My absence

well I was in India from Nov 20th to Dec 16th. That means I left LAX on Nov 18th and reached back on Dec 17th. That was my longest vacation to India/Chennai in quite some time. I wonder why I call it an India trip at all, 'cause frankly I don't know much apart from how Chennai looks. I wanted to go to Bangalore, but that didn't happen. The main mission to accomplish was to prepare for my father's 60th bday celebrations and that went very well. Apart from that we did quite a lot of shopping - mostly clothes for us and the visiting family members and friends. Clothes are expensive. I bought a couple of nice shoes as well. I am back alone 'cause my wife wanted to stay back for some more months. That's about it.

the weekend so far

the weekend will come to an end soon. I had to do many things to prepare for our trip to India soon. I recorded about 28 songs from my keyboard. People back home have been asking me to do so. We watched a couple of movies. Borat is #1 this weekend too! that's amazing. We just came back from a "world of opera" concert held in San Diego Symphony Hall. Didn't know that Irwin Jacobs has pledged to donate $100 million to the Copland Symphony foundation. That's a nice gesture ;)

Got something

got something that's really needed on Nov 7th ;)

Nacho Libre, etc

I watched many movies in the weekend - nacho libre, MI3, Motorcycle Dairies, Borat ;) I liked all of them very much. Borat is definitely one of the funniest movies. It's also easily the grossest one I have seen. You can easily take offense to it and easily laugh too. Nacho Libre was exactly like Napoleon Dynamite, not nearly as funny. I really liked the title music. It was very apt. MI3 was an edge of the seat thriller. Very well done. I really liked Motorcycle Dairies until the 2nd half, where it gets philosophical, etc.

Problems with Air India

AI cancelled the flight from Singapore to Chennai because of bad weather in Chennai. Here's the good part - apparenly, a flight from Chennai is supposed to fly to Singapore first so that it can bring the passengers from there and that's the flight that wasn't able to take off!???? How do you like that?

Parents have left

I dropped them off at LAX last night. After quite a few phone calls that were exchanged between Air India and myself, they finally managed to put them on a singapore airlines flight. Time flies - their visit now seems very short. I am not sure if I managed to please them and make their trip entirely pleasant 'cause I was too busy. I did my best though - couldn't have done any better ;) They will reach India on Friday. Another four weeks or so and we'll be gone too.

Stuff I've been thinking about

My mind knows. It knows that I should stop doing a lot of things I do now. I haven't been able to live the moment for quite some time now. There are all these thoughts. I somehow need to create value with all my talents. I just don't know how. I have been thinking very hard about this questions for a very long time now and I have no answer at all. What my mind says is that I am losing my present with this anxiety, but I am unable to take charge now. My mind says that start on something and the fog will clear from there, but I am somehow not able to proceed with full speed now. I need energy. I have to take charge. How can one create value from interest in music, interest in photography, films and a deep knowledge and appreciation for science? Particularly, what will I do with the professional experience that I have gathered? What do people do in general? Do they just go with the flow, complaining all the time? Or do they just go with the flow happily, hoping for the good stuff to happen whenever it is destined to happen? What do the rest of the men do? Seriously.

Education. It is something I truely value. Be it in any field. It is a process in which you learn quite a bit. The life after education is when you seldom use all of your knowledge. That's the sad part. May be I should have become a professor, but let me not go in that direction. I have this constant urge to learn something. Anytime not spent learning is considered a waste. Anytime that is not spent pursuing your passion is also a big waste. I am tempted to think that this phase will pass. I want to be optimistic. But the clock doesn't wait for anyone. It keeps ticking.

I have a lot of ideas. Tons of them. My nature, call it stupid, tells me that I want to execute all my ideas when my mind knows that one of them itself can take a lifetime to accomplish. Who planted all these ideas in me? Is it so that I'll definitely do something about it? Aren't there any clear people in the world? What do they all do and how did they arrive there? I do see a lot of content people, who don't seem to give a damn about their future. I envy them in one sense. I feel like I have come too far from being like that. My thinking and contemplating mind never stops. It just never stops.

I need to start exercising vigorously again. I have been rather dull. All work and no play makes me a dull boy. I realized that I was quite happy and energetic when I had a strict gym schedule - 3 times a week. It was quite amazing. Amazing to the extent that it was not meant to last. I had this thing going on for four years in a row. I somehow had the motivation, regardless of where I lived, to keep going to the gym and do my one hour thing there. How the hell did that end? I can't possibly explain 'cause I don't know.

I am interested in entrepreneurship. I can't take finance or investment banking. Consulting - may be, but I am getting old for that. I can't put in so many hours per week and see my time being spent away from music, photography. I need those two in my life. Can I take music courses in the undergrad/grad level somewhere? I can already tell you that my mind would want to take photography courses as well. How about film school? Do I stand a chance at all? What am I missing here? Is this the so called mid-life crisis. I really hope not, because I can see things getting far worse.

I thought I would vent the steam out a little. I took a career test from www.livecareer.com. You should take it too. It takes about 20 minutes to answer the 100 questions or so they have on the site, for which there are no right or wrong answers. I know about these tests. You need to be completely honest in order to get a fair evaluation of your interests and your skills, talent, etc. Apparently, I am the most interested in Arts, Science and Writing. The former two I can understand, but I don't know where writing came from. It's a means of being creative...so I guess I can include that. I am also not very assertive or persuasive apparently. I remember earlier I had flunked an entrepreneur test that I found in Guy Kawasaki's website. Don't know where I am headed, to be brutally honest.

The only thing right now that can make me totally happy is a reasonably clear short term future, say 2 years. Education is an option or working hard and learning new things is another. In either of these, I don't see music standing much of a chance. Photography is solely restricted to when I am travelling, but I want to do a lot more. God bless.

Laterz.

Hello....it's september

It's the 9th month this year and I have not idea what all happened. there's just one thing that happened this year - work. I have not been really socializing in the last several months. I have almost forgot how it is to be normal. The more extraordinary I think I want to be, the more abnormal my life is becoming. May be I should just try to be ordinary. I think I have a window of opportunity here that I shouldn't miss. I don't know what exactly the opportunity is. I feel like I should learn more - may be I'll get that if I do an MBA or go to film school. We saw "Vettayadu Vilayadu" in the theatre this weekend and I really liked it. Kamal has given a pretty good subdued performance. The story was good. The best thing was the cinematography! They have really set a standard and it is hard for me to imagine what they would have done to get New York the way they have! Lots of things to learn. I need total peace at this point. Can't go on like this forever. Clock is ticking.

3rd anniversary

of our wedding is today! time has flown so fast that it is difficult to grasp the reality. My parents are here....that's what is special about this anniversary. Otherwise, I would have planned some nice trip or the other. Last year we went to Hawaii and the previous year we had gone to Alaska. But nothing much this year. I guess I will just go around the area here.....

SPQ

This online quiz supposedly tells you whether you can be a good student at B-school or not!

