Ravages of weather?

My apartment in Winter (After)


My apartment in fall (Before)

Great Heavens 

Blue Skies, Brown Trees

My favorite theme! This is the kind I love photographing!

Place: Shenandoah National Park, Washington DC

OK This is the whole picture of what I posted last time...It's an engine! :) 

Bet you cant guess this one at all! 

Guess what THIS is...I'm hoping it's tougher this time!! 

The Road

The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.

J.R.R. Tolkien (from The Lord Of the Rings)

Waiting for the end? Or a new beginning? 

Guess What this is #2

Guess what this is #2

Guess what this is?

Guess what this is?

That's me with my new camera!! 

Funky Lights at home! :) 

The Hardest Battle

"To be nobody but yourself in a world that is doing its best day and night into making you like everybody else, is to fight the hardest battle there is and never stop fighting."

e. e. cummings

Funky Clouds! 

The Tower of Power! A ride at the Valley Fair...you sit in a seat that shoots right up the tower and then suddenly drops you...great heart-stopping ride! 

The Interview with God

THE INTERVIEW WITH GOD

I dreamed I had an interview with God.

“So you would like to interview me?” God asked.

“If you have the time” I said.
God smiled. “My time is eternity.
“What questions do you have in mind for me?”

“What surprises you most about humankind?”
God answered...
“That they get bored with childhood,they rush to grow up,
and then long to be children again.”

“That they lose their health to make money...and then lose their money to restore their health.”

“That by thinking anxiously about the future, they forget the present, such that they live in neither the present nor the future.”

"That they live as if they will never die, and die as though they had never lived.”

God’s hand took mine and we were silent for a while.And then I asked...

“As a parent, what are some of life’s lessons you want your children to learn?”

“To learn they cannot make anyone love them. All they can do is let themselves be loved.”

“To learn that it is not good to compare themselves to others.”

“To learn to forgiveby practicing forgiveness.”

“To learn that it only takes a few seconds to open profound wounds in those they love, and it can take many years to heal them.”
“To learn that a rich person is not one who has the most,but is one who needs the least.”

“To learn that there are people who love them dearly, but simply have not yet learned how to express or show their feelings.”
“To learn that two people can look at the same thing and see it differently.”
“To learn that it is not enough that they forgive one another, but they must also forgive themselves.”

"Thank you for your time," I said humbly. "Is there anything else you would like your children to know?"

God smiled and said, “Just know that I am here... always.”

-author unknown

Got this from this site
Liked it quite a bit.

Where all think alike, no one thinks very much.

Walter Lippman
1889-1974

Well, I do not completely agree with this but there are cases where it is particularly apt.

But then you can never really make it into a black or white case. Where people are concerned, there are a lot of gray areas. I guess that's what makes things exciting. It would be a big bore if you could predict completely what would happen. No fun at all if you know everything beforehand, is it?

What kind of a Jewel are you?

Well, it is a bit childish but I rather like these personality tests...perhaps they help massage the ego!!

What kind of jewel are you? Opal On the outside you are lovely, but also quiet and somewhat shy. But those you find worthy to see the true you know that on the inside, you are exquisite and absolutely breathtaking.

Click Here to Take This Quiz Brought to you by YouThink.com quizzes and personality tests.

The Hardest Thing

"The hardest thing to see is what is right in front of our eyes."

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
German poet, novelist, playwright, courtier, and natural philosopher

Experience!

I hear, I forget;
I see, I remember;

I do, I understand...

Confucius
Chinese Philosopher

Ripples and Light on Water 

It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare;
it is because we do not dare that they are difficult.

Seneca
Roman dramatist, philosopher, & politician (5 BC - 65 AD)

Weekend #2 in the US

Well folks, this was my second weekend in the US. And it was better than the last, to say the least...

Saturday morning was pretty quiet; I got some laundry done and generally lazed around (actually, spent the entire afternoon playing Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri ...one of the most addictive computer games I've ever played!!) .
Saturday evening was a blast..partied up to 2:00 AM!!! It wasnt a big party or anything...I think there were 5 guys plus a couple of females...but in all a good party! Actually it was one of the guys' last weekend in the US so he threw a party...well, a get-together sort of...barring two (one of the females and me), the rest got totally sloshed; it was hilarious watching them (you know how people act when they have had a little too much to drink)!!

