes. The ski resorts were supposed to open on Fri itself but did not due to some "technical" problems. So, to our dismay, we had only one day to freeze our balls and break our asses. But luckily it snowed entire Fri and we looked forward to the natural snow slopes rather than the crappy icy artificial ones.

It has been almost a year since I skied and that was the only time I ever skied. So I was not sure if I even remembered how to ski. The bulky boots on, the skis strapped and the poles in hand, I headed to the bunny slope. Even before I could think, I was standing in the line for the lift. The chilly breeze from the snow covered mountain was invigorating and completely erased any doubts I had in my mind. By lunch time, I was the king of the bunny hill. I had absolute control and never fell. That being the first day of the ski season, not all slopes were ready. Other than the bunny, there was one blue (intermediate) slope and a couple of black and double black diamonds (expert and extremely difficult). By now I was getting bored of the bunny and wanted to give the blue a shot. I knew it was not going to be easy but I had to try it. I had to learn more stuff and improve myself. I knew I cannot do that on the teeny meeny one. So, without warning my buddies, I headed straight to the other lift.

"How bad is this one? I'm still a beginner but thought I'll give it a shot." I said to the guy operating the lift. "Not that bad. Just goes past the mid-point. Once out of the lift, stay to your right." He said. The breeze was getting more and more chilly as the lift climbed the mountain. I could see the cloud-splitter going past me (cloud-splitter is another lift that takes people to the top of the mountain where the black and double black diamond slopes start. Amazingly enough, this lift actually splits the clouds because the peak of the mountain is hidden beyond the clouds. All the way into the heaven above.) I saw an alighting point ahead of me and thought I could finally get out onto the slope. But it did not happen. It did not belong to my lift and I still kept crawling up. Two more such points passed and nothing happened. "God dammit!" I thought. This freaking lift did not seem to stop. looking at the steep slopes below, I knew I was heading for deep trouble. I could see streams flowing in gorges next to the slopes. I have always feared water (not to mention I did some kick-ass white water rafting before). Finally, after what seemed like a never ending journey, it was time for me to get out of the lift. For a moment, I thought of taking the same lift back to the base but the thought of giving up was not a pleasant one.

I dared and got down of the lift and stayed to my right as the guy at the bottom suggested. "This is not that bad." I thought as I curved along the slope and started to head down. Then my heart skipped like a hundred beats. I could not see a thing on the slope, beyond a hundred feet from where I was standing. The slope was that steep and all I could see in front of me was the foot of the mountain at what seemed to be like a mile away. This was a point of no return though. I had no choice but to go down the slope in whatever way possible. That was the only way I could reach the bottom, and go home only if I still had all parts of my body intact, of course provided I was still alive when I reached the base. This gave me an adrenalin rush. I saw a great adventure lying ahead of me. I started to go at an angle to the slope and then slowly turned to make a big S. I made one turn and went at an angle to the other edge. I tried to make another turn to complete my first S when I started to pick-up speed and dashed ahead. I was going down the hill at an insane speed and the only way I could stop before running into the trees or someone else, was by falling. I did that with every bit of sophistication. Freezing snow was all over my face. I tried to getup and put my skis back on but it was extremely difficult since I was in the middle of the steep slope. As soon as I got up, I started to slide down. Knowing this was not easy, I put my slides side by side and sat on them. With the poles in my hands, I happily slid till it got a little flat. That was cool. In the worst case, I knew how to at least reach the bottom without much risk.

I once again put my skis on and started to ski. There was another steepie waiting for me. I once again tried to do the S and fell with a thump. This time, a woman stopped next to me and gave me a hand. She patiently supported me till I could get myself up and strap the skis on. She told me that she was a professional trainer and that she would teach me for free. She was very nice and patient. After going down a couple more steep sections like that, we reached one particular section that was narrower than anything else before. On the far edge, it literally dropped steep into a gorge with ice cold water flowing in it. I sincerely thanked her and told here I didn't want to waste her time since it would take me forever before I made up my mind to ski that part. She tried to convince me but figured I wouldn't budge. I felt embarrassed that she was honestly trying to help me while I turned down her assistance.

