wild fires...

we escaped and survived the wildfires raging in san diego. monday afternoon was spent in anxiety as fires were raging within 5 miles of our place. I hope all the people who lost their homes don't have to spend too much time with the insurance people to collect their dues. It was some experience!

Cogitation

is probably a word that describes what I do all day - I keep thinking. I haven't arrived at many conclusions though. The labor day weekend went off mildly. Nothing big. Just some beach outings. I'm reading an excerpt from "art of start" written by Guy Kawasaki. I really love his approach.

Cinema Paradiso

Is one hell of a movie. One of my all time favorites. I watched it last night properly, after a gap of several years. I had originally watched it in Star TV, but of course at that time I didn't know a thing about anything in the world. I'm able to appreciate it a lot better now. Quite an amazing treat it was.

Some stuff for July

I have somehow been managing to write at least one post per month this year. It is interesting to read previous year's accounts. So blogging is really good after all. Our brains fail us when we try to remember things accurately. Blogging keeps it in place. We came back from a week long trip to washington and canada. We went on a national park tour. Rainier, Olympic, Banff, Jasper and Yoho. I can't say we did any of them in great detail, but we gave it a fair shot. Olympic is beautiful beyond belief. It is totally underrated. People need to visit that place more. Banff - what can I say - it is so beautiful beyond belief. there are no superlatives to describe the beauty of banff. If you create an index - beauty*accessibility, Banff will probably be the number one in the world. The icefields parkway is really a joke. It is almost ridiculous to have so many things splattered along the way for you to see. Too many waterfalls, turquoise green lakes, mountains, rivers, glaciers, etc. It is a visual treat to say the least. Jasper was equally good. I need to write a detailed trip report. I hope to find the time, may be this weekend.

The coming weekend, we will be visiting Coyote Buttes. That should be interesting. I am only worried about hiking without a GPS. A guy said that he will loan it to me, but I haven't heard back from him. Most likely, I'm going to have to do without one. Or may be I'll buy one, we'll see. The hike is 3 miles one way and it is on an unmarked trail. This plus the heat will make it more difficult. I think we need to reach that place early in the morning to get the best lighting for photography. I don't know what all I can photograph there. It will be interesting to explore that region a bit, but I don't know how long we can linger there without water. Taking one gallon of water there should be difficult. I don't know how much we can realistically take. It will be quite an adventure, I'm sure. Plus, there are going to be some isolated thunderstorms. I have never understood what that means, but it can get pretty bad with lightning in a wide open area. So, we have to be back at the car by noon or so. I think we can do it. Let's see. We will know by Saturday afternoon what happened ;) Will update later.

Plus, I am organizing a music show this year too. Actually speaking, a lot of stuff that I had to do last year - I don't have to do now. All the mixing, music AV equipment is taken care of. There is no drummer, so I have sequenced pretty much everything in my keyboard. We just have to do a good job on stage. The singers have to improve a little. I am waiting to hear feedback about the show already. Let me see how far my keyboard takes me.

Sivaji (twice)

as of now, we have watched Sivaji twice ;) what more can I say about this movie. just type sivaji in google and figure out for yourself. I am busy with music program rehearsals. I am also busy with work. I am also busy with planning for a national park tour that we are undertaking next week. Looking forward to it :)

canon rebate

my rebate came in today! finally. I had mailed my stuff on March 14th I think. one can't be too careful these days. I took so many precautions, yet the mail was almost lost and the rebate was almost denied. I really had to earn my money back.

funeral

Today was a heart breaking day for me. I attended the funeral of a friend/aquaintance that I met during one of the tamil sangam's events. Death is the ultimate reality for all of us and it is something that we all understand the exact same way. The funeral was rather quiet, for an Indian one, but I am tempted to think everyone must have wept uncontrollably in the last week. The person passed away last week. It is very hard to come to terms with the fact that the body & soul don't exist anymore. Cancer could be very traumatizing, both for the person and for the family. His wife was one of the bravest in the hall, I guess she must have been through enough. I pray that he rests in peace and his family finds peace.

I sometimes wonder what kind of a life this is and why we all need to go through this, to ultimately end in death. What's the purpose? Why should we all be subjected to this? I guess I won't know.