Sunday was ultimate...we went to this fair near Shakopee (about 30 miles from Fridley) called Valley Fair. Pretty good rides but there was one that was absolutely awesome : Steel Venom...
It's a roller coaster but not like your usual run-of-the-mill roller coasters...it's a U-shaped 185 foot high coaster with one end straight and the other twisted...So at the straight end you end up looking at the ground from the top...sort of like looking down from a 16 storey building and hurtling down at something like 65 mph!!! At the other end, the rail is twisted; so you go up twisting and turning before you reach the top, at the same speed and end up looking at the sky!! In all, the ride was absolutely awesome...you gotta experience it to really know how it is!

So far my weekends in the US have been much better than the ones in India :) :)
Let's see how the next one is...planning on a trip to Duluth which is on the edge of Lake Superior...

Finally, as usual, you gotta wait till I get the film developed for the photos!! :(
I guess I will have to buy a digicam soon...

Weird fashion

Got this from Mullos's blog.

People have the weirdest sense of fashion!!

Clothes that make you look naked??!!

Bizzare!

Lesson in Humility

Life is a long lesson in humility.

James M. Barrie (1860 - 1937)

Photos from the Trip

My apartment in Fridley


Our Car for the day :)


At Still Water River Front


The Mississippi!



My roomie Bala

Weekend Trip

Well folks, I am back on the blogging circuit...I had been travelling and am now in Minneapolis...Took 4 whole days to get over the jet lag...I guess that happens to all first-time travellers

My first weekend in the US was pretty good...
I spent Saturday at the "Mall of America" which is supposed to be the biggest mall in America. Well the place is HUGE! Frankly I find everything about America really huge...The places, the people, their cars...even the media paints everything larger-than-life!! I picked up a BOSE® Wave Radio/CD II system there: the clarity of sound that small box throws out is amazing...Absolutely awesome!! Well, I could go on and on about it but words just cannot describe the sound! It's worth every one of the 500 bucks I paid for it!

Started off Sunday pretty late...had a morning brunch (a rather peculiar one at that) of cornflakes, bread and a quarter omelette and some tea...and then some chips and some other junk ...
To top that, I made my first try at swimming (if you can call it that) at the apartment pool ...basically, I was just thrashing about at the edge of the pool trying to stay afloat and hanging on to the edge for dear life (I kept going under!!)...Well, it's going to take time. I can see that.

I had done some searching on the net for places to visit around Fridley (The place where my apartment is) and Minneapolis; so we decided not to waste the afternoon lazing at home and to go to a couple of places: Taylors Falls and Still Water. These are towns along the banks of the Mississippi river and are supposed to be quite scenic.

We left for Taylor Falls around 3:00 and reached there around 4:15...checked out a couple of hiking trails in the inter-state park there...One trail in particular was very interesting: Pothole trail...The trail was a self-guided one and had a lot of directions...It is called Pothole trail because of the many potholes (deep pits really! Wonder why they are called potholes??!) that were created by glaciers millenia ago...Did some photography too...Then we checked out the river itself on one of those old paddle boats. These are pretty old: one of them was about 80 years old; it was amazing to see it ship-shape even after all these years!! It was a 30 minute trip and the boat generally makes a small round trip showing people the different rock formations on the river banks and the crew tell you something about the river's history. A good one but not really very scenic as the websites claim...Pretty soothing though.

We got out of Taylors Falls around 6:15 for StillWater...This was the most eventful part of the trip! We had just gotten out of Taylors Falls when an insect got into the car and my roomie Bala who was driving the car tried to push it out. While doing that, the car swerved and we ran into a ditch. Fortunately, it was grassy and fairly wide and deep; so we managed to get out of it without any damage...it was quite a shock and it took quite some time to get our nerve back!! Now that I think about it, we were extremely lucky that ditch didnt have anything in it...Had there been even a small amount of debris, we would have done extensive damage to the car and our selves!

Anyway, then we got to StillWater and spent some time at the river front there...The place is quite pretty and has some jet boats there...We didnt have much time to actually check the place out properly. It was dusk already and we had to get back to Fridley. I took some photos at this place also; unfortunately, I have a film-camera and the roll still has some frames left...so it's going to be some time before I post the photos...

The journey back home was uneventful; we got back home around 8:00 PM...In all it was a satisfying trip...Not the adventurous kind but quite good for a sunny afternoon.

