It was the best day of my life. I was going to propose to my 3 year girl friend. I was looking forward to this day for almost an year now. I got the loveliest ring for her, picked out the right clothes to wear, right spot to propose – the campanile tower on our University grounds where we first met, and had the perfect evening planned.
I reached the meeting point and was waiting for her at a stone table by the tower when a weird feeling takes over. The first thing I notice is that my shoes are different. That’s not the shoes I picked out in the morning, I don’t even remember I had those shoes. I immediately noticed my clothes are different too. I was holding a phone that wasn’t mine, or atleast I thought wasn’t mine. But I was holding it so I continued holding it for a little longer. All of this definitely felt freaky but I kept waiting for her. Its past a few hours now and she hasn’t shown up yet. I am already cursing myself on picking an afternoon for this. I was hoping to celebrate the rest of the day but this hasn’t turned out that way so far. I tried using the phone but it’s not my phone. Its asks for a pin number that I cannot recollect. I cannot unlock this phone but with the looks of it I was sure it was mine. It had my name etched on it and said ‘Love’. So I walk up to the student center nearby and call her from a booth there. I got her machine. The answering machine used to have her voice but now it’s just the default message. Nonetheless, I left messages asking her to call me back.
It’s been a while now and I am beginning to worry. I get a call back from my girl friend. Well, that wasn’t her though…apparently I have been calling the wrong person. I gathered that my girl friend doesn’t own this number anymore and the new person had that for almost 2 years now. I decided to drop by her house and make sure she was doing alright. I knock the door a couple of times and wait for her to answer it but its not her. She doesn’t live there anymore. I am shocked, surprised and freaked out. Not knowing what to do and still knocked out of my wits, I head home. To add to my confusion I don’t live there anymore. All my neighbors are different, someone else lives in my house and no one has any idea where my family is.
Life’s taken a wrong turn for me. It’s like I was dreaming all this stuff till now and just woke up or I was still dreaming in my sleep. Whatever it is, this is not my life. Not knowing what do to, I decided to go spend the night at a friend’s place. It is no surprise that my friend doesn’t live there either. Now I am too scared with all the bad looks I was getting from all these houses and I am the brink of calling myself mad. I decided to use the last few bucks in my pocket to call my oldest friends and left a message with all of them. It was night already and hoping for someone to call me back, I decided to spend the night on a park bench.
Read part -2 to know what happens next.
Doesn’t matter if you are a fan of this untamed beast from X-men, you will definitely become a fan of the game for sure.
X-men origins: Wolverine (uncaged version) is the movie story with extra fighting to add up for the game time. As one of my friends aptly put it, ‘The God of War meets Drake Uncharted’, It’s a solid hack and slash game and you will love it if you are already a fan of drake uncharted or God of War. I loved both the Xbox and PS3 versions although I thought the ps3 version had better graphics (of course it’s a blu-ray disc and packs better content).
Check out the demo if you haven’t done so already but the real fun is in playing the full game as always 
Here is what xbox.com has on this game http://www.xbox.com/en-US/games/x/xmenoriginswolverine/. Check out the final trailer on youtube below.
Tags: XBOX
This weekend was awesomely sunny too but we did not get to hike. Instead we had a festival over the weekend and decided to celebrate it the way we would in India with as much grandeur.
So what was the festival you ask. Its the great Ganesha festival – Ganesha Chaturthi also called as Vinayaka Chaturthi or Vinayaka Chavithi in Southern India. This is a very auspicious festival and is celebrated by Hindus all over the world. This is the birthday of Lord Ganesha, the leader of all the Gods and the remover of all obstacles according to Hinduism. This festival is observed during the Hindu month of Bhadrapada on the 4th day after new moon, the Chavithi. Hence the name Vinayaka Chavithi. The festival runs for 10 days and ends on the Ananta Chaturdasi. This festival is very famous in the state of Maharastra and is probably the most celebrated in the Indian