After skiing and falling, walking, sliding on the butt, rolling and almost an hour after getting down the lift, I was once again back to where I belonged. I clearly saw the reason why people end up with rods, nuts and bolts in their bodies after skiing. Don't get me wrong. It is not because they go down steep slopes. But it is because they try to do something stupid like me. If I went down a couple of beginner slopes first and sincerely took some lessons for intermediate skiers and practiced, it would have been a totally different story. I do not regret for what I did as I was curious to learn and improve my skills and did not loose myself to fear. But I couldn't blame anyone but myself if anything happened in that one hour.

Skiing Breaks Your Bones

2007-11-30T16:56:00.001-05:00

"One of the most important things you will learn in the first lesson is how to get up when you fall down"
"I fell down two hundred and fifty one times on the bunny slope"
"Bob broke his bones while skiing and now he has two steel rods, some nuts and bolts taking refuge in his arms and legs"

These are the comments I have always heard about skiing. What kept me from skiing for so long? This very conception (or misconception as it turned out to be) that one inevitably ends up losing a limb or two and half the skull. I finally decided to use my brain in the decision making process and gave in last year.

Thirteen of us from work went skiing in the Poconos last winter. Most of us were first timers. We took one 20 minute lesson and headed for the bunny. By the end of the day we were the kings and queens of the bunny slope. We skied till the lifts stopped. The next day, we were the first ones on the slopes and once again skied till Sunset. We went onto the beginner slopes as well. Though we were bumping our asses against icy slopes, it was a blast. All of us returned home after having kick-ass fun out of two full days of skiing, all limbs in place.

So what about the stories of broken bones? I know these people weren't lying as it is true that injuries are common and pretty damn bad. Finally I came to know the cause, but how? To be continued...

Cameras and Recorders Not Allowed

2007-11-30T16:36:00.001-05:00

A few weeks ago I have been to a live concert of The Police in MSG (Madison Square Garden, NYC). Obviously, it was a totally kick ass show. The intention of this conversation now is not really the concert though. Instead, it is pertinent to something at the concert that grabbed my attention and threw me into a vortex of time travel. It took me into the age where people compete for smaller and smaller devices. An age where electronic gadgets converge and everything ranging from satellite phone to personal computer will be squeezed into a matchbox. Suddenly I realized I'm actually a part of that world now. All that is remaining is to be able to use your phone/music player/gps/... as toilet paper. Who knows, maybe our buddy Steve is already working on it given his ambitions and creativity.

Coming back to the point of interest, while entering the hall I saw a sign that said "cameras and recorders not allowed". I wanted to walk up to the nearest show organizer and sincerely surrender my cellphone (PDA might be a more appropriate term). I also wanted to say "I'm sorry dumb ass but how many people are carrying their cameras and recorders now a days?" It is not his fault. I really wonder how these things will turn out to be in the future. Just imagine the "disliked by everyone" record companies trying to stop people from recording live shows and security personnel aiming to curb potential criminals from taking pictures. What are they going to do, start confiscating everybody's cellphones? I'm sure these "converged devices" pretty soon will come with radar detectors and jammers to zoom by cops at 150 miles an hour and leave them wondering what just hit. So, we won't be allowed even to carry a cellphone while driving. Forget about talking on the phone while driving.

In any case, it is fun to imagine and also to witness how devices get smaller and smaller and will be able to handle everything from making a call to wiping one's bottom.

Just Do It

2007-11-12T19:56:00.000-05:00

This can also be found on SpongeFish

Mr. 'Million Things' is quite busy and has been working 25 hours a day, 8 days a week on a product soon to be released. But he also has a very active social life and other activities that include traveling, photography and writing blogs. Since, unfortunately, a day is limited to only 24 hours and that Mr. 'Million Things' is already squeezing out an extra one hour of it, sharing his knowledge (though very limited) and experiences with others took a big blow. Then came to his rescue, a spark from the cosmos. I'm this Mr. 'Million Things' and the spark is SpongeFish.

