Dearest Mom :)

Today is the birthday of my mom and my best friend. Not very surprisingly, both are the same person :). She is one person who I can talk to about anything, fight over very small issues, argue over nonsensical stuff but basically have lots of respect and love for :). We can gossip for hours, yet understand each other without saying anything. She's certainly one of the people I just cannot live without. She has held me at rough times, irritated me sometimes and walked as a friend by my side at all other times..

So continuing my birthday tradition of this year, here's the evolution snap :).




"Many Many Happy Returns of the day to a mom who's lovable, huggable and sometimes even scoldable :-D. Thanks for being the best mom/friend a girl can ever have :)".

Blowing my own trumpet :-D.

A real quick update. I am feeling really proud and happy today. One of my blog posts is published in Vijay Times epaper's Jun 6th 2007 "Bloggers' park" section.

Here's the way to access it:

1) Go to Vijay Times Epaper.
2) Do not register but click on "Click here for FREE access to e-paper".
3) A pop-up window wil open with the day's online paper.
4) On the top right side there will be Edition and Date dropdowns.
5) Select date as Jun 6th 2007.
6) Scroll using "next" or "previous" to Page 6.
7) Scroll down a little to see the "Blogger's park" section and my post "The age of innocence" in it :). BTW the original post is here.

:-D. And thanks to Chitra for pinging and letting me know :).

KY to WV to VA and back :).

Some people called it Blogger's block. I call it laziness. No matter what name you give it, it means I haven't been updating my blog as frequently as I regularly do. Well, no excuses, after all this blog is mine and this is how I am :-D.

I have a backlog of posts to complete including a tag, but first I have to finish a post on the trip we took for memorial day long weekend. We had been to a couple of places in West Virginia and Virginia states. The total drive was something like 20 hours (don't be horrified, it includes the trip to and fro + roaming around :-D). As usual, here's the sketch of the drive we took :).




26th May 2007:

After humming and hawing on whether to actually take the trip or not, we finally left Lexington at around 11:30 AM on Saturday. Well, we didn't have many places to cover and even if we couldn't go to a place it was our wish and will anyways :-D. Sri drove for 3 hours to reach Beckley in West Virginia where we had decided to halt for the night. On the way, it was a bit cloudy, so it was nice to see light and shadow patterns on the roads :). I really love it when I get to see these :).




After checking in to the hotel, we drove to a place called Bluestone State park which is home to the Bluestone Lake. The road to the place was long and winding (ghat section), but the place was worth it :).




The lake was beautiful, very calm and soothing :). There were lots of people who had brought their own boats and were enjoying rides. We had a nice time walking around and taking photos :).




While leaving we also stopped at the bluestone dam. The bluestone lake is kind of a reservoir and the dam is what makes the lake :).




The opposite side of the road was a huggge wall of red stone..




Then we went back on the topsy-turvy road to the hotel to retire for the day.

27th May 2007:

Sunday very early morning (I got up at 5:30 AM!!), we had breakfast and started driving towards Richmond, Virginia. I drove for the first 2 hours on high mountainous roads. Very scenic roads with lots of greenery :). Later Sri took over and drove for the next 2 hours. Meanwhile we stopped at a scenic view point. Wow, what weather, what scene, what mountains!




We reached Richmond by about 11AM. Our main purpose of visiting this place was the Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden. Its been more than 2 years since I saw a botanical garden (Pamplemousses botanical garden in Mauritius :-D) and I haven't seen one in the US at all in all the places we have been to. This one sounded interesting enough to plan a trip around it :-D.

After paying a fee for the entry, we were let in. They had lots of plants and the garden is pretty big. The best is the hugggggge greenhouse in the center (though the Lalbagh, Bangalore one is probably bigger ;-) :-D).




They also had a couple of beautiful modern art fountains which certainly contributed to the beauty of the plants surrounding them :).




Next we headed to the interior of the greenhouse. Inside were a wide variety of plants and flowers..