Peter Pan (21-30 SPQ)

Annoyance Level: Medium

You are not quite ready to face the adult world, so school has become your sanctuary. Some might call you a professional student. Perhaps you have collected a few graduate degrees already, or you just wanted to relive your undergraduate days, when you felt life was a party.

Making friends comes easy, and your classmates probably think that you're a lot of fun. But many of them can't afford to go out every night. One of your redeeming qualities is your charisma, but even that can backfire, warns Jon Pinder, associate professor at Wake Forest University.

Robert Hogan, a PhD in psychology and president of Hogan Assessment Systems in Tulsa, Okla., warns that B-school will probably disappoint the Peter Pans. "It's dreary turning in papers," he says. "It's not the world [you] remembered."

If you're willing to get serious and seek direction, you might still be able to get your money's worth at B-school. Putting down the beer and picking up a book would be a good start.

This is what I got out the quiz the second time I took it:

Annoyance Level: Low

You fit in well at B-school and know how to balance work and personal life. You are often the unsung hero of your group projects because you know how to get the best out of your classmates, many of whom are your true friends. B-school is a chance for you to lay the foundation for a career that will make you happy. Even though you had to make sacrifices to go back to school, you wouldn't have it any other way.

Tolerating those who are less laid-back and confident can be a challenge for Ms./Mr. MBA. But you just have to keep in mind that diverse personalities contribute to creating the right class chemistry.

There's always room for improvement even if you are well-liked and getting the most you can out of your B-school experience. You might consider reaching out to a wallflower in your class or a first-year student in need of a mentor. Helping others, after all, will turn Ms./Mr. MBA from average to above average.

8th anniversary

Today (Aug 10th) is my 8th anniversary of setting foot on the U.S. soil! It's equivalent to finishing two B.Techs - 8 years ;) time indeed flies by so fast. I never thought past the year 2000 in my life, but it has been already 6 years since Y2K went by. On Aug 10th 2000, we also had a minor episode on the freeway when going to the bay area - the car in which we were going basically lost control and spun on the freeway before coming to a complete halt on the emergency shoulder!

Parents

arrived yesterday (aug 3rd) safely. They brought tons of stuff with them and we're struggling to accommodate everything in our house ;) Lots of stuff to do this weekend. Laterz.

Happybirthday

a lot of people in madras take this for one term. they ask "is today your happy birthday" and I want to say "yeah, today is my birthday alright, but I don't know if I am happy or not, particularly after you asked this question". you keep hearing "when is your happy birthday".....I don't know whether they really want to know which birthday we are finally going to be happy or if they are indicating that I have not been happy enough on all my other birthdays!

Final 500!

I got my $500 deductible from the insurance finally, more than 3 months after the accident happened. They sent me a letter with the cheque and a note saying that this closes the case. They are so glad to be done, but I have been a good customer and have patiently waited for the money. And life goes on, with the new car with already 3500 miles on it!

Desserts!

My friend had called me to go with him to extraordinary desserts, a place somewhere close to downtown san diego that's very famous for its desserts. The previous time I had gone there with one other couple, we had somewhat got lost but eventually found this place. This time, I asked my friend to drive 'cause I was tired. We reached that place, but couldn't locate the actual address. Plus it had too many oneways and crowded streets, that we somehow eventually ended up taking the freeway itself! After that the next exit on the freeway turned out to be another freeway! ;) When we took the first exit on that freeway to make a U turn back onto the freeway, we missed the entrance and took some other surface road. I had to refer to a map after that to get back on 163S. We repeated the process of taking the exit, etc and were determined to find this place now after parking somewhere.

After quite a few rounds, we parked the car on 3rd street and washington. The place seemed rather quiet and run down, but there was some activity on washington street, with the video stores right on the corner. I helped my friend parallel park and just as we got out of the car and locked it, a totally drunk woman lost her balance and fell on the car behind us which set the panic alarm in that car. By this time, my friend had got pretty frustrated with the whole experience. We thought she would gather herself up and move on, but she did so, only to fall right next to our car! Another homeless guy started helping her out, but also started leaning on our car, much to the anxiety of my friend ;) We then decided to call 911 'cause we thought the situation needed some attention. The old drunken lady just couldn't gather herself up and even bore the beatings of the other homeless guy around her. We finally made up our minds to go and locate this place called extraordinary desserts, with the hope that it would cool us down. The address was supposed to be some twentyninetwentynine 5th street and we kept on going on 5th street, but it seemed it would continue forever before we reached this place. After quite sometime, we decided to return back. When we came back to our car, we found that the ambulance had just arrived at the scene and the paramedics were trying to help out the old lady. I told them what I witnessed and the man thanked me. I was almost going to ask him whether he knew the address of this extraordinary desserts, in Larry David style but decided against it. The whole thing seemed funny to me ;)

What and Why - Music

Why do I love music and am so passionate about it? I am even obsessed with good music. Let us see why.

• To me music represents one of the highest forms of creativity exhibited by humans - every music piece is like a new being - a creature and a work of art.
• I am fascinated at the varieties that are possible. I am also amazed at how our ears recognize music as a form of art - how they distinguish music from general noise. They say that even an untrained ear can detect the slightest dissonance.
• Music has given me great joy during my childhood. I used to be able to pick a few tracks from a song and just concentrate on that one track. Ilayaraja is the single most reason why I am interested in music.
• Music has instilled many different feelings in me. To me it is a form of expression - that allows us to express many different subtle feelings very clearly.
• It also amazes me how the same tune can bring about different feelings to different people.
• Music is something that comes from the composer's heart and hence a pure reflection of what he/she "feels" about the situation.
• A lot of math is involved in music scoring or reading - which again appeals to me because I am also scientifically inclined.
• All the ancient composers' works appeal to me a lot. I am amazed at their success at music and more amazed that their tunes are still being played all over the world even after a couple of centuries of their death. They live through their music and they seem to have done something great to mankind.
• If I am able to play a tune on the keyboard, it has a great positive effect on me - I feel more confident and happier. I am able to appreciate the composers' mastery on the subject whenever I try to decompose a song into its individual tracks.
• Just like a picture is worth a thousand words, music is also worth a thousand words. Sometimes music can express something much better than words.
• I am very impressed with Rahman's career progress and his gift for music. He inspired me to learn the keyboard. It is a matter of pride for me that Rahman is so successful worldwide just 'cause of his music.
• It is a means of doing something for mankind - it is a means to relieve their stress and entertain them and in return earning their praise and wishes. It is something that would give great recognition that commensurates with the effort that goes into making music, unlike many other professions.
• It is a means to reach people that you don't know and a means to make them listen to your heart.
• It is a means to be surrounded by positive energy and a means to be in touch with one's true self.
• Music is a form of expressions where there are no rules within a set of rules.
• Music is an art that requires minimal equipment or accessories - voice alone is enough to produce music and amuse anybody in the world.
• Music affects me deeply and instills many different feelings in me and I want to be able to reproduce those feelings with my own self.