I have been quite busy at my work for more than a year now as our company is planning to launch a product sometime soon. If one leaves a computer running for weeks and months without reboot, chances are very high that it needs a reset before it completely crashes. Similar was the case with me and I managed to steal a week off from work for my cross-country road trip. It was a total reset and I was back into action after returning from the trip. Now I wanted to share my experience on this virtual rendezvous of Internet but could not manage until one day I saw a comment to one of my blog's asking if I would be interested in putting my travelogue on SpongeFish and that there was a contest ending on the 12th of Oct. This comment was made on the 4th and that grabbed my attention only on the 7th. Just 5 days to share the entire trip? Not an easy task. I took a look at the website and decided to give it a shot. But as the saying goes "procrastination is like a credit card. You enjoy it till you get the bill", I kept delaying it and on the 10th realized I didn't have enough time, especially with my given work schedule and also that I was heading for Chicago on the 12th by 8:00 PM flight.

This was the time when I took a couple of moments to myself and thought about the situation. I have been putting things on the back burner forever. I wanted to change this, at least for once. This made me even more determined to participate in the contest, not with an anticipation of winning a prize but with a hope of winning over my "let me do it later" attitude. Here is the chain of events that followed.

1. I canceled my tickets to Chicago
2. Started to write
- while having breakfast
- during lunch
- midnight to the moment I crashed into bed
3. Just about an hour before midnight PST (2 AM for me), I stopped, after putting as much as I could on the paper
4. Hit the "publish" button on SpongeFish
5. I saw instantly people started to like it. I was very glad
6. The SpongeFish community picked it up as one of the best
7. I won the cool little iPod Touch. Thanks to SpongeFish :-)
8. I started to find more time to contribute the little I know and learn a lot from others

It is wonderful how this all happened. I feel as if I started to create time out of thin air. The fact is that I started just to manage it better. Trying to get the priorities right.

Now imagine I went ahead and traveled to Chicago giving up on my narrative and chickening out. I wouldn't have shared my experience here, it would have got washed away in the waves of my memory. The motivation I got when I realized so many people liked it wouldn't have existed. I wouldn't have won anything and hence there wouldn't have existed the element of success that acted as fuel to the next event. This chain reaction would have continued and left me in disapproval with myself. But now, I ended up as a winner of both the prize and aslo the procrastination factor.

Don't scratch my car

2007-10-31T10:38:00.000-05:00

There is that car in the fourth row of the parking lot, parked at an angle hogging up two parking spots. Here is that beamer guy who pulled his car right on to the line separating two adjacent parking spots so that no one else is going to park in them. If you observe, these "don't scratch my car" dudes are trying to create a buffer zone around their cars. Yeah right! Till recently they were driving this 200 year old Toyota that never got a scratch in all these years though there were like 5 cars surrounding them in every parking lot. But now, all of a sudden, they got the new beamer that needs a ten acre parking spot to protect itself. Of course, it is an irresistible thing for everyone now. People trying to park next to his baby would bump into it left, right and center. So he has to make sure no one parks next to him. Hhhmmm... he is trying to shoo away the bad boys.

You know what. By doing this, these idiots don't get the fact that they are inviting trouble. I'm sure there will be someone out there who can't resist this brand new car sitting all alone in the parking lot away from all its buddies. Who knows what surprise they want to give the loving owner?

The light that never turns green

2007-10-31T10:02:00.000-05:00

From my home to my workplace there are totally 33 traffic lights of which 30 are influential. I mean, among the other three, one is a flashing red, one is flashing yellow and the third one is always green.

Now there is this one light for a right turn that never, absolutely never was green on my approach. I always have to wait there till the damn thing gives way. Keeping in mind the traffic pattern, the timing and all the other crap in the world, you would say the probability is very high that this light is red when I'm there during my office hours. Right? I'm not that big a dumbass. I work for a tech company and there are no "fixed" working hours for most of them. Even if there exist such a thing, they would be insanely insane. I mean to say that I go to work any time between 6:30 in the morning to noon. That is one heck of a sample set to run into this stupid light at least once when it is green. But no. I have been taking this route for the last 8 months. Assuming I go to work 5.5 days a week on average, the total would be approximately 176 days. So... in 176 days, not even once was I lucky to pass this light without stopping. Hey lord almighty where the hell did the law of averages go. I'm so frustrated now that may be one day I will just jump the freaking thing.

