I am a big admirer of the brain.One of the most fascinating organs!! I keep admiring at its capabilities and yet again it surprised me yesterday by retaining most of my ski learning's from last winter. It overcame fear and recollected all the balance movements and within 1 hour of starting off I was doing the black diamonds. Impressive!I am satisfied with my performance,though got to hone it more!

Two of my favourite people!

I absolutely adore this snap!! :) :) Gives me a big smile whenever i see this!! Flicked it from Minty at dallas! :)

Dance Like No One Is Watching

Another inspiring video! Talk about human spirit!!

'Sara Tucholsky's first home run'

I had this wonderful video forwarded by a cousin of mine. Does inspire you to live right.

The video is titled 'Sara Tucholsky's first home run'

In a small town in the middle of Washington State, in a field inside a chain linked fence, in a game fewer than a 100 people saw, a home run was hit -- not memorable for the distance it traveled or the game it decided, but for the meaning it carried. Western Oregon senior Sara Tucholsky had never hit a home run in her career. Central Washington senior Mallory Holtman was already her school's career leader in them. But when a twist of fate and a torn knee ligament brought them face to face with each other and face to face with the end of their playing days, they combined on a home run trot that celebrated the collective human spirit far more than individual athletic achievement. ESPN reports on an unforgettable expression of sportmanship.

Fast and furious!

Minneapolis is known for its incredibly notorious weather in winter.Driving is treacherous. Daily we see atleast couple of accidents. When it snows its difficult to drive,but when the sun comes out a bit and melts a bit of snow and the temperature again goes down - a thin layer of ice is formed on the road and this becomes devastating. When vehicles go on it there is absolutely no grip. There is a very thin margin of error to recover from any driving mistakes.

Today as usual Mahesh picked us to office.Just 100 meters from the house there is a sweeping curve which joins the main road. I was in the front with him and remarked 'Today,the road is really bad'. Mahesh replied 'Yeah,if i speed up in the curve ahead a wee bit we will skid'. Even before he finished the sentence we hit the curve and imagine what - the car lost grip and did a swooping turn and did almost 270 degrees and almost hit the kerb on the opposite side of the road. Fortunately there was no vehicle coming from the opposite end. I was shouting 'woah,woah,woah!' all the time till the car came to a halt! Lol! Though it was scary at that moment,it seemed fun later on when we were all safe and found the car was not damaged in any way! So finally I got to experience this too! Lol!

Sabudana vada

I was in a bit of a creative mood for cooking today and wanted to try something different and decided to have a go at Sabudana vada. I must say ,I really exceeded expectations of both myself and my flat-mates. My flatie(i dont know whether this word really exists,but i am making this up) Abhishek infact rated it on par on what his mother does(that's pretty high for a guy to be saying that,because mother's cooking is the benchmark for most of them :) ). I will be a bit modest here and will attribute it to beginners luck for i am sure i won't be able to beat this the next time. ;)

Slip and Slide!

Well, After nearly 9 months since last winter I went Ice skating in the indoor rink at downtown. As usual we are the bunch of buffoons,this time trudging along in -30 C. Last winter I had learnt ice skating significantly well and i was not sure whether i still remembered all my skills. I started off gingerly on the ice and within 100 yards of going a guy cut me on my path and i couldn't stop and 'Thud' i fell,hard on my butt. I mused 'Wow,that hurts,its been quite sometime since i fell like this - okay,few more to go today- at this rate i will have a nice shapely hard butt!lol!', I got up and again started. After 5 mins i started gaining my balance and confidence and surprisingly in 15 mins i was back to my old winter state. I was in a bit of awe on the retention capabilities of the brain. All the leg,hand,body and balance learnings came through automatically. I had some thorough fun for a couple of hours!There are some amazing skaters out here who inspire me to reach atleast a fraction of their levels.Looking forward for more this winter!


Me skating!


Fire breathing dragons! It was damn bloody cold!


