Off Late

It was one of those days that took me a little down memory lane. From the time I landed in US, I ended up having three bank accounts. Not that I had so much money that I could fill up those accounts, but because of different situations I had three accounts to my name. One of the reasons was solely to acquire the free i-pod that they were giving away. I accept it, the 'desi buddhi' in me will never die. Finally today I decided upon closing the two unused accounts for good. Standing there in front of the teller, the stark realization hit me that it has been almost two years since I had landed here. It was quite a strangely nostalgic feeling that I was going through standing there in the bank. Time really flies, I must admit.

Well as I said time flies, I really dint have to be down the nostalgia lane for a long time. Reality hit me right on my face as I realized that I had a meeting with my professor. I was a little worried, because I had not gotten around to finishing up the work that he had assigned to me and on top of that I had gone ahead and told him that I was going on a road trip and will not be working for an entire week. That reminds me, Spring break I had gone for a road trip to California with a bunch of my friends. It really was one of the best drives of my life. Imagine winding roads and hillocks on your left and the Pacific Ocean to your right. It was a sight to behold.

I had been to a live concert the other night. Megadeth concert was something which I had never expected that I would be going to. It was a quite an enjoyable concert. Ok to be frank it was a really really good show. I could see the band about 30 or 40 feet in front of me, and the atmosphere was well like a thrash metal concert should have been with a lot of head banging, pushing (read as shoving/throwing) and loud ( read as ear splitting ) music. The highlight of the show for me was when I caught a Dave Mustaine ( lead guitarist/vocalist ) pick that he threw out to the audience ( crowd to be more precise ).

I keep reminding myself that I will come up with a post that has a significantly less number of 'I's in them. But off late this blog has turned into more of an autobiography/day to day diary (accounted every 3 months) kind of thing. Definitely do have a few ideas in mind but just not finding the spark or the enthusiasm to dish it out in words. Will do it someday............

Of Cliff dwellings and Canyons

Finally I get down to penning some thoughts about a road trip. This would probably be my 5th or 6th attempt. The previous few attempts having been discarded because of lack of interest and a sudden drying up of my vocabulary. Nevertheless, as they say its better late then never.

After a whole lot of speculation of "will we's" and "wont we's", we finally headed out for a 2 day trip. First stop was Montezuma Castle. I really dont know whats so castle like in this monument. Honestly it was no bigger than our apartment. Right that was a little too much of an exaggeration I know, but still....

It was a wonder to see a building built right up there on the walls of a cliff, though. The only accessible point of entry to this monument is a ladder which could be pulled up to cut off the entry. Well that was when people used to access the monument. There is restriction on the entry currently because of the extensive damage caused to the ruins. I wish we were allowed to go inside and see though. It was not all that bad but then one of my friends aptly termed the place to be 'bakwaas'.

Next stop was the Montezuma Well. Honestly it wasnt all that a wonder. The people around the monuments described the history and the importance of the place as though there was nothing in this world to beat the beauty and the significance of the place. That was when I realized how rich India is and how sometimes we neglect the importance of the profound heritage that we have. The incredible thing about the well was that there was a constant supply of water, and no-one supposedly knows how deep the water went. Some of the flora around the well was creepy and in a way strangely attractive. Though some part of the well looked nothing more than a ditch to me. Speaking of which my friend had a gala time trying to click an incredible number of pictures of what looked like sewage water ( No offense buddy, but had to take that out somewhere ).

Moving on we, went to Walnut Canyon where we trekked a small little trail and saw quite a few cave dwellings which were in ruins. They were small enough for a dwarf ( probably 4 ft )to fit in. It was actually amazing to see such crude and old developments of such habitats which had neat demarcations of a storage room and a living room. The trek was really good, and the company made it even more better. There were crazy pictures taken at probably every step of the trek, from crazy angles with people doing all kinds of crazy actions.

Finally we ended up in Grand Canyon which looked very different from the last time when I had seen it. It was speckled with snow all over and looked really good. The view from the rim is really grand. Again after another session of a thousand clicks and a session of free, unwanted skating ( because of the slippery iced ground ) we headed back to the motel.