Guilt Factor 93.9

2007-10-21T20:48:00.000-05:00

"If you listen to BBC every morning from 9:00 AM to 10:00 AM then you might think a $100 pledge is the right amount. Please call us or visit our website for your contribution".

If you live in and around Manhattan, do you listen to WNYC? This is a "news and talk all day, classical music all night" radio station by National Public Radio (NPR). It is broadcast on FM 93.9 and I love it. Even if I suddenly, for no good reason on earth, develop Alzheimer's, I will not forget this radio station. OK! enough of how much I like it; let me get to the point.

This radio station totally depends on public contribution and other sponsorships for survival. They have, I think, four pledge drives a year where they request for contributions. I started listening to this a couple of years ago and ignored the first marathon persuasion. I thought they were desperately begging to avoid sleeping on the benches in Central Park and freeze their balls in winter. It sounded like the studio would close down and they would all end up in the Subway stations earning a buck or two by selling used underwear.

When it was time for the second such drive, I knew what they were talking about. By then I was so addicted to WNYC that I could not drive to work without my radio tuned to NPR just like some people cannot poo poo without a cup of coffee in the morning. Every time they requested for a pledge my guilt was multilpying by a factor of 93.9. Two days into the drive and I succumbed. As soon as I went to work, I logged on to WNYC website and pledged my part. Now I pledge every year and listen to the station as much as I want without an ounce of guilt.

Note: Some information in the above content may not be 100% accurate

Attraction to Indian Food

2007-10-14T20:49:00.000-05:00

There are so many different cuisines and people with different tastes. Among all of them I observed that Indian cuisine is not that popular (among Americans). Most of them complain about the spiciness of the food.

"Spice" is one thing that is almost always misinterpreted when it comes to Indian food. The only thing that strikes to mind is the "hot chilly spice". That is not completely true though. Yes! It is generally a little hot than other cuisines but there are hundreds of Indian spices that are not hot but have a unique flavor. This is the real Indian spice. In any case that is not the point of this blog.

Last weekend I went sailing on a colleague's boat and we ended up going to Fire Island. This is a thin strip of "kick ass" island south of Long Island, NY in the Atlantic. We went into a bar to play some pool and darts and some people to get a drink. Here I ran into this woman who surprised me with her knowledge of Indian food. I know a lot of people who like Indian food, especially Tandoori Chicken and Chicken Tikka Masala. But this was the first time I saw a New Yorker who not only knew a lot other Indian dishes but also knew how to cook them. She said she frequented Indian grocery stores to get various spices and other raw materials and that she cooks almost all kinds of Indian food. This, she said, she had been doing for 25 years now. That definitely amazed me.

Finally!

2007-10-13T22:39:00.000-05:00

I have been planning to record my recent cross-country road trip experience but was extremely busy and preoccupied with work. Finally there came the motivation in the form of the comment to my previous blog (Speed Limit 55). I put most of it on SpongeFish. Please checkout the following link. I will complete it pretty soon.

http://www.spongefish.com/creations/2937-Want-to-Drive-Cross-country-/steps/1

Update: It is now complete and has been picked as one of the best content on SpongeFish

Speed Limit 55

2007-09-06T21:45:00.000-05:00

Question for you:

If you live in North East, did you ever drive "at" or "below" the posted speed limit when you had an opportunity to speed*?

To be honest with you, I never did. Actually... wait a minute. On second thoughts, I think I did but may be like 2 times in the one million times I have been behind the wheel on the road.

Now I'm so used to speeding that I feel funny when I see people driving slow. These are the stats from my recent cross-country road trip from NY to Portlnd, OR. It is basically where I was driving and how many cars passed me.