What and Why - Photography

I have become very interested in photography. It's another cliche thing to say, but that's the truth for whatever reason. Why would I be interested in photography? Let me think:

• I used to be an artist when I was a kid - that was probably my childhood talent or inborn talent or whatever you want to call it - the stuff that came to me naturally. For various reasons I had to ditch that art and move on. Photography offers me a very close result - I like to shoot landscapes and stuff now and I feel like an artist.
• It involves a lot of technical details and effort to come up with a nice photo. Being scientifically inclined, I enjoy this aspect of photography. I like to read about cameras, film, digital sensors and dynamic range, etc.
• Good pictures that come out are really rewarding - people like it for one and it boosts my self confidence. It gives me a feeling that I have done something above the ordinary - something distinctive.
• There is a lot more room to improve 'cause I see great pictures everyday and keep refining my benchmarks.
• It is artistic - the composition, framing, exposure, etc give me a lot of room for creativity. It partly satisfies my creative desires.
• My perfectionist attitude constantly interferes with the result of the pictures that I take, but I have learnt to 'stop the photo' at interesting places without further refining them.
• It is again, one more step closer to mother nature. It forces me to spend time on one particular subject without getting distracted by whatever that surrounds it.
• It is a form of meditation and allows me to focus (apart from focussing the camera).
• The idea of holding an exhibition or having an online gallery really appeals to me and seems like a somewhat distant goal that I can strive towards.
• I truly value people's appreciation and comments on my photos and that means a lot to my self confidence.

What and Why - Travel:

I like to travel. It's probably a cliche to say that. I have not travelled much in India. What is travel about anyway? That's what I'll try to answer here. Let's see.

• Travel is a means of discovery, exploration. You discover a part of yourself when you travel and that's probably why I am even writing this blog.
  
• It is a means of unwinding from an otherwise monotonous life.
• It is a step closer to the all powerful nature
• It feels good for the body and the mind.
• You don't notice the passing of time when you travel which means that you are happy and are living the moment without thinking about anything else.
• It allows the mind to focus and be engrossed in something.
• It is what you can do to get to know more about our planet and what all is there on it.
• It is a means to get to know more people, various cultures and probably a means to understand life itself.
• It gives something to talk about to your friends and family and amuse them with your travel stories.
• It is a sense of adventure and a feeling that you have accomplished something more than the ordinary.
• It improves the health of body & mind.
• Everytime I travel, I learn something. My mind needs constant work.
• It is a means of being creative because you don't know what you are going to run into - same as exploration and discovery.
• It is a means for me to take landscape pictures and appreciate the beauty of nature and gives an opportunity for being creative.
• I personally attach a lot of value to exploration and discovery and coming up with some great shots which others haven't taken before. To me it is important to do something above the ordinary. At the same time, it is also important for me to do the ordinary extraordinary things like visiting Grand Canyon, etc.
• You come back from the trip charged up to continue your everyday activities.
  

Colorado Trip

We had gone to Colorado for the long weekend (July 4th). We had a very hectic schedule and I don't have as much time to write about the trip in great detail as much as I want to. So, I'll quickly summarize it now and try to elaborate it later:

Day 1: We landed at Denver airport at around 9:45 AM local time. By the time we could rent the car and get out, it was 10:30AM....i wanted to see if we can reach the Pikes Peak Cog Railway thing by noon so that we can get on that train, but we were unfortunately just in time and hence couldn't get it. Our luck was that all the afternoons of our stay in colorado was cloudy and stormy. Regardless, as planned and reserved, we got in the 1:20PM train up the peak. The cloudy weather and overcast sky is the worst enemy of a landscape photographer unless you have some special subjects. If you are just planning to shoot the regular scenery, you would want a blue sky - something that I didn't find in the afternoons. One wonders where all the cloud comes from. Anyways, so the cog railway starts on time and heads up hill. Pikes peak is one of the tallest peaks in colorado - a height of more than 14000 feet. There are about 50 peaks which are over that height in colorado and you can see many of them eye to eye from the Rocky Mountain National Park's Trail Ridge Road.

The thing went up the summit. There were lightning strikes on nearby peaks and we were warned to get inside the building if we saw our hair standing up. I thought it was a wonderful opportunity to shoot lightning. I thought I shot a couple, but when the slides came back, I hadn't caught one lightning. There were so many though. All of a sudden, we were charged up by an impending lightning and my hair was all standing up. We were terrified and immediatley ran inside the visitor center to protect ourselves. I later learnt that the positive charge accumulates on ground and forms a path up to the negative charge arising from the cloud - when the circuit is closed you have a lightning and thunder. We really didn't want to be in the path - the temperatures exceed 50000C apparently! That was literally a hair raising experience. It was much colder at the top and the air was so thin at 14000 feet that I was breathing so hard just to stay normal. Any couple of steps that I take - I found it very hard to keep up. They say one must drink a lot of water at such high altitudes to remain hydrated.

I wasn't too impressed with the Pike's Peak summit - in fact, that's the least favorite of everything we did. We would have barely spent about 20 minutes at the summit and we had to catch the train that was going down. We came down, looking at the scenery. There was some rain to add to all the cloudiness. There were couple of people sitting in front of us that didn't bother asking us before they closed down the window when I was trying to take some pictures.

The next thing we did was Garden of the Gods. This place is unique and has very wierd rock formations. There are very thin hills and mountains, all made of rocks. It was something new that we hadn't seen before. We spent some time there. Again, I wished that the sky was blue, but it wasn't, much to my disappointment. Bear in mind, we were able to do all the activities that we had planned, but I missed out on some real good photographic opportunities because of the overcast sky.

The third and the best thing for the day turned out to be a 45 minute tour of the "Cave of the Winds" in Manitou Springs - a city that's adjacent to Colorado Springs. This is an underground cave and offered me some of the best photographic opportunities for the entire trip. It's like a slot canyon buried underground, filled with stalactites and staglamites and lot's of interesting formations. I was amazed at the beauty. We then did groceries for the remainder of the trip and figured out where the hotel was and checked in. We cooked simple dinner and slept that day 'cause we were exhausted. The plan was to wake up at 5:30 AM the next day and head to Canon city, where we had reserved a rafting trip.

Day 2:

So we got up at 5:30 AM or so and pretty quickly got ready and had breakfast at 6:30 AM itself. By the time we filled gas and set out, it was 7:20AM. Nobody in Colorado Spgs knew how long it will take to reach Canon City, but we kind of guessed it'll be around 1 hr. and that's how long it took us. We were there in Raft Masters office by 8:10 AM, 5 minutes before the check in. They were not really paying much attention to the time of check in. There were a whole bunch of people there, amongst which there was a group of 18 people from Texas (they could be either Pakistani or Bengladeshi - my best guess). I originally planned to go with my swimming shorts only, but on second thoughts, decided to rent the wet suit. We rented three things - the wet suit, jacket, river boots. The life jacket was given to everyone and it was not officially rented. These things were not charged. I used a AAA discount to get our tickets to about $52 each. The guide asked us to board the shuttle bus to go upstream where we will launch our raft boats. He then told us of all the safety precautions. My wife couldn't take them all since she has absolutely no first hand experience in water, leave alone swimming. She was totally scared, but I assured her that it would all be ok. We were all asked to wear helmets BTW (yellow color).