I don't even know the names to some exotic flowers :).




There were varieties of colourful orchids...




..., Cactus flowers (a more lasting and colourful kind of the Brahma Kamala we have in India)..




..., Gardenias, Lillies and loads of other flowering plants :).

As most gardens usually do, they had an exclusive garden for roses :).




There were pink roses..




..., red, yellow and peach ones (whose photos I'll not be putting up here just to save space and effort :-D).

After enjoying the rose garden, we went for a stroll around the garden. Had a good time walking around the small lake..




We stopped at a couple of other places which had ponds with lillies and lotuses :).




Overall the garden was wonderful. But we finished seeing it in about 2 hours, well maybe we missed a few nooks and corners. Since our plan was to be there for the whole day, we needed to come up with some other place for the noon..

After lunch at an Indian restaurant (food was so-so), we had some rest in our hotel and then left on a 2 hour drive to a place called Virginia Beach. Sri drove, but due to some circular roads which led to some confusion, we ended up driving for an extra hour :(.

We reached our destination, the First Landing State Park, only at about 7 PM in the evening. The park has its name due to the fact that it was the first place where members of the Virginia Company landed. It lies at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay which goes on to join the Atlantic Ocean. Yup, that meant a beach :-D.

We had a gala strolling around, sitting on the sands on the beach. It was a really lovely sight with a sunset, lots of pelicans and the beach all-in-one :).




Moreover there are several bridges across the bay which actually at some mid point become tunnels undersea! I have seen this in New York before, but you can't really make out the "going under the river part" from a train. Here we were traveling in our SUV across one of the bridges, so we were able to see the tunnel going down :).

Anyways we drove back to Richmond and reached our hotel at around 10:30 PM in the night. And so the day ended..

28th May 2007:

Monday morning (again pretty early, got up around 6:30 AM) after breakfast, we started driving back. I took the wheel for the first 2 hours and then Sri drove for another 2 to reach Beckley again. We had lunch of subs and pizza and stopped at a place called Twin Falls State Resort Park.

We walked a bit to see the Marsh Fork falls.




There were no people around at all, so it was very calm, cool with only the forest sounds :). The falls was a bit scanty, so we could actually walk over :).







After this, we walked about a mile to see if we could reach the second falls which is known as the Black Fork Falls. But the trail didn't have any distances marked and we didn't really know how long it was. Since we had another 3 hours drive ahead of us, we decided to skip that and return :).

Again I took over and drove for about 1.5 hours and Sri drove rest of the way :). We reached Lexington at around 7 PM after encountering a long traffic jam :-p. And so another trip came to an end :).

As usual here's your moment of zen:




Hehehehe. Sharkey and Farmers are 2 different places in Kentucky :). I found "Sharkey Farmers" really funny as it could mean farmers who look like sharks or farmers who grow sharks :-D. We also encountered the same Hurricane, WV that we had seen in our North Carolina Trip. There were loads of other weird named places - "Gum Springs" and "Mossy" in West Virginia, "Crows" and "Croaker" in Virginia, but sadly I was driving when I saw these, so no snaps :(. Well, it would have probably made for a new post altogether :-D. Maybe some other time ;-).

Also looks like no McDonald's representative took my suggestion :-p. Alas!! I saw 100s of "McDonald's Next Exit" boards along the way :-p ;-) :-D.

Like dis and like dat!

I know its been a long time. Well maybe all the blogging I've done for more than 2 years is finally getting to me. I just don't feel like typing a post. Its not that I don't have anything to say. In fact I have a list of topics hanging on for a while now. Yet, somehow I'm just not able to make myself to get off my lazy butt (:-D) and type stuff. Maybe the lazy bug has bitten me for good. Or maybe I wanted to be bitten bad ;-). Anyways, now that I have recovered a bit, I thought I'll finish atleast a post before I get the next laziness dose :-D.