Getting out of NY : ~50%

NJ to Chi : 5% - 10%

Chi to WI : ~1%

WI to MN : ~1%

SD : 0

WY: 0

CO : 0

MT : 0

ID : 0

OR : <1%

It was impressive how people followed the speed limit in these places. In places like South Dakota and Wyoming you won't see another car on the road for miles and miles and still the very few that are, stick to 75 mph (the speed limit there). I couldn't understand how one could just let go the golden opportunity to step on the gas and not worry about getting cought for speeding untill I got pulled over. Luckily got away with a warning.

Isn't it funny that the un-written speed limit over here is usually 10 mph above the actual speed limit and everyone wants to drive at atleast 70 when they are "supposed" not to exceed 55? It is an underlynig assumption here that one is entitled to drive above the speed limit while there... I think it is a taboo!

* speeding = going above speed limit even if it is just 1 mph above the posted speed limit.

Two Cents Worth

2007-08-22T20:56:00.001-05:00

Have you ever run into these "know all" nincompoops who are teetotalers but would tell you how great it feels to get drunk or the one who never had sex with a woman but would be the first to explain how it is? There are quite a few of them out there ready to give you suggestions while they themselves have never had any experience whatsoever on whatever they are trying to "help" you with. Here are two examples.

Ex1:
My first car was an old Honda Civic. When I decided to go for a new car, I wanted to buy a Jeep Wrangler. Now here come my buddies for my rescue. Following are the 2 cents worth each one has given me.
1. Are you crazy? It is very cold in a Wrangler in winter
2. It is very unstable and will rollover even when you are driving at 0.5 mph on a straight road
3. You know it has a soft top right. That is no good

The best part is that none of them ever owned a Wrangler. Neither did they ever took a ride in one. I really wonder where they get all this (mis)information from. Any way... I didn't really care and went ahead and bought one. I love it and it is perfectly great.

Ex2:
I went on a cross-country road trip last week. It was an 8 day trip from NY to Portland, OR. Drive one way and fly on the way back. While planning for the trip, I asked a couple of my friends if they wanted to join me. This is what I get.
1. Eight days is not enough for the trip
2. You need at least 3 weeks to do it. Nothing ain't gonna happen in 8 days
3. All you will be doing in this time is just driving. You will have no time to spend at any one place

None of them who gave me their piece of mind ever did a cross-country road trip before. I didn't care a damn, went ahead with the trip and had a blast. It was the best road trip I ever had.

So pals... I decided not to listen to people's "two cents worth" unless they really has had any "first hand" experience with what they are suggesting to me.

Four Hundred Feet Ferrari

2007-08-22T20:23:00.000-05:00

The place where I live has quite a few rich people. No... not BMWs and Mercs. That is not rich. I'm talking about Maserati, Bentley and Ferrari. I'm neither that rich nor would like the car to drive me. So I drive a fully manual Jeep Wrangler. The symbol of freedom!

Now coming to the point, while returning from work one day, I noticed a fairly new Ferrari F430 spider in my rear view mirror. The guy driving this beauty was maintaining a distance of at least 400 ft behind me. I could understand his fear. If I suddenly, for no good reason on earth, decide to ram into the reverse gear and step on the gas, his precious possession would be nothing more than a mere bump on the road for me.

Unfortunately for him this did not last long. There came the two traffic lights hardly 500 ft from each other. He had no choice but to tail gate me as he preferred his Ferrari to kiss my Jeep's ass than get honked at by a million impatient idiots behind him.

Imagination at Work

2007-06-19T16:25:00.000-05:00

Recently, a team from MIT invented something called "WiTricity". I'm sure most of you have read about it by now. Visit MIT's official page on this here.

WiTricity

Did you observe the picture? A group of people sitting in between two big coils with smiling faces? Assuming this technology is going to be successful and evolves to a great extent in the coming decades, try to imagine how this picture would be perceived, say, 100 years from now.

To throw some more light onto what I'm trying to get at, check out

Telephone in 1876

Funny right? Look at the evolution of the telephone from the time of Graham bell to today's iPhone.