The final day was real good fun. We went skiing!!!!!!

All of us who tried our hands at skiing fell at least a thousand times. Well some of us even managed to fall like a million times. Bottom line is that skiing is not as easy as it looks. But if you manage to get through the initial learning stages it is insanely good. At the end of the day all of us remember 'GO GO GO' and 'Wedge Wedge Wedge'!!!!!!!

Happenings Lately

Noticed how my blog posts have diminished lately?

I know nothing new to that. But this time the cause for being so inattentive towards my blog is not because of laziness. It has more to do with 2/7ths of my wishlist coming true. I was feeling a little too happy with the way things have gone this semester, so I decided to give myself a PS3. It has been merely a week since the arrival of the beautiful gaming console. It has become such a big addiction now. Days and nights seem to be just amalgamate into this blur where I find myself glued to the television with the controller in hand, smashing these millions of weird looking demons. Gives me a strange kind of high. So much so, that I have almost stopped playing counter strike now, and I have practically neglected my laptop.

Funny how time seems to just race past you when you are doing something that you like. The semester is over and the holidays have started. I am back at doing what many of us like to do. I now laze around the entire day spending time extravagantly as though I have inherited millions of units of it. As stated above the days and nights just merge into this weird blur. Half the time is gone with the playstation. The remaining half goes in sleeping. I am trying quite hard to rid myself of this habit of sleeping at 4 in the morning and waking up at 2 in the afternoon. It so happened that I managed to sleep the entire day once. I ended up asking my roomie where the day had gone off to?

That felt really weird. One entire day gone within the blink of an eye. Anyways, somewhere in this extremely busy schedule of mine I do manage to work. I get paid for doing some work that my professor asks me to. So fortunately the holidays is not jam packed with the brutal killing of time. I manage to do something constructive after all.

The new year is fast approaching and a whole pack of my friends have headed back home. I know the feeling is just insanely incredible to be back home for the vacations. I sometimes wish I could have headed back home. Well, as the saying goes everything has a price tagged to it. For my wishlist to come true I had to work which continues through the winter break so no complaints. Coming back to the new year, I still do not know what I would be doing. There are plans of heading off on a road trip, or just cool our heels sitting at home. It is always last minute.

I have to mention this here. I attended 'Service' in a Church where our American Family go, for Christmas. It was a rather new experience. The way of praying here is so completely different from how we do it. The family is so sweet that they had us over for dinner. Well they eat at 5 in the evening and call that dinner. After the dinner they took us to their church and finally we went back to their house to finish of the day with some amazing deserts. It was really cool and sweet of them to involve us in their celebrations and rituals. They even ended up giving us presents. They day had a real crazy ending. Me and my friends ended up playing monopoly the entire night. Weird sort of a way to celebrate Christmas.

Well that is what is happening lately. I hope I manage to come up with more posts in the near future, something more meaningful rather than mindless ramblings and day to day stuff. Adios till then.

My Current Wishlist!!!!

One of my very close friend recently purchased a Sony PS3 and I was really blown away by it. I just did a little digging recently and came up with a few games that I would definitely want to get my hands on. So my wishlist for the time being is:

1. I need to get a PS3 first ;-)
2. A proper video output device to go with the PS3 :-D
3. Prototype
4. God of War
5. Uncharted 2
6. COD MW 2 and
7. Assassins Creed 2

I want, I want, I want, I want and I want!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Milestone

Finally its the 50th post for my blog. Pondering about what I have written for the 49 posts preceding this one I kept thinking that to mark this grand post I should probably come up with something really really special. Something on the lines of a poem. But then I guess it was a little too much to ask for from my grey cells. Hence sticking to the usual posting of some random nonsense and bullshit.