Today, 13th May 2007, is the 2nd anniversary of my coming to US. Last year I actually celebrated the day by being in India! :). This time our trip to India has been on hold due to some reasons. Hopefully we will be going sometime soon. But this post is not about that. When I first came here to US, I had written a post on my likes and dislikes about this place. Have any of them changed for the better? Or have they persisted to be the same? Find out in this new edition of "Dis I like" " :-D.

1) Cost of Stuff:

I've stopped converting dollars to rupees. Well, last year when I was in India, I was actually converting rupees to dollars ;-). It still sucks when you have to pay 4 dollars for a guava here (they are a bit rare) and I do start calculating that I'm paying more than 180 rupees for a stupid guava :-p. Well, I guess, old converting habits never die ;-) :-p.

2) Sunset at 9 PM:

When I actually mentioned this in June 2005, I still hadn't discovered the miraculous "effects" of day-light saving yet. Just 4 months later I was complaining about the sun setting at 5PM!! Isn't anything normal here?? Even after 2 years, I can't claim to have gotten adjusted to such a major fluctuation in daylight every 6 months. And nope, still don't like it :-p.

3) Restaurant food:

Hmmm there have been a bit of changes in this area. Mainly because of 2 south Indian restaurants that have cropped up in our area. Moreover whats very surprising is that we are able to find Indian restaurants most places we travel to. So that means good food for atleast once a day ;-). I also love that the Tacobell people replace all meat with beans without raising their eye-brows, or that the Fazoli people (Italian food chain) mix various kinds of pasta with vegetarian sauces/toppings though they do raise their eye-brows at the "no-meat" instruction :-p or the basic fact that the Burger King people actually have a veggie burger option unlike the infamous McDonalds who don't have any whatsoever (except the plain bun they give you when you say "no meat" :-p). My all time favourite is the Pizza Hut's Veggie Lovers pizza, but it still sucks that you don't have varieties in any of these :(. Its still not like I can go out and eat a bhel puri on road side. But atleast I have some options when I do want to go out. Summing up, it means my opinion is sorta neutral now :).

4) Ulta (reverse) driving:

I've done a full 360 degree turn (ulta myself :-D) on this. I don't really mind it anymore. In fact I like driving here more than I do in India. Yes, there are accidents here too when some crazy people don't follow the rules. But most of the time rules are followed and that makes driving a pleasure than a guessing game of death. I like it that people leave space for emergency vehicles rather than follow it like mad to get out of the traffic. I like it that if God forbid, I'm in an emergency situation, I'll get medical help as soon as possible. I like not having to change gears and cruising at top speeds on highways which are probably still unattainable in India :(.

5) Self help is the best help policy:

I absolutely hate it, though I vaccum only once a week. The dish washing gets to me, so I try and push that work to Sri all the time and I consider myself very successful at that ;-) :-D. Not only that, but whats worse is that, you have to put the petrol into your car, you even blow air to its tyres! You haul your stuff when you are changing houses. You mow your lawn, trim the bushes and dig up earth for plants. I don't really mind the last part too much, because I'm the one who wants to garden :). But I still get mad at people in India who complain about their maids and don't know how lucky they are :-p.

6) Wooden Houses:

Yup, now I'm totally scared about this! I mean what with the mad tornadoes which demolished whole towns in Kansas and the wild fires in Florida and California, I wonder why people even bother building wooden houses. I mean, are you crazy?? Maybe a brick and stone house will surivive a tornado better than a starving wooden house! Oh well, maybe they will fall faster and cause more injury than the wooden houses, who knows :-p. But there has to be something else than a wooden house, surely!