Can you think of some more like these? Let us see how good your imagination is!

Angels or Assholes

2007-06-18T21:08:00.000-05:00

You meet a person for the first time ever in your life and there is no way you can tell if that person is good or bad in five minutes. I know the terms 'good' and 'bad' are quite complex and sometimes can be very personal. So let us make things simple for now and say the person is either an angel or an asshole. You know what I mean.

Coming to the point, I went to a temple last night. As I took off my shoes and was about to go in, this guy stops me and here is the conversation between us...

Guy: Hi, do you go to NYIT?
Me: No. I don't

Guy: Columbia?
Me: No. I don't go to any school

Guy: I go to "whatever" (I forgot the name) school and I'm a transfer student here
Me: ok........

Guy: Are you usually busy?
Me: What do you mean? Why?

Guy: I want to be your friend. Can I have your phone number? I will call you and we will meet sometime during the weekend
Me: What? I don't even know who you are. I'm quite busy all the time. I can't do that

This ridiculous conversation went between us for sometime and then I forced myself out of it. Initially I felt sort of annoyed by this guy. But then pity creeped into me. He was almost begging to meet up sometime. I was not sure if he is a whacko or doesn't really have any friends.

In any case, I didn't really want to give my number. How do I know what this person is up to? You can not judge someone in such a short time unless he is a complete asshole, in which case it will be written right on his face.

Solar Power - Use or Abuse?

2007-06-01T15:24:00.000-05:00

A dialog between a boyfriend and a girlfriend.

5 years ago:
Girl - Hey... wanna go to this new movie? I heard it is full of crap
Guy - Why not. Sounds cool!

Today:
Girl - Al Gore is gonna talk about global warming. Wanna watch him on TV with me?
Guy - Absolutely!

I'm not sure how much this global warming is heating up the earth's atmosphere but it is sure enough barbecuing everyone's brain. While people fight, politicians argue and all of us through a million tons of shit into the air everyday, let us add some flavor to it here.

Based on my earlier blog "We don't, but birds do!" our good friend anonymous suggested he prefers solar panels to windmills. So let us see how this Sun dude is going to be of any help to us.

Here is a list of ways in which we can use Sun's energy

1. We can throw in some solar panels onto the laptops. Say, the top cover and the keyboard. This way it charges itself whether it is open or closed.
2. Make solar-cell skins for cellphones
3. solar panel rooftops (I think people are already working on this)

Do you have anything to add? Don't worry about practicality. Many great ideas are thought to be impractical initially because people lack that "vision" ;-)

Microsoft's Coffee Table

2007-06-01T10:15:00.001-05:00

MS does not seem to give up. No, I'm not talking about giving up copying other's ideas. This time, for a change, it might be in the competition with the right spirit.

After struggling to compete with the iPod, Zune, even with a bunch of additional features (basically crap) could not survive and had to commit suicide. Vista's release was delayed a million and one times. Why? Because the nincompoops sitting in the Redmond, WA R&D (Rip and Decode) center had a hard time hacking Mac OS X Tiger. Well... let us pay our condolences to "I so wanna be an iPod" Zune and "I really suck! allow or cancel" Vista and move on.

Now desperate to do something "new" (this term itself is new to Microsoft), the company created the new Coffee Table. Whola! Invention of the millennium. But on a more serious note, this actually looks pretty interesting. Check out

http://www.microsoft.com/surface/

It may seem far-fetched and not really practical right now. But somehow I found it impressive. It is not really useless. It is not even way into the future. As a matter of fact, it is going to be commercially deployed in the "near" future (at least according to them).

I'm not at all a Microsoft guy. If people who know me hear the word 'Microsoft' come out of my mouth, they more or less accurately predict that the rest to follow is nothing but bashing. My laptop is Mac. I had a desktop with Windows but crashed recently and does not even boot now (not a surprise) and I have no intentions of putting back Windows on it whatsoever. But let me tell you, I’m a genuine admirer of talent. It always proves difficult for me to put my ego in front of true appreciation for innovation and Microsoft is no exception.