Tomorrow is the beginning of another week...*Sigh* back to work!

Trust

In God we trust, all others we virus scan.

Interesting Theorems!

LORENZ'S LAW OF MECHANICAL REPAIR:
After your hands become coated with grease, your nose will begin to
itch.

ANTHONY'S LAW OF THE WORKSHOP:
Any tool, when dropped, will roll to the least accessible corner.

KOVAC'S CONUNDRUM:
When you dial a wrong number, you never get an engaged one.

CANNON'S KARMIC LAW:
If you tell the boss you were late for work because you had a flat tire,
the next morning you will have a flat tire.

O'BRIEN'S VARIATION LAW:
If you change queues, the one you have left will start to move faster
than the one you are in now.

BELL'S THEOREM:
When the body is immersed in water, the telephone rings.

RUBY'S PRINCIPLE OF CLOSE ENCOUNTERS:
The probability of meeting someone you know increases when you are with
someone you don't want to be seen with.

WILLOUGHBY'S LAW:
When you try to prove to someone that a machine won't work, it will.

ZADRA'S LAW OF BIOMECHANICS:
The severity of the itch is inversely proportional to the reach.

BREDA'S RULE:
At any event, the people whose seats are furthest from the aisle arrive
last.

OWEN'S LAW:
As soon as you sit down to a cup of hot coffee, your boss will ask you
to do something which will last until the coffee is cold.

HOWDEN'S LAW:
You remember you have to mail a letter only when you're near the
mailbox.

Did you know?

Pure electricity, when photographed, shows up as a brightly glowing liquid droplet flowing inside a tiny crystal.

Friends are precious

This is something I got from M's blog and it makes perfect sense to me:

Understand that friends come and go, but for the precious few you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography, in lifestyle, because the older you get the more you need the people you knew when you were young.

-- Baz Luhrman

Mystery and Wonder

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.

Albert Einstein

Our sense of wonder is the first thing our school teachers manage to kill...
Most of us almost stop asking questions by the time we get out of college. Do we even stop to wonder about the things around us?

Frankly the media and stuff nowadays just tends to repress whatever "imagination" people have...
Dont see too many kids reading books or even bothering to go out exploring their neighborhoods...

Dont see too many adults having a good imagination and a sense of humour either...

Maturity

Snoopy Says:

Sometimes when I get up in the morning, I feel very peculiar. I feel like I've just got to bite a cat! I feel like if I don't bite a cat before sundown, I'll go crazy! But then I just take a deep breath and forget about it. That's what is known as real maturity.

Wish a lot of people would get this kind of maturity!!

Into My Own

One of my wishes is that those dark trees,
So old and firm they scarcely show the breeze,
Were not, as 'twere, the merest mask of gloom,
But stretched away unto the edge of doom.

I should not be withheld but that some day
Into their vastness I should steal away,
Fearless of ever finding open land,
Or highway where the slow wheel pours the sand.

I do not see why I should e'er turn back,
Or those should not set forth upon my track
To overtake me, who should miss me here
And long to know if still I held them dear.

They would not find me changed from him they knew--
Only more sure of all I thought was true.

From "A Boy's Will", 1913
Robert Frost

Da Vinci Code and The French Connection?

I just finished reading The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown. I must say it's a pretty well researched book and the plot is well-conceived too...I find it amazing that people manage to think of such intricate stories and then put it in words too!!

A lot of stuff related to the things in the book has been making the rounds on the net and media lately. Moreover, the guy makes such claims about Jesus Christ and the rise of Christianity using the different characters in the book that one would think that it might have happened...conspiracy theory galore!! So much so, that Opus Dei have a section on their website refuting the claims in the book.

No wonder the book is getting rave reviews the world over...
Overall a very "readable" book but I found the ending a bit too tame and there were a few places where the guy just seems to lose focus...

The plot of the book is almost entirely set in Paris... Well, this book would need to be in France considering the fact that the Louvre that has one of the biggest collections of art and other things from medieval and post-Renaissance Europe and the story starts off there...
I wonder what it is in France that draws most authors. I find quite a few authors who almost invariably turn to France and history in their books at some point or the other:

Frederick Forsyth : "The Day of The Jackal"
Robert Ludlum: "The Bourne Identity" & "The Bourne Supremacy"
Alexandre Dumas: "The Three Musketeers" & "The Man in the Iron Mask"
Victor Hugo: "The HunchBack of Notre-Dame"

and the list goes on...
I guess one needs to visit France to figure out what it is that draws these authors to it!!