Thats it! Those were the dislikes I had. I really don't have anything to add to that! My likes haven't really changed. I love the State resort/recreation parks, the hugggge shopping malls (though I usually only window shop as the prices are wayyyyyyy crazy!), the fresh fruits, veggies, milk, curd, the strangers greeting each other policy, the traffic rules, the radio stations, multiplexes and planned roads. I have to add the libraries to this list. I have read more books than I ever have and have had all kinds of helpful books for my TOEFL as well as GMAT studies :). The best thing is that if a book is not available in the Government library, you can actually ask for an Inter-library loan. They'll get it for you for some time! How wonderful can it get :))! I also like it that I can wear anything I want here without being afraid of being constantly stared at. Not that I cross any limits ;-). No American stares at you, but there are Indians here who still do, especially older ones who are visiting. Whats with old Indian men and all that staring?? Crazy, I tell you :-p.

One more thing I like is the safety factor. Well, it maybe limited to my town, but it is extremely safe here. There are no robberies as far as I know and its great that you can just lock up and leave unlike India where you have to have somebody sleeping over at your house even if you are out for a day :-p. Also its really wonderful to have the emergency help 911-dialling if you are in trouble of any sorts. Though I don't really have a personal experience, I have heard they respond very quickly and are there in your house over a matter of minutes (as the nearest police officer/ambulance/fire engine is displatched). This is the reason most old people also have no worries here. They don't really need children around as they have 911 for all emergency situations. I do like the way the elderly live here. I mean, in India, as soon as they get old, they start saying Raama-Krishna and begin their theertha-yaathras ;-). Here its totally opposite. They have their new stylish cars and couples go for long vacations. They go shopping on their own, go to gyms, workout and basically lead a life free of responsibilities :-D. And somehow I love the idea of the sheer ability to do that :).

One more thing I like is that you are able to find everything for anything you want to do. For example, I like gardening and most malls have an entire section dedicated to gardening. You get everything, but you have to do everything yourself. Same is the case with plumbing/car repair or whatever. If you are really into the self-thing, then this is the perfect place to be. In fact some people here like to build their own houses (I mean, everything literally) and you get every item thats required in home-related malls! You don't really have to go to a hardware store for some bolts and nuts and then head over to a paint store for paint. Everything is available under one roof and there are even knowledgeable people who can help you out :).

Looks like my likes have gone up pretty drastically ;-). But what I still dislike most about US is not having my family and friends around me and that kinda negates all that I like about this place. I miss not being able to land at my parents house whenever I want though the technology is so great that I am able to see them online one or more times a week. But just seeing is not enough. I want to touch and hug them whenever I want which is still not possible technologically :-p :(. I dislike not being able to walk into a friend's house. I miss just catching up anywhere with a friend and talking for hours forgetting all sense of time. I still am not able to go out and make friends here in US for making-friends-sake. I really don't understand this rule of deliberately making friends just because somebody is from the same country as you. I mean, do you go and introduce yourself to everyone you meet in a market in India? Why then you do the same when you are in another country? Suddenly a fellow countryman stranger is better than an American stranger? Weird!

Sri doesn't have any Indian colleagues and I'm not a very social person. Though I have met a couple of Sri's American colleagues, they are mainly acquaintances and not friends really (for one thing the age difference is usually too much :-D, for another we do not share common interests). Moreover due to my intense dislike of making friends with Indian strangers here, I don't really have any so-called "friends" here. Except my real friends who are spread over the country so wide that I cannot really visit them. Maybe that'll change sometime. Maybe I'll change. Maybe next time I write a post on this "came to US" anniversary, I'll have some more good things to say. But right now, here I am, this is me..

Here comes the thunder!!

Its been a week since my last post. I started writing this one sometime last Tuesday, but somehow was too lazy to complete it. Anyways here I am now.

I haven't ever been to an airshow until last saturday 21 April 2007. I mean, Bangalore is home to a good airshow, but the crowds really are a turn-off. Though we have been here in Kentucky for 2 years now, we never went to the Thunder of Louisville air show until this year. The first year, I hadn't even joined Sri and was still in Bangalore. Last year, we were planning our India trip by this time, so weren't able to.