From left to right - Abhishek, Ankit, myself and nitin (A lady at the bus stop kindly offered to take this snap)



Playing around in the snow!! Its addictive for me, I always feel tempted to touch and throw around snow -though the after effects are painful. lol!

You know what, we just broke the record. We walked in -30 C (-21 F)today and let me tell you,it totally sucks!! :) :) My lips hurt like hell and the cold hit through 3 layers of clothing.

Hell Freezes over!

Though its an Eagles album,that's how i felt this week walking in -25 C or -15 F. Abhishek and myself had this certification exam to take on Monday. Since it was getting late we took a cab and went to the examination center,after our exams got over we thought it wasn't too cold(I am the culprit here saying to abhishek 'can't you take a little cold - mard bano! :) ') and decided to walk home and save some cab money.Little did we realize what we were getting into. The center is about 20 mins from home.

I told abhishek - 'I think the temperature is something around 10 F and shouldn't be too bad'. Boy!!Was i totally wrong. Half way through abhishek tells 'Mayur, I somehow think its lower than 10F - my butt is freezing'. I muse a bit and say 'Yeah, I am also feeling awfully cold and my lips are frozen and i can't talk, It maybe near to zero'. I stupidly don't even have my gloves on and keep my numb fingers within the pockets of my jacket trying to rub my fingers against each other to generate warmth. We trudge along on the snow filled footpath and abhishek says he can feel his toes going numb within his boots and his face is paining because of the numbness. I also experience the same. We keep walking and finally reach home. I rush inside the apartment and I see our neighbour near the door and i can't even speak to her for my lips are numb. After around 15 mins within the regulated 75 F within the house i can feel blood flowing through everywhere.I curiously go and do a google and I flip! It was -15 F temperature outside and we buffoons thought we were eskimos or something and froze our balls and walked in it. Abhishek looks at me and says '10 F huh?'. I smile and say 'Good fun,huh?'.He thinks a bit and then breaks out into a smile and says 'Yeah!'.
Hey! Come on! Not everybody gets a chance to walk in -25 C,do they? Give us some credit.We morons accomplished that and that too for 20 mins:)

King tut and kennedy!

It has been one of my most burning desires in life to visit Egypt. Two reasons - I am extremely fascinated by the Egyptian civilization and the other main reason being to see the treasures of king Tutankhamen.

When i was a kid i had this encyclopedia presented by my Dad which contained information about the egyptian civilzation,one section of it was the discovery of King Tutankhamen's tomb and the treasures found there and the mysterious deaths associated with people entering the tomb. This fascination was further augmented on my impressionable mind from the twin tintin comics of 'Seven crystal balls' and 'Cigars of the pharoah' which is very loosely based on the Tutankhamen happenings. What started as a fascination for curses and treasures soon moulded into an interest on one of the most fascinating civilizations of ancient history. I even had a go at learning the hieroglyphics and partially succeeded(though i have forgotten most of it now). The academic intensity of finding Tutankhamen's tomb drew upon me much later on as i grew older. I do not claim to be a egyptologist but my knowledge is pretty good on the more famous Egyptian Pharaohs and regions. Through my very small exposure to this civilization through books,Internet and National geographic society has grown this intense desire to view the remnants of this civilization in actual person. Of course,the childhood curiosity to see the treasures found in King tut's tomb still remains.

As providence would have had it, I sated a small part of my desire when I visited Dallas for Vinatha's graduation. The minute I got down from the plane and entered the lounge i saw this huge un-mistakable cut out - The death mask of Tutankhamen! Below it read - The treasures of the boy king at display at the Dallas Museum of Arts. Did my heart leap! My excitement grew! I desperately wanted to visit it but i was not sure if any of the others would be interested. Vinatha,being the sweetheart she is was more than obliging to go there as 'I' wanted to go there.She somehow even convinced her friends to go along who trudged along! Though the exhibit did not contain the actual sarcophagi and the famous death mask and the mummy itself,it did contain many of the important treasures like the dagger that was found laid on the mummy,the headwear which the mummy was wearing, the famous bracelets and necklaces and many more. This was my first exposure to any kind of egyptian artifact and the first encounter was a sort of bumper!! Lol! All i can say is I went around the entire gallery with a childlike enthusiasm jumping and savoring each of them and teleporting myself 3000 years back and imagining things.The treasures were exactly what they are - treasures! It was a fantastic feeling to be looking at such beautiful objects created by humans nearly 3000 years back.In fact I had this weird notion of stealing a couple of them and was imagining schemes to steal them.Lol!!