One practical advantage of this coffee table - When the underlying Windows Vista crashes, at least you can use it for your coffee while waiting for it to reboot :-)

Mystery of the lost sock!

2007-05-22T11:00:00.000-05:00

Have you ever lost a sock? Just one sock, consistently?

This happens to me all the time. When ever I do my laundry, I make sure I put "pairs" of socks in to the washer. While transferring them to the dryer, I again make sure my washer did not eat any of my socks. After drying, kablooie, one sock is missing. Just one freaking sock. I have no idea how this happens but it happens all the time.

This made me consider a possibility. Say, this is a common phenomenon where everyone looses a sock after laundry. Then, the person using the dryer next to mine also looses a sock and hence flicks one from mine to compensate for his lost one. This is not an impossible proposition as I always leave my clothes in the dryer and come back after it is done while others stay there.

But the laundromat scene is a recent one as I used to have a washer and dryer within the house where I used to live earlier. I lost socks even there. Did my landlord steal them? That is unlikely since he was an elderly man and used to dress formally. Hence his socks were those black ones that go with the dress shoes. Mine on the other hand were white sports-type quarters. He wouldn't take that chance for just one sock.

Any other theories on the sock mystery?

Return on Investment

2007-05-16T22:05:00.000-05:00

There are companies big on patents and IPRs (Intellectual Property Right). Say, they also have product divisions.

Now, in order to encourage its employees to come out with new useful innovative ideas, the company pays a certain amount of money to an employee for each patent filed. Pretty neat. But unfortunately this does not take into consideration whether the patent filed is useful or utterly useless. When I say useful, I mean whether it results in any revenue to the company or not. Hence this results in employees just trying to file patents rather than work towards genuinely useful and resourceful patents.

Now let us put it in the perspective of a product. I say, each employee who worked on a product that is successfully completed should also be provided with certain monetary benefits irrespective of whether the product sells or not. But that does not happen. The employees working on a product are rewarded only when the product sells.

Do you think this is fair? I think this is BULLSHIT! Just the way an employee working on a product is acknowledged only when the product sells, the one who has a patent should also be kept in the same boat. If the patent generates revenue, the employee gets the pocket money. If not, I'm sorry.

Bikettitude

2007-05-16T15:52:00.000-05:00

The title sounds a little weird. Doesn't it? It is "bike attitude" and here is the story behind it.

Recently I started to bike to work a couple of days a week. When I was talking to my parents (in India), I told them about this and they were shocked. I'm sure what I told them started a train of thoughts in their minds that might have lead to the conclusion that I was kicked out of my job and hence had to sell my Wrangler and ended up on this bicycle.

It is not surprising to me since we are not used to seeing people bike to work unless they can not afford to buy a motor vehicle (be it a two wheeler or a car). Only when you are a kid are you considered OK riding a bike. But keep in mind it got to be a real fancy one with gears and metallic finish. Once out of high school, nobody wants to ride a bike anymore. it is your duty to contribute to the increasing congestion on the roads and the pollution in the air.

While here, when my colleagues see me with my bike, I hear them say "I wish I stayed closer to work so that I can bike too". Of course, the question is, are they saying it just for the heck of it or do they really mean it?

We don't, but birds do!

2007-05-06T21:30:00.000-05:00

Just now I read this article that says windmills are posing threat to birds and other wildlife.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-wind4may04,1,4228015.story?coll=la-headlines-nation

The study shows that the huge blades and the turbines pose a potential threat to night migrating song birds and other hunting birds. I totally agree with them. The poor things obviously had no idea a couple of days ago that there would pop up a 100 ft tall thing that would slice them within the blink of an eye.

But evolution is a wonderful thing. How many things haven't changed in the past couple of million years that living things didn't get adjusted to? I would guess that is what is going to happen with this too. If these birds survive the advent of windmills without getting extinct, then there is a very high chance that they learn how to co-exist (I know how unfortunate this is) with the developing world.

I'm afraid only man has a difficult time adjusting with things around him. We don't seem to learn from our past mistakes. But I'm confident the birds would.