Finally this year we made it :). And I am impressed. I can't say it was one of the best I've seen, as I haven't seen any at all :-p. But it certainly did feel like the best. We didn't find out it was on that saturday until that afternoon. Which wasn't that big a problem as Louisville is only an hour's drive away. The show actually started at 3 PM, but we didn't really didn't want to sit too long in the sun. So we left home at around 4:30 PM and reached the Louisville downtown around 5:40 PM.

The air show takes place across Ohio river. The best part is that there is no ticket (except for the parking fee and the goodies you end up drinking/eating ;-) :-D) and also that its a prelude to one of the most fabulous firework shows in the US. Tens of thousands of people attend the show yearly from all over the US. While we were on one of the flyovers near the Ohio river, we saw our first helicopter formation for the day. We had to move further away to park. We had gotten camp chairs of our own to sit in, so while we were walking to the show carrying all the stuff, we saw the amazing B-2 Stealth bomber flying over us. Sadly we were still amidst buildings and I couldn't capture a photo. But it was a wonderful sight to say the least. I've seen a B-2 before in the National Air Force museum in Dayton, Ohio, but seeing it fly was something else :).

The people were thronging every place, but we still managed to find some space and settled down on the camp chairs. The next set of helicopters to make an appearance were the UH-60 Black Hawks. There were 3 of them and they did some maneuvers :). Only 2 are seen in the following snap though:




Next in line was the CH-47 Chinook. It did only one pass but looked cool nevertheless.




Following the Chinnok were 2 SH-60B choppers :).




Then the US coast guard helicopter showed a few of its capabilities after which 4 advertisement planes flew to display the sponsor names :). The ad planes are very small planes that carry a banner in the sky..

Next to make their appearance were the C-130 Kentucky Air National Guard planes:




It seems they are used for U.S. military and humanitarian operations. The next plane was the C-17 Globemaster and it is used for cargo and troop transport.




One fun fact is that one such plane is also used to transport the Limos of the president of US anywhere he goes in the world!! It seems this flight heads out before the Air Force One leaves anywhere.

Next were the F-16s. Man! Were they fast. Also they made only one pass, so I am glad I was able to capture them :).




Following them were the US army sky soldiers. These were a set of 4 helicopters:




The next were the best of all helicopters. The AH-64 Apaches from Ft Knox gave a demonstration on how they fly and it was truly spectacular :). It seems they are attack helicopters and supposed are "quick-reacting, airborne weapon systems that can fight close and deep to destroy, disrupt, or delay enemy forces".




They stayed for about 10 minutes performing all sorts of maneuvers and flying up and down, while I captured several amazing photos :).





Next were the amazing F-18s. I thought F-16s were fast, but these were faster and I somehow hastened and managed to get a good snap :).




They stayed for sometime flying in circles, but they were too fast for me to capture a zoomed photo :(. The most fascinating thing was that they flew upwards and vanished in a matter of seconds!!




There was a collective gasp from the crowd ;-) :).

Thereafter, it was the turn of the A-10. These flights are specially designed for close air support of ground forces..




Subsequently, another set of F-18s made an appearance, but these didn't stay for too long and made only one pass..




It had already crossed 8 PM by then and the fireworks barges moved into position.




There were actually 2 barges and they stood in such a way that a bridge separated them. We were only able to see one barge and the bridge. The bridge was also supposed to have some fireworks show, so we were glad :).

Next in line were the Trojan Horsemen Aerobatic formation demo team. They were really good. First they formed something which looked like a big UFO in the night :). People (us too :-D) really ooh-ed and aah-ed. Later they made a cross formation:




I was really impressed. Man, it must be so difficult to maintain all the flights at the same speed and moving in the same direction so as to keep the formation intact! Imagine how much practice it'd take! And imagine, even if one loses control, all the others are in trouble :-O!

Next 2 helicopters flew with the American flag, while patriotic songs were played :).