We then boarded our raft and Brit was our rafting guide. She happened to be the older sister of the guy who gave us all the safety instructions. During the course of rafting, she was telling us about her family - her parents are farmers in Canon City and she just bought a house for $200,000 with a 30 year loan. During summer, she does rafting trips though it doesn't pay her all that much. She does painting on china dishes, something like that during winter time and that pays her during then. She was a great guide and really manuevered the raft very cleverly in the class V rapids to avoid tipping of the boat. I was the second best in the raft (I am not even kidding). We were with a bunch of oldies from Texas and they weren't much use paddling during the tough portions. The guide has also done a 27 day rafting trip in the Grand Canyon and told us that it was a lot of fun. Anyways, the rafting itself turned out to be a hell lot of fun. I was laughing hard whenever we went through the rapids - class III, IV, V and only longed for more. My wife on the other hand was waiting for the trip to end. We didn't get all that drenched though we went through some 3-4 foot waterfalls - not that big but big enough to be called class V. I paddled hard throughout the trip. The rafting was done on Arkansas river, amidst the Royal Gorge, which was spectacular. There were 1000 foot walls of rock on either side of the boat and the scenery was splendid indeed! Towards the end of the trip, the river mellowed down and my wife started enjoying ;) Water didn't splash on us all that much since the guide made my wife sit in the middle of the boat so that she will be the least scared.

Finally the rafting had to end and we were driven back to Canon City where we took some pictures before surrendering all the gear back to them. We had lunch in our car, got directions for Great Sand Dunes and set out. On the way, we encountered terrible thunderstorms and heavy rain that I had to pull over and wait for the rain to subside. I guess that is how thunderstorms are - it's like somebody is pouring buckets full of water on you - the water doesn't even get time to get dispersed into droplets. We were thankful that our rafting trip went in good weather and were kind of disappointed at the same time 'cause I was planning to take some good pictures at the sand dunes. Regardless, we kept driving and we drove through some beautiful scenery - close to the Arkansas river. We must have reached the great sand dunes visitor center a little before 5PM. The Sand Dunes is an amazing sight. We really wished that the sky was clear, but continued to take some pictures of that place. Nothing to worry 'cause there is some sand dunes close to San Diego that I can visit. We did some short hike on the dunes and set out from there at 6:30PM after which it started raining over there. We reached Colorado Springs before 10PM and had dinner and crashed.

Day 3:

I haven't udpated this blog in some days and before the enthu runs out or I forget, I felt the need to finish this travel diary. Day 3, we set out at pretty much the same time as Day 2 - 7:25AM, from CO Springs and headed towards Aspen after filling gas. We went on 24 west, through Manitou Springs. We got a pretty crappy car, thanks to Denver Airport's ridiculous car rental prices. It wasn't climbing any small hill, so we kept on driving slowly like Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels on the motorcycle in Dumb and Dumber. We went through some scenic places and took a break at a city called Buena Vista - which is celebrated as the rafting capital. Arkansas river runs through this city. The weather was awesome so far. We had some coffee there and moved on. Close to Buena Vista, we caught freeway 82 west that goes to Aspen through a mountaneous landscape. This segment was getting better and better. We stopped at a place called Twin Lakes and took some pictures. We moved on and I was delighted to see so many mini forests of Aspen trees all around the road. We stopped at another place called Willis Gulch which offered plenty of photographic opportunites. We then proceeded towards Aspen because we wanted to see Maroon Bells asap and move on to Glenwood springs. We reached Aspen around noon and I went straight to the visitor center where they gave me a map of the small pretty town and told me the various points of interest I should be visiting. Of course I didn't have time for all of them. We then proceeded to the place where we were to board the shuttle bus that leaves for Maroon Bells. We had lunch before we boarded the bus. The bus takes about 20 minutes to get to Maroon Bells. The weather at Maroon Bells is kind of indeterminate, but generally gets overcast and rainy during the afternoon. We learnt the lesson the hard way - we had to face the rain.

Maroon Bells is one hell of a scenic place and really offers numerous opportunities for photographers like me. The place is lush green, with a lake and two gigantic mountains called the Maroon - Bells, literally because they are maroon in color and look like bells. The scenery was awesome. We took a ranger led walk around the lake and were awe-struck at the beauty of that place with all the blooming wild flowers and all that. We also tasted a plants leaves that had some medicinal value. We went somewhat deep into the trail with the ranger and I kept stopping for pictures frequently until a really hard rain hit us. It became sleet in a short while and gave us no choice other than running towards the visitor center. I was very disappointed at this - firstly, the sky wasn't blue and secondly, my camera was under risk of getting hydrated ;) Anyways, as always, I told myself that I have to go there again sometime and somehow made up my mind to leave. We caught the shuttle back and went back to Aspen, where we wasted no time in getting back into the car and driving towards Glenwood Springs. The weather became perfect after a while before we reached GS. I immediately located the hot springs hotel there and parked the car and rushed towards the hot springs swimming pool. We had to satisfy a few formalities, etc, but I just couldn't wait to get in the water. My wife also joined me. We would have spent a good two to two and a half hours in the pool.

There are two pools there - one of them is called the therauptic pool and the other one is regular. The former is really hot and the latter is cooled down for everyone to swim pleasurably. I really enjoyed swimming in these pools. It was very relaxing after a tiring two days of running around. There was no rain, but the crowd was too much. I couldn't swim straight for a long time. They feed the swimming pool with the hot water springs and mix it with freshwater to make it a little cooler 'cause the source water is too hot. We originally had plans to visit this place called hanging lake near glenwood springs but we were so enthralled by the hot water springs that we decided to take it easy and just continue to rest. At about 7 pm or so, we felt we were done and quickly packed up and had dinner and started our long drive towards Denver. It took us easily 3 hours going through all the mountains and passes and what not. Plus driving in the night made it kind of stressful. There were a few cities up there in the mountains at 9000 feet. The I-70 freeway near glenwood springs is a work of art - there are two levels, one for each side of the traffic and each side had independent tunnels. It is built in a narrow canyon, with the colorado river flowing in it, with a train track on the other side of the canyon. Overall, it was spectacular. We reached Denver at around 10:30 PM or so and checked in the hotel and crashed almost immediately.

The next day, we were to pack up everything completely and head to rocky mountains national park.