Life in itself has come so far. I cannot believe that I have spent a staggering 8738 days so far. Sounds a little insignificant, but it is invariably a large number. Out of which I am sure I would have spent half the time in sleep. So effectively my time on this planet would be 4369 days, of which I do not recollect about lets say 2369 days ( for easier rounding off ). So that leaves me with roughly 2000 days. I digress as I always do. Thats not the basic point that I am trying to make.

Sometimes there are moments in life which just hits you in your face which makes you realize that time has really passed. It makes you feel so old, as though you have experienced so much of life. On the other hand some situations make you feel so nascent, stupid and so inexperienced. The journey so far has been a roller coaster ride. Looking back I can say that I have met a lot of people, made new friends, pissed off many ( bound to happen ) etc etc. I just wanted to take time off and say thank you to all those wonderful people in my life who have made a big difference ( even the small one ), and also say that I am sorry for whatever I did which might have caused pain ( it was never intentional, it never is..thats what they all say!!! ).

Its time I put an end to this deluded rambling for what was supposed to be a very impressive 50th post in my blog. Nevertheless I did take some gyaan out off this laborious endeavor. Never stop writing in between a post. Useless gyaan I know, but I lost flow half way through the post when I stopped for no apparently good reason.

P.S-The writings have taken a literal roll down the hill. I hope that I can come up with some good posts from now on!!

The Master of The Game

The title for this post sounds very small and insignificant compared to the greatness of the batting Legend. After that brilliant century at Hyderabad which almost took India to a victory people have been showering praises on Sachin. Everywhere you see there is talks about Sachin. Its not just the brilliance of the Little Master but it is the way he has projected himself and stamped his class all over cricket. It is The Experience, I quote " It is impossible to outgrow Indian Sports most celebrated Boy Wonder ".

Writing about a person who is considered as almost the game itself is never easy. It is a mutual feeling shared by millions of others who sense the same kind of hope and anticipation every time Sachin takes guard at the batting crease. It has been mentioned that the entire nation comes to a standstill when he is out there at the center batting, and demolishing the best of the opposition. I am quite certain that there will not be a single cricket enthusiast in this planet who will not have 'Googled' Sachin Tendulkar. Mentioning this after having spent literally hours searching for the Man, The Machine and The Legend. The names and the accolades showered upon will never come to an end.

I took a long time publishing this post, thinking and assuming that I can make it better and different from the rest of the writings about the greatest batsman the game has ever seen. But alas I sadly realized that the words that I come up with will always fall short of the achievements and the greatness of the legend called Sachin Tendulkar. To wrap it all up this article by Rajdeep Sardesai sums up the extraordinary talent that India has ever produced in the field of cricket.

Insanely Useless Facts #3

It has been ages again since I posted, so here I go with another post about insanely useless facts. By the way a big congratulations to the page for attracting '100' hits ( eventually ) after I placed a neat little tracker on the page. Without further ado I bring to you more useless but interesting facts.

1. The Chinese are credited with the invention of the first toothbrushes. Initially the bristles were made up of Hog ( pig ) bristles but were eventually replaced by nylon. Sales would have definitely taken a huge blow if it were continued with the current H1N1 scare floating around.
2. A 'face-off' in hockey was originally called as 'puck-off'. I am pretty sure that commentators would have made genuine mistakes replacing 'p' with 'f'. I am sure I would have. ;-)
3. A 'jiffy' as we all say and take an eternity for daily chores and work, is an actual unit of time for 1/100th of a second.
4. A 100 pound ( ~45 kg ) person on Earth would weigh 38 pounds ( ~17 kg ) on Mars.
5. A blue whale's aorta ( the main blood vessel ) is large enough for a human to crawl through. Thats really really big.
6. A company in Taiwan makes dinnerware out of wheat, so you can eat your plate. I wish we get that here. Would save us a lot of trouble in washing utensils everyday!!!!
7. A dragonfly has a lifespan of 24 hours.
8. Austria was the first ever country to use post-cards.
9. Bats always turn left while exiting from a cave.
10. Last but not the least for this particular post, Baskin Robins once made ketchup ice-creams. eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeewwwwwwwwwww!!!!!!!!!