Before the fireworks began, the last show for the night was the Bill Leff night show :). I couldn't really capture good photos of the show as it was dark already, but you can see some in the link. The show consists of a flight which throws fireworks from its ends! I hadn't even heard of such a thing before. The flight moved like a fast comet, showering fire and fireworks wayyy above in the sky in tune to some loud music :).

Finally, the barges got ready and the fireworks began exactly at 9:30 PM. And it was nothing like I've seen before in US and believe me, I have seen quite a few.




They exploded from the barges and the bridge..




All sorts of wonderful colours which made all of us clap and cheer :).




The best being the "rainfall" from the bridge :).




They lasted for half an hour and ended at 10 PM. We later packed up our chairs and headed back to the parking lot.

We started driving and the traffic was jammed for a long time. We almost stayed in the same area for more than 1.5 hours!! I felt they could have organized the traffic movement a bit better (they do know so many people attend this), but maybe they did their best. Anyways by the time we got home, it was almost 1 AM, so were pretty tired..

All in all, if you forget the last traffic jam (:-D), it was truly a delightful experience. Next year, we plan to go earlier so that we don't miss anything :).

Shooting saga continued..

Much discussion has been going on about the shooting a few days ago. First of all, Cho Seung-hui sent a tape/pictures of himself to a NBC (he's supposed to have posted the package between the shootings!). So there has been much talking on whether the news channels should show the videos or not (well, all of the channels played them non-stop the first day they were released and the next day declared that they were sympathetic to the victims' families and stopped playing them). One point of view being that people should know why he did it while the opposite saying that showing the video might influence other people into following in his footsteps. God! Its TV for heaven's sake. If you don't want to watch, there is a power-off button, in case you didn't know!

Secondly, people have been saying how mentally ill Cho was. How mentally, he was a boiling cauldron ready to explode. And what we can do to recognize such mental illness in some kids and stop them from harming other people. Gimme a break! How do you determine somebody's mental health? Just because somebody is depressed, can you lock them up? Everybody is a bit crazy in their own way. What's the measure of this "craziness"?? What if a very decent person, behaving normally, suddenly heads off into a shooting rampage? What'll be the explanation of that then?? The kids play violent video games and watch more violence on TV and in movies. Why don't you discuss about that? Why don't you say they are corrupting the children and make a move to stop those?

Thirdly it seems now there is a paranoia about Oriental men. They are being looked at suspiciously just like Middle eastern people were after 9/11 (they are still being looked at like that at present). People are nuts! What happened to the fact that it was Americans who did all the shooting and raping in the Katrina incident? So will you be scared of your neighbour eh? Won't get out of the house? What about yourself? How can you trust "you"?? Again, the media is having a field day interviewing Oriental men on whether they are being discriminated against. They try to exploit every fear a person can ever have and actually succeed in spreading more panic!

What people don't seem to be discussing a lot is about Gun control. Do you know how easy it is to get a gun in the state of Virginia? All that is needed is a driver's licence and no criminal record! Can you believe that! I can go and get a gun without being asked any questions! And I haven't even seen a real gun (except some in museums and movies :-\) and have no clue how to operate one! But I can buy one if I feel like it! A 16-year old gets a DL here. So if he/she has no past criminal record, they can walk into a gun shop and walk out with a gun. Its totally unbelievable! But nobody wants to talk about changing that. Why? Is that because all these gun manufacturers "feed" the Government?

The media can talk, talk and talk more but end up accomplishing nothing. I really feel irritated whenever they say "Oh the police had arrested him before but they never realized..." or interview a roommate to ask "And you never thought this guy could be like this?". The roommates are not psychics, nor are the police miracle workers! I know some introverted people, doesn't mean they are killers! Tomorrow even if one of them turns out to be a killer, how am I supposed to know? Guess work? The worse part is none of this talk is going to change the fact for the 32 people who died and their grieving families. Philosophically you can say their time was up or whatever. But the pain of a loved one taken away, is only felt by the one who has lost them...

May the victims' souls rest in peace..