I guess my dallas trip was a huge blast for three reasons - Majorly because of seeing King tut's exhibition, secondly for having seen Vinatha and Kaushik after such a long time and thirdly - getting to see Kennedy's assassination site - yup,his assassination is another object of interest of mine! It was so fascinating to reconstruct the scene of his death. I have seen the Abraham Zapruder video of kenedy's assassination like umpteen number of times. To actually see that place live and reconstruct what happened nearly 45 years ago on that road sent a tingle down my spine.He is one of the most iconic president's of USA.
I felt a bit sad standing at the point where kennedy got hit by the second bullet which ripped open his brain. His famous words ringed 'Ask not what your country can do for you,ask what you can do for your country'.



The X marks the point where kennedy was shot.



I couldn't get vinatha clearly in view for a good snap,so i had to call her up and ask her to move a bit to her right so that i could take a shot! :)




I guess this is one of the most cliched shots but one of the most memorable and incredible moments to be doing it! Yay!!Way to go Minty!



In front of the dallas museum of Art!



With Kaushik!



Presents from thoughtful friends!

Busy December ..

December has been an extremely busy month. I cannot believe that half of it is already gone! It started off with the Philly/DC trip,then the string of certification exams,then the trip to Dallas for Vinatha's graduation,problems at work!(which is always there:) ).Keeping busy is good but many a times makes you suddenly stop and think , what am i doing with my life? Life is slipping away ,Am i doing the right things, Am i prioritizing,Am i giving time to the right things. I somehow feel the entire life will slip away like this and one day you will just sit back and think 'What happened?' and will probably have no answers. You simply got sucked into 'Living'.

Joy!!

I absolutely adore this new coke ad! Very refreshing and funny and very apt for the season! Happy holidays and spread the joy!!

Security breach!

Since the day i have got my camera,i have faced a few hassles. With who? The TSA people(Transportation Security Administration oF America). Every trip when i pass my camera bag through the scanner at the airports,i get frisked to the side at least once and an inspection is done on my bag. With all the lenses,cables,cleaning kit,filters and the camera itself i believe they are right in doing so just to make sure I am not carrying something dangerous! :) But this blog write up is about what happened at the Philadelphia airport.

As usual I pass my camera bag through the scanner. The lady scanning the bag suddenly squints her eyes,moves the conveyor belt to and fro couple of times and gesticulates to a guy to have the bag checked. I sigh! Here we go again.

Very politely the security officer says 'Sir, can you please step aside, We have to check your bag'. I say 'Okay' and open the camera bag. He looks at all the equipment and i can sense the look of awe. He asks ' Are you a photographer'. I say ' No, I am not, I am an amateur and photography is one of my hobbies'. He -'You got some equipment for an amateur'. I just smile. He says - 'So what kind of photographs do you take'. I say ' Anything i like -but i mostly like nature and night photography'.

He says ' I also like photography'. He talks about what modes i take my snaps with,he looks at my Nikon D300 more closely. I show him a couple of snaps i took,He asks me where all i went,He asks me what kind of lenses i have. Then he smartly says -'Thank you sir,you are good to go'. I give him a big relieved smile and take off.

Its kind of nice to meet a security officer who is interested in photography.I wanted to ask him about his photography but refrained from doing so and just stuck to answering his questions.That's one TSA officer who was more than happy to go through the contents of my bag i guess!!