Day 4:

So we got up and packed up everything. Had some breakfast at the hotel, checked out and started driving towards the Rocky Mountain National Park. The hotel was conveniently located near the major freeways that took us to the park, so it helped. It's about an hour and a half drive to estes park, the entrance to the national park. We were checking the weather and the forecast was thundershowers for the afternoon - so we were kind of determined to cover most of the park before the afternoon. We had a flight to catch at 8:40PM, so we planned it such that we would leave the park at around 3PM, so that we may comfortably reach the airport before 7PM with the July 4th traffic and all. In the end, because we hurried so much at each place, we had too much time to kill and reached the airport at 5:45PM itself. In the park, we first went to a place called Bear Lake. The lake was awesome, with blue skies in the morning and lush vegetation around it. A short hike away, was another lake called Nymph Lake - that was awesome too and was well worth the 0.5mi hike. We didn't want to venture out any further on the trail that would have led to some 5 other lakes 'cause we didn't have much time. We headed back from Bear Lake, which by that time was full with parked cars. The final day was pretty much driving and stopping at important vista points and taking pictures. We reached the Alpine Visitor Center at around 2:30 PM or so and I did a short hike up to the nearest summit. When they say that the air is thin above 12000 feet, you need to take it seriously and literally. I ran out of breath like carzy - I was panting hard and was kind of totally sapped of my energy. I took it slowly after than and reached this peak and took some pictures. I came down, spent a few minutes at the visitor center and the store there and pretty much started our drive out of the park to Granby and from there back to DEN.

We reached DEN much sooner than we had planned and were able to get onto an earlier flight, which was kind of delayed and eventually left at the time scheduled for my original flight which was delayed even further. We landed at SAN at 9:45 or so and came back home.

It was one hell of a trip overall and turned out to be a hair raising experience - literally!

Moving fast

Life is moving pretty fast and things seem out of control. Both have the same meaning. I have a bunch of things to plan for the colorado trip. In the meantime, I have got the lens adapter for my canon g3. now I can use my polarizing filter over my digital camera as well. It is something that I should have done 3 years back! How many good snaps have I wasted so far. Oh my god. Ignorance is bliss. I feel like I should have the graduated neutral density filter all my life. I will have to go to antelope canyon again to shoot some nice pictures with the neutral density filter now. How can this be? I was reading some Murphy's laws today and they seemed so funny that I started laughing hard. My favorite one was this: "you don't experience until just after you have needed it" ;) These are really laws!

So, I am probably a good multi tasker at this point. It feels good on one sense, but on the other hand, I feel like I have somewhat moved away from my routine activities. I don't even know how normal life feels like now. It has been like this for quite sometime.

My wife always offers me soy milk in the night. I refuse invariably. and she questions me. what can I do?

General Stuff

I have been trying to do many things. Today has been reasonably productive. I booked rafting in Colorado and also the Cog railway in pikes peak. I settled a violation with San diego superior court by going to the police station in mira mesa and getting it signed off ( address correction citation). I got some real work done, did some minor innovation there. I also booked Rahman's concert on July 16th. I got a few more friends in orkut. But still there is a lot more to do. I have to remember to get camera battery. I thought I just changed it recently and it seems to be dying already. Photography is becoming very expensive that it is really warranting the purchase of a DSLR. I have to try that thing. It is so convenient and I can do without many filters and what not. Well when is the time?

Things to do tomorrow

This weekend is going to be busy, if I end up doing all that I write here:

1. Visit somebody tomorrow at 9am
2. Visit Calumet, Nelson's Photo to find out if they have filters, etc
3. Book rafting and cog railway in Colorado
4. Plan for the trip and finalize the details
5. Work
6. Boogie Boarding
7. Mail out some insurance forms
8. Buy stuff for the trip - slippers, swimming shorts, etc if needed (film rolls too)

I'll update this if I can think of more.

What and Why?

I read somewhere that one should figure out what they like to do and more importantly why they like to do that. I thought it was very profound. I would like to see what comes out of this experiment. Supposedly, you'll notice a trend if you list out all the things that you like to do. I noticed a trend in the stuff that I liked to do - it all involves some form of art. But I am not fully convinced. I'll have to dig deeper and figure out for myself. This is the toughest job one can have. Let me finish this particular blog here and start from the next one.

Summer Solstice

Today is June 21st, considered as the day of Summer Solstice. That basically means that today we have the longest day and hence the shortest night. Today also happens to be the Winter Solstice for people in the Southern Hemisphere. That's quite something. I can't imagine any part of the world experiencing winter now. Summer vacation would mean an entirely different thing for them ;) They would be celebrating Christmas during Summer as opposed to the whole bunch of people in the Northern Hemisphere. It would be nice to spend summer here in the northern hemisphere and travel to a country/place like Australia and continue to experience summer there ;)

I am hooked to Filters

Well I am a filter designer myself. But the filters that I am talking about are those that you attach in front of the lens to moderate exposure levels and bring more detail to the shot. I did some study and found that there is an entire industry out there making thousands of filters for various effects. Even after the advent of digital photography, people find it indispensable to have nice filters. After all, you can't do any postprocessing of digital images if you don't have good data to begin with. That's where the filters come in handy. Take the neutral density filter for example. It is a must for landscape photography. If you are shooting a landscape against a well lit up sky, you'll either overexpose the sky and lose detail there or underexpose the landscape and lose detail there. Neutral density filters darken the sky and correspondingly bring out more detail there, so you can get a really good exposure. I was hooked to a photograph of Moraine Lake in Canada for the last couple of days. That photograph was too perfect (found it on www.photo.net). I was wondering how the photographer managed to capture such detail and found that he used a graduated neutral density filter (cokin) and just a regular digital camera with 8M pixels. The result was amazing and of course now I am determined to replicate that result. So I have somewhat narrowed down to buying a colkin kit, with the adapter ring, filter holder and the filter itself because this brand is cheap. People say that colkin has some color problems and is not scratch resistant. But Tiffen, Schneider and other filters cost a whole lot and spending that much on filter accessories is not currently justified although I can afford them. I really would like to make money out of photography. Ideally the hobby should pay for itself. It is all just a matter of doing it. and too many people are doing it after the advent of digital photography!

Furthermore, I found this lens adapter to add to my Canon G3 so that I may use the polarizing filter along with it. I have always wanted to do that and finally found out today that there is this adapter which will enable me to do it. But I don't have another polarizing filter. I would have to keep changing the filter between the two cameras I have. I do slide shots these days and have pretty much forgotten about color negatives. I think they will become extinct soon.

Saturday at the Beach

I did boogie boarding with a bunch of friends at La Jolla Shores Beach this saturday - probably for about 2.5 hours! The waves were really great and everyone had a lot of fun. I caught some double and triple waves. I finally bought a boogie board so that I don't have to worry about renting it everytime.

Trying to get some work done now. Did I mention that my best time solving a 'hard' sudoku puzzle is 4 minutes and 1 second? That's supposed to be in the top 1%.

I still have to figure out what ticks me. And I have to figure out why. There's a lot of work there ;)

48 things about dream

I had to write this here - I found this in this website: No. 32 did give me goosbumps - I couldn't believe it ;)

48 Things to Remember About Living Your Dream

Copyright 2006 Cari Vollmer

You have one, don’t you? A dream? Of course you do. We all do. Whether your dream is big or small here’s some advice on Living Your Dream.