Dreams

Dream no small dreams for they have no power to move the hearts of men.

Goethe

Wonder if I would become a megalomaniac trying to do this? Hmmm....Interesting thought that...very interesting

Profound thinking in Traffic Jams...

Today I spent half an hour waiting for a traffic jam to get cleared en route to office...It was a pretty long queue with the line of vehicles stretching nearly a kilometre..
It was then that I realized: it is only in traffic jams that I get to stop and think about things in general!

Most of the time we spend is in a race to get ahead of things...
In school and college, it's a headlong rush to get good grades...After college, it's a race to get a job...once you get a job, you start chasing better jobs...bigger money...a better life...

But what really defines a better life?
When do we ever stop to catch our breath and enjoy what we have?
It's a restless life with our noses to a ceaseless grindstone...
Do we really understand the purpose of all that we do? Why we go through this entire cycle of life?

I guess that's a question that's been plaguing people for aeons...
But then if we really found an answer, wouldn't all the fun go away?
Isnt it the quest that drives us?

Maybe one will find something close to an answer some day...

Confusion Galore

Overheard a colleague ordering dinner at office:

"Hello, Can you take my order, please?"

"OK, I'll have a half-meal, a gobi-manchurian and My name is Gireesh."

"No, No, I dont want Ghee rice!...my name is Gireesh"

"Arre yaar, I want just a half-meal and a gobi manchurian!!...I dont want Ghee Rice!!! My NAME is Gireesh"

"Hello, Listen to me...I want the meal and Gobi and my phone extn is 3185. Please send it soon"

"Gireesh" to "Ghee Rice": Hohahohhe what a transformation
(BTW, he spells his name with ee not an i)

Finally, the numbers did the trick!

Chaos and Order

You need chaos in your soul to give birth to a dancing star

Nietzsche

Life is so funny

Life seems so funny...

I wanted some things desperately at one time and try as I might, I couldn't even get close to those things!!

Now when I have let them go and have focussed on something else, those opportunities come back falling over themselves!!

I guess that's what is called irony!!

The Road Not Taken

Another one of my favorites by Robert Frost...

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally layIn leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.I
 shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Beautiful...just love this one

Fantastic Match

I watched the cricket match between India and Sri Lanka yesterday...it was a pretty tense match and India managed to scrape through and will go on to the Asia Cup finals...

Trust India to take the things to the edge...Of late, lots of people have been praising our Indian cricket team as being No. 2 in the world but most of the games they have won have been pretty close like yesterday's match!!

I am yet to see a convincing win by them to justify the No. 2 tag!! Most of the times, they just manage to scrape through by the skin of their teeth...

Waste of time

Coming to office today has been a total waste of time...
No link...so no work...have been twiddling my thumbs since morning
 
The network connectivity also is pathetic here...having a tough time downloading anything!! Even the simplest of web pages takes 10-15 minutes to download!

I'm BORED stiff!!

Fire and Ice

Some say the world will end in fire,              
Some say in ice.              
From what I've tasted of desire              
I hold with those who favor fire.              
But if it had to perish twice,              
I think I know enough of hate              
To know that for destruction ice              
Is also great              
And would suffice.

Robert Frost

Another one of the few poems I like...

Traffic Travails

It's been 3 days since I have started commuting to Electronics City. I keep hearing horror stories from people about the traffic jams that happen on the way to EC.

Well, I have seen that the problem is more to do with people rather than the infrastructure. The road is good...there is some traffic management (it could do with some improvement of course)...but the main problem is with the drivers themselves.

I am yet to see any sane driving on that road so far...starting from cyclists to truck drivers, everybody seems to believe that nothing can happen to them...
One finds slow moving trucks which should actually be on the left side of the road, driving right in the middle...cyclists doing their own version of the Superbiker...pedestrians playing a game of "who can jay-walk across the road slowest" or "who can scare the driver best" and mad bikers galore...cars zipping around like crazy dodgems

If only people would follow the traffic rules as they were meant to be followed...

An endless cycle

I adapt, therefore I survive;
I survive, therefore I exist;
I exist, therefore I think;
I think, therefore I suffer;
I suffer, therefore I adapt...
 