The Inconvenient Truth about "An Inconvenient Truth"?

2007-05-02T12:13:00.000-05:00

After trying hard to restrain myself from watching the documentary till I read the book, An Inconvenient Truth, I finally gave up. I saw the movie recently and I should say I'm impressed with it. Now that I did not do so much research in the field of Global Warming, I have to take the information provided by Mr. would have been President on his face value. Assuming all the information provided by him is accurate, it scares the hell out of me to imagine what the world would be like in a couple of decades (or sooner?) if our attitude towards the mother nature does not change.

Having said that, I could not help but notice the following inconvenient truth.

1. Through out the movie, the Sr. Bush administration and the dubya administration have been blamed for not acting on the issue. I wonder where the Clinton administration went. That was an impressive 8 year jump made by the, "I invented the Internet", guy.

2. Having mentioned that every individual's contribution is essential and makes a difference does not seem to consider himself as an individual. Why am I saying this? Have you observed the guy driving an SUV in the movie? Well, I did! Also I would be foolish to believe that he pays attention to energy conservation with regards to the amount of gas and electricity his houses consume. Now don't tell me he is breeding solar panels in his backyard or that there is a windmill on his rooftop.

Sniffing on the Internet for some statistics regarding his lifestyle, I gathered the following information.

He has a 10,000-square-foot, 20-room, eight-bathroom home in Nashville, a 4,000-square-foot home in Arlington, Va and a third home in Carthage, Tenn http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2006-08-09-gore-green_x.htm.

His Nashville home alone devoured an incredible 221,000 kilowatt-hours in 2006 putting his utilities bill at a modest $30,000 http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=nation_world&id=5072659.

This is all bullshit since it is not from reliable sources. Right? Not really. It may not be accurate but I think it is close enough.

OK! Enough of blaming the poor guy. He is just trying to help the humanity. But I can't stop here as still there is something quite important (at least according to me) that I want to share. Let us try throwing light on this subject from a couple of different angles.

1. The statistics, those impressive view graphs with all those peaks and valleys in the movie pop out of an equation that Al Gore put together. When I say equation I don't really mean a mathematical equation. Rather a logical one. I mean, he took into consideration only a few things that he thought are causing this problem. How do I know if there are a million other factors missing from here? To give an example, what if the Sun is actually behaving funny with its mighty rays and that is in fact causing this problem? Scientists may figure this out after 20 years from now while we keep mudslinging. How did the previous ice age occur? There were no gas guzzlers or atomic fuel plants then.

2. Another perspective. May be the only factor is population? If we control the population, the demand for everything the greedy man wants will go down right? Don't you think that itself should impact every other negative element in Mr. Gore's equation? Say, like the need for cars, electricity at home, cutting down trees for houses etc.?

Dear liberals, if you are still reading (still haven't ripped your computer screen, or thrashed the keyboard), I want to make one thing clear. I'm not anti-democrat and absolutely not pro republican. This blog is not for a political debate. It is more of a logical and common sensical thing. Well... I'm an engineer and hence, obviously, cursed with the disease, logico-mania.

What happens...

2007-04-29T20:53:00.000-05:00

... when you overfill a football? This is what happens.

I got this new air pump for my bicycle. Filling in 100 psi of air into the two tires of the bike didn't satisfy my craving to use the new toy. I started to look for anything that has a hole and takes air into it. My soccer ball survived the pressure but not this unfortunate football :~(

For car lovers

2007-04-21T16:52:00.000-05:00

Here is something for car-o-philes.

This is a wallpaper I made from thumbnails from NYC Autoshow, '07. I captured quite a lot of cars but picked only selected few for this wallpaper. Sorry... but I forgot the names of some of them and hence those "???".

Blown-up versions of each of these cars is available in my album at Auto Show NYC 2007.

This show was not bad but I liked it better last year. I haven't made a wallpaper from last year's pics but you can find them here.

By the way, this picture is copyright protected and hence $100 will be charged for each download.

---> Just Kidding ;-) <---