1. You can be sure it’s a dream and not a fantasy if your dream involves serving others in some way.

2. You’re never too old to start living your dream.

3. Living your dream will allow you to be the best you can be and use your natural gifts, passions and talents to the fullest.

4. Living your dream will give you energy, even if your dream requires you to work harder than ever before.

5. Dreams are never too big, even if they start out feeling that way. You will grow into your dream!

6. Your dream is your dream for a reason. Therefore, if you don’t live your dream, you’re not living up to your purpose in life or your full potential.

7. Sometimes dreams have a way of bringing up the pain of our past. That’s because just on the flip side of your dream is all your “stuff”.

8. Living your dream will help you heal your “stuff”.

9. You already possess all the talents and passions needed to bring your dream to light.

10. Your dream expects only one thing from you - to give it away.

11. Living your dream requires courage. You won’t be able to live your dream if you can’t find your courage.

12. Living your dream will inspire many others to live their dream. Can you imagine a world of people living out their dreams?

13. Your Dream = Love

14. Dreams DO come true.

15. Dreams can and will change over time. Therefore, keep asking yourself, “What’s my dream today?”

16. If you have a dream, you’re lucky. All the more reason to start living yours!

17. Living your dream may require you to make changes in your life; some big, some small, but all worth it.

18. Living your dream may make others uneasy. That’s O.K. That just means they’ve been ignoring their dreams for far too long and by seeing you live yours they’re reminded they have something more to do in their life too.

19. People will try to discourage you from living your dream. Live your dream anyway.

20. Encourage every kid you meet to discover and live their dream.

21. Be a Dream Maker. Help other people make their dreams come true.

22. BELIEVE in your dream.

23. Some dreams don’t make sense at first. Stick with them, they will soon enough.

24. Fight for your dream.

25. Do whatever it takes to make your dream a reality.

26. Dreams come from many different places within you. You may feel your dream in your gut, your heart, your head, your soul. It doesn’t matter where it comes from along as it’s your dream and not someone else’s.

27. Some dreams come true over night and others take t-i-m-e. That’s O.K. The longer the wait, the more appreciative you’ll be when your dream comes true!

28. Dream BIG!!

29. Dream every day.

30. Dream the impossible.

31. Dream for others who can’t dream for themselves.

32. Dream of what it will be like when you’re living out your dream. Gives you goosebumps, doesn’t it?

33. Allow your dream to unfold in its own natural timing. Never push a dream. They don’t like to be pushed.

34. Do one thing today to make your dream come true.

35. Enjoy living your dream. Your dream really enjoys you!

36. Don’t be scared of your dream. Dreams aren’t scary, unless you make them so.

37. Forgive your dream. It may require a lot from you, more than you can give sometimes.

38. TRUST there’s a purpose to your dream. Keep trying to discover the purpose to yours.

39. Don’t hide your dream. Dreams like to romp around, play and be in the company of other dreams.

40. Your dream wants you to be a little bit crazy on occasion. In other words, dreams really don’t thrive from playing it safe. Get it?

41. Your dream wants you to know that it will come true if you do your part. Your dream promises it will do its part.

42. Never stop dreaming. If you’re a person who likes to dream and fulfill your dreams, more and more dreams will make their way to you. Dreams like people who listen to them.

43. The bigger you get, the bigger your dreams will get.

44. Living your dream may be the road to making more money than you ever have before.

45. But if you don’t (make more money), that’s O.K. because by living your dream you’ll finally understand that it’s not about the money anyway.

46. Your dream is perfect for you.

47. Dream now, dream later, dream all the time.

48. DREAM beautiful dreams.

Leadership class

was good to attend. but sitting in the class for a whole day is kind of intimidating. I guess it has to do with being dependent on the computer and the internet and the coffee breaks in your normal everyday life. I wish I can read some of the books listed in the bibliography of the tutorial. I have read the most important one though - "7 habits of highly effective people" ;)

Don't try to be interesting - Be interested!

This is a quote by Jim Collins, the author of "Good to Great" and few other books. I have read his book for some motivation. At some point of time last year, i was into this motivational stuff. I learnt a lot during that phase. Then work took over and my life got consumed and I have ended up restless as ever. In fact, this directly relates to the quote - if you try to be interested, you do find out a great deal of information and tend to be happier relatively. Which is what I was doing in the second half of last year - I was somehow content with the amount of information I was gathering inspite of the many unanswered questions. My restlessness subsided. Then I became terribly busy all of a sudden and have been heavily distracted from my stream of thoughts since then. In trying to be interesting, now I have ended up as an overworked, stressed and boring-cause-of-lack-of-play individual. I am trying to change that and I have somewhat succeeded. I am of course not where I want to be.

Let's try to apply this to my life now. There are too many unknowns - that's only because I think there is a need to know a lot of things. That's the desire that causes the corresponding suffering of having to deal with ambiguity. In the recent times, I have really learnt to make faster decisions at work, partially because that's what is expected and also because of the fact that it is important to get something done rather than making slow decisions and not having anything perceivable. I can quote that as a good learning in my life inspite of the amount of stress that I had to put up with. How else can I be interested? What should I be interested in? I know that I am having very complicated thoughts and I am not letting it go. I can't quite say that I have tried 100 things and none of them worked. I don't even know what I am trying and what for I am supposed to be trying anything. I am pretty sure there are quite a few people like me in this regard. I am also sure that they don't have the answer to the unknown question. I am watching a lot of Larry David these days in his episodes of "Curb your Enthusiasm". I highly recommend it BTW.

Look at Larry. He seems to be at peace with himself - well, not in those episodes, but overall. He has rightly capitalized on his talent and has had a decent break somewhere. He is 60+ and still pushing strong. He runs pretty fast and writes and directs and produces and what not. He still has the thing with him. Look at so many other sixty year olds around you - how many of them can be considered successful? I guess that would depend on the definition of success. We can keep arguing like that. But coming back to the point, how can I be interested? There are multiple things looming in the horizon. May be looming is not the right word. Let's say that there are multiple responsibilities for me in the future. One thing would be my own family and the other important thing would be the health of my parents and my in laws 'cause they are getting older. Harmony with family seems to be one very important thing for me although I have to admit that I have not been very good at it in the last couple of years. I guess those were the years when I tried to be interesting than be interested. Should I be totally interested in what I am doing right now? Why am I so influenced by successful people and flashy products and achievements? Should I dismiss this whole thing as a fantasy/dream or should I take it positively and do something about it. After all, there are so many others like me, or rather I am like so many others who are very predictable. What do I really have that would make me anymore special than somebody else. There aren't many to quote.