And the cycle continues....it's vicious really!

I wish somebody would bomb my group and blow it to smithereens!!They dont deserve to exist! Ahr...

Down and but not out yet...

My Job sucks and it sucks real bad... :(
 
And I think I'm going to be sick! Feeling feverish and tired...

And the search goes on...

Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Seek what they sought

Matsuo Basho

Makes some sense!!
Have been in a search mode for a long time now...*ahem*, am searching for a new job but not that search mode...I digress.

I haven't been able to define yet what it is that I am searching for but there's always that feeling of restlessness....I fidget...I cannot stay at one place for more than a short period of time...I have changed jobs...I keep changing places...I keep travelling

There's a niggling feeling that I need to find something!
Maybe I will find it, whatever it is, someday!

No Inspiration no work...

If you want to build a ship, don't herd people together to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.

Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Future Perfect?

"The best way to predict the future is to create it."

Sophia Bedford-Pierce

Musings as I travel...

There's nothing more soothing than driving down the highway in the night...add some soft music to that and with the cool wind caressing your face...Ah! It's almost heaven!!

I guess it's the vastness of the things we have in Nature that cause such wonder...especially the sky. I never get tired of gazing at it.

At times, I wish I could just chuck whatever I am doing and just go travelling...seeing new places, discovering things.
I think it is the idea of travel and discovery that draws me to the kind of books I read, the movies I watch...

Analysis of an Interview

I went for an interview a couple of days ago and well, I think I did OK. But I just havent been able to clue what the interviewers were thinking!! They kept smiling all the time...would have been easier if they kept a poker face...would have been able to notice any stray expressions on their face!!But smiling people??!! how do you make anything out of that?

Maybe they were thinking : "Oh boy! Is this guy giving me great answers? I am so impressed I cant help smiling"
or maybe: "Man! Such hilarious answers...I can barely control myself!! Think I'll just smile to put him off!!"

well, Mangs thinks it could be like this: "This guy is soooo cute...I just have to keep smiling at him!!" Wishful thinking...dont think that's the case though anyway


Anyway, got my fingers crossed...waiting to see what happens

Impatience

Buddha says:
Ambition is like love - impatient about delays and rivals.

I have been known to be impatient since childhood....so what is that supposed to mean??

Haiku for a dew drop

dew drop on a leaf tip;
a glittering star,
catching the light;
throwing out colors

What you can't get out of, get into wholeheartedly. - Mclaughlin, Mignon

Modern Rhymes

The Original One:
Jack and Jill went up the hill
to fetch a pail of water
Jack fell down and broke his crown
Jill came tumbling after...

A Modern Version
Jack and Jill met up on the hill
to have some fun a li'l
Jill said no she wasn't on the pill
Jack sulked and went to drink his fill
Jill and her girlfriend went tumbling after!

Blogging Reloaded...

Am not sure what to put down...just felt the urge to put something on this poor long-neglected blog.
Frankly, I am not too good with words. It seems so much easier to talk and express yourself...but the downside is that you do not have the permanence of words.

Say something today and you forget it tomorrow...there are times when you would rather forget what you said... but I digress...

Well, you write down something today ; probably when you read it after some time, it would bring back memories of things that happened when you wrote that...

I ought to blog more but most times I have no patience to clear things up and put down my thoughts as fluently as other bloggers do...

As they say, Practice makes perfect...people, expect better blogs from me in the future

Truth of Life

"Debates and discussions cannot prove the truth of life. Only experience can.
You know whether the shoe fits you, only by wearing it."

Beginning to realize the true value of this!!

Geodesic's back

Am back after a loooooong time!!

Saw Lord of the Rings-Return of the King last week...got totally bowled over by the graphics...Amazing stuff! The only thing that left a bad taste was the ending...the film's maker(s) haven't done much justice by cutting out details!

Have been so fascinated by LOTR that I have started learning Quenya, the Elvish Language...let's see how long my enthusiasm lasts!

The human mind is strange...When there's no work to do, people crib and complain that theydo not have any work but when there's work to be done, the same people crib that there's too much to do. Strange!!

Opening Lines

This is my first blog...am not sure what to write...will keep putting up what ever crosses my mind every now and then.

Sure the Blog page name's corny! Couldn't think of anything else...