I was reading about this concept called "Space Elevator" today. It's a pretty fascinating concept where the rotation of the earth is exploited in hanging a taut tether between the earth's surface and space, where a counterweight is hung on the other end to counter the effects of gravity with centripetal force. They are testing the comercialization of this thing called "carbon nanotubes" which has the highest tensile strength and a relatively low weight. If they build this thing successfully, it could revolutionalize space travel and launch of rockets. They wouldn't have to burn so much fuel and propel a rocket into space - they can just get there slowly at the rate of 120mph. It's quite incredible! The point is that this thing affected me or rather I showed genuine interest in this.

Well, life is complicated. I will continue later.

Summer 06

I guess the summer has begun officially. It's been a while. There is light till at least 8pm (which is a great source of joy). I got my boogie board finally. I should have got it couple of years ago since I got hooked to it and have been doing it for quite some time. But as usual, I am skeptical as to how many times I would use it to justify the cost. But that's ok. At least I don't have to worry about returning it on time and take my credit card or cash to the rental place everytime. I can now leave pretty much everything in the car and walk to the beach with my stuff and have a nice time. We did boogie boarding today at La Jolla shores beach - my favorite spot for boogie boarding. Not many waves today though. Last weekend was much better. Our friends had also come. Both of them were trying it out for the first time. I am not sure if one of them would come again. I would have to talk to him since he was not really able to catch some good waves today. I think he got the hang of it though.

Then we had our tamil sangam meeting for which I was late. They are trying to hold like an american idol event - three teams with several themes each. they are supposed to sing a suitable song in each theme and will be ranked on their performance, song selection, lyrics, etc. There has been some discussion going on for quite sometime without major decisions being made. I am now for making decisions fast. The point is just to do it without wavering or dilly dallying all the time. There were conflicts as usual. It took a great deal of effort to convince people as to how practical the whole thing is.

I am back home now beginning to work.

Workaholism

I am beginning to think whether I belong in this category. Yesterday I watched parts of "Sweet November" starring Charlize Theron and Keanu Reeves. I think the gist of the story is that she tries to cure a workaholic Keanu Reeves. He seems very detached, too busy to even have a date or have a cup of coffee at her place. She takes him to the beach and just spends time without doing anything worthwhile, like playing with the dogs, etc.

Here's what I pulled up from Wikipedia regarding this topic:

A workaholic is a person addicted to work. This addiction may be pleasurable to the victim or it may be burdensome and troubling.

Workaholism is believed by some to be a disease, akin to obsessive compulsive disorder. The problem is that workaholics believe that if they don't work, their world will collapse. Workaholics do not necessarily love their work or try to excel in their work. If a person thinks he or she is the only person capable of performing their work, he/she is most likely a workaholic. Although most workaholism is associated with a paying job, it can also be associated with people who excessively practice sports, music, art, blogging.

The term is often used inaccurately to describe an energetic person who devotes a lot of time to work despite having good relations with co-workers, taking pleasure in other non-remunerative activities, being well rested, and attending properly to family and social life.

The condition is more accurately described when it becomes recognized by the victim or by others to be detrimental to family life or social relations within or outside of work. This may be due to the victim's fatigue, poor relationships with non-addicted co-workers, or lack of time and energy devoted to family life, friends, hobbies, and other activities.

The word itself is a play on "alcoholism," created via back-formation. The term was first coined in 1971 by Wayne Oats in his book, Confessions of a Workaholic. It gained more widespread use in the 1990s, as the result of a wave of the self-help movement that centered around addiction, analogizing harmful social behaviors such as overwork to drug addiction, including addiction to alcohol.

Japan is often portrayed as having a workaholic culture. Several Japanese workers die each year from overwork. The Japanese term for death by overwork is karoshi. In cases where it can be proven that the cause of death was overwork, the family can seek compensation from the employer for its failure to intervene in the employee's self-destructive behavior.

I am afraid now ;(

Oh My God! I took this quiz at forbes.com and this is what I get - it was a 25 question quiz and the answers were rather easy for me:

Are you a Workaholic?

Your Score is 72 - You are a workaholic. You could be on your way to burn out, and family members may be experiencing emotional repurcussions as well.

Damn!! What have I become?

Desires

There are too many things in my mind. As usual. Nothing new there. But some desirable things are new.

• Booking tickets for Rahman's concert in LA (July 16th)
• I am double booked for a party in LA and a Seinfeld show in SD on July 8th
• I wish to go to Denver for July 4th weekend and see around (may or may not happen)
• I wish I can plan our India trip during Nov-Dec time frame - I am kind of afraid that I may have to pay large prices for the flight 'cause that's the busy season
• I don't know when to bring my parents here and how to go about it
• My father's 60th birthday is completely unplanned as of now. It's on Dec 11th I think and I am totally unsure as to how to go about it now. Don't know how long that will take.
• My bike needs some fix
• I would like to travel to South America, New Zealand, Australia, Africa, Europe, Alaska, Hawaii, Bahamas, Tahiti, Egypt, etc. Obviously I would have to come to terms with the reality here
• I wish I can instantly be a movie director - it somehow seems cool. But knowing myself, I don't think I am going to feel entirely secure doing just that.
• Should I pursue higher studies - MBA, film school? or may be just take a year break and think about what I want to do?
• Taking care of my finances - something that I will never do until I retire I think.
• Taking some nice pictures and buying a DSLR - this will definitely get pushed down to the bottom of the list. Anyways.
  

Breeding like Rabbits

There are quite a few rabbits next to our apartment. They always run and hide behind the bushes whenever I return home from work ;) Plus recently my wife ran into a snake during her afternoon walk and became quite squeamish. She is going to get more dosage of snakes when we visit the zoo this Memorial Day Weekend. Our friends from the bay area are visiting us. According to my wife, God could have easily decided not to create these reptiles and always wonder what they are doing on this planet ;)

Talking about rabbits to my friend here brought up an interesting anecdote. His friend somewhere in the Utah had a male rabbit. His mother in law or somebody had a female one. They wanted to experiment with the two rabbits during some family vacation. They put them on the same table - the male rabbit looked to the left and the right for a second and immediately pounced on the female rabbit for mating. Just a few seconds elapsed before the family people pulled them apart - they didn't know quite what happened, but a month later or so, they were blessed with about 7 baby rabbits ;) They were apparently quite clever in selling them off to kids and other families in the neighborhood.

Looks like humans have a reasonably long life time considering their size. Elephants live longer than mice and rats which have a very short life span. The housefly has only 3 days on this planet. It is said that the bigger the animal is, the longer is its lifespan. But of course there are obvious exceptions. Some parrots live upto 150 years. Tortoises live for centuries. I can't believe this evolution thing. Even though it may have happened over millions of years, looking at the number of species on this planet, it seems highly improbable. May be I have to look into the theory of intelligent design ;)

Curb your Enthusiasm

I don't think I have ever blogged about this, but this has become one of my all time favourite TV serials! I never watch the original show on HBO, but I rent DVDs. These episodes have Larry David at what he does best - nothing! Larry David stars as himself and basically messes up his life over and over again without any learnings. That's the part you are supposed to forget - he won't learn from his mistakes. He has reached a point where he hates himself for what he is, but he continues to be. He questions the fundamental tenets of the society he lives in and expects the people to behave his way....and of course he gets disappointed ;) Larry David is an amazing actor actually. He is so good at the various emotions that he portrays, particularly the portrayal of frustration, bewilderment, shock, etc. Watching these episodes is a decent way to get a peek into the personal lives of so many TV celebrities. I am not sure how original they all are, but you could guess. It also features Ted Danson, the famous sitcom guy that George envies (in Seinfeld). Once in a while it features Elaine (Julia Louis Dreyfus). Elaine of course is great. I don't know where Larry picks his cast from but they are all great and so down to earth in acting. They all are so natural. The episode is designed in such a way that you almost feel a part of it. Normal camera angles - nothing funky, absence of the background laughter and inclusion of other random noises like traffic, birds and general stuff - all of them make it as realistic as possible. A special mention goes to Larry's wife - Cheryl - I don't know what her original name is. She has to be congratulated for putting up with Larry - for all the trouble he causes ;) I highly recommend that you watch "Curb your Enthusiasm"!

Move to New office

We have moved to a new office today. This building is nice, but I feel much more isolated here than before. I don't like it at present. I'll have to see how it works out. The commute has gotten worse though the place is physically closer.

Not much

these days. The new car is running fine. Life goes on. I am existing. Nothing much to report. My life is a stationary process. You come back after five years and take a look at me, nothing much would have changed. I would have grown older for sure.

Raagapella's acapella concert

Acapella - without instrumental accompaniment; A cappella music is vocal music or singing without instrumental accompaniment, or a piece intended to be performed in this way. A cappella is Italian for like in the chapel (music); the term is due to restrictions on the use of instruments in medieval churches. It is often misspelled as a capella, which is derived from the Latin spelling, or even acappella.

We attended one such concert this evening - performed by a group of Stanford students who call themselves Raagapella. They are such a hit that they will be performing with Rahman on July 16th in Hollywood Bowl! Rahman is performing at Hollywood Bowl baby. Quite amazing, I have to say. He never ceases to amaze me. I guess July is going to be a busy month - first week is Seinfeld's show and the next one is Rahman. There's also July 4th weekend.

Things to do - May 7th

• Check address with DMV
• Call insurance and update them of new car
• Plan something for memorial day weekend
• get the rental car reimbursed from 21st century
• get medical bills reimbursed
• get the bike back from LA
• 
  

Car bought today! Honda Civic LX

Yes, I finally managed to get the car. It was not in the color that we preferred. We wanted the Nighthawk Black Pearl with Ivory interior. It was an awesome combination and of course I didn't get it. I'll get to the details - I got the 2006 Honda Civic LX Auto 4 door Sedan in the Galaxy Gray Metallic color and Gray interior. I didn't ask for any accessories. I got it at Honda World Downey for about $18,300 out the door. I have stored most of the car's information in my gmail account. The car now has about 160 miles in it already 'cause I drove it from there. I have parked my motorcycle at my friend's place in El Segundo. The drive in the morning was ok - it was a little tiresome but I made it in one nice piece. It has almost been a month since I lost my car - the accident date or the date of loss was 4/7/06. Today is May 6th. The civic is a much nicer car than Corolla in general. The handling is pretty good, the tires are wider, the interior design is done nicely, it's been designed with care, better pick up (140hp) and better resale value. I wish I had bought the hybrid Accord ;) Apparently it didn't do too well last year so they manufactured lesser numbers for this year.

Some features of the car: 4 speaker AM/FM/CD audio system that's mp3 and windows media audio compatible; 2 spoke steering wheel tilt and telescopic adjustability, cruise control switches at fingertips, front bucket seats, flat rear floor, fold down back seats, latest i-VTEC, a Drive-by-Wire Throttle System, 16 valves and 1.8 liters, 140hp, 5 speed automatic transmission, re-engineered suspension and steering systems, front disk and rear drum brakes, standard anti lock braking, electronic brake distribution, day time running lights, active head restraints, speed sensitive volume control, air conditioning with air filtration, 16 inch wheels, security system with remote entry, cruise control, power windows with auto up/down driver's window, power door locks, spare tire, etc.

Lull

I have not been blogging regularly. I like it when I write long paragraphs which mostly don't have any meaning. It's a means of venting one's steam. My life right now revolves around work, which is very hectic (at least that's what I have been telling people) and hunting for a new car. Until I buy one, I am going to be researching all kinds of cars out there. I am particularly attracted towards the Honda Accord Hybrid, but they are asking for too much money (more than 30K). You might get some tax benefits, but then it doesn't justify spending so much on a car. I would buy that car had it been $26K out the door or something like that. But it may be the car of the future. I think hybrid cars are so cool. They would offer me more excitement than driving a BMW or Audi or an Infiniti G35. May be because I am an engineer, I love the fact that the same size car drives for longer with the same amount of gas! Apparently the engine shuts off when you stop the car so that it saves some fuel. Why didn't people think of this before?

As I mentioned Honda Civic is selling like hotcakes because it offers pretty good mileage. Mileage is the one selling point these days. Looks like the Japanese cars are eating into the American cars' marketshare. Speaking of which, "Cars" is coming out in theatres sometime. By Pixar - so it must be good.

My wireless connection is pathetic today, so I can't work properly. I think I am giving an excuse, but it is too slow for me to work. So I thought I would write a few words here. I had gone to my friend's place who has loaned me his car for the time being. He seems like a very nice guy. He is a major photo enthusiast and has done some really neat work with his digital cameras. Too bad he works as an engineer. Actually too bad that I am an engineer. I can't help but wonder what the hell I was born for exactly? What's the purpose? I think I am an artist at heart and look at everything from that perspective. My perspective has changed in the last one year dramatically, but still there are so many things to understand. I have lost out so much on history I have to say. My friends are too smart when it comes to pulling events from the past and discussing about them. I just know enough to get by and I am too far from being a walking source of information. All my knowledge is very specific. Not very broad. It has broadened over the last several years, but still I lag behind. All this is just a thought. May be I am not lagging behind, but only talking to the wrong people all the time.

There are multiple reviews for me to do at work. This weekend, I want to go to Orange County and hunt for cars there. I think I'll get them for cheap there. If I do, I would like to call these dealers in San Diego and tell them what kind of a deal I got. These guys are too arrogant. I haven't called parents and parents in law in quite some time. I don't feel too good about it. I would want to call them soon. I used to reply to emails instantaneously at some point of time. These days so many emails are marked as unread in my inbox.

I am not sure what I am going to do for Memorial Day weekend. I would want to do something. Flights to Seattle are very expensive - $300 a person. It may not be that big of a deal, but I have to do some planning to go around various places. Mount Rainier is one great option. Seattle itself is supposed to be nice. Let's see. Ok, I'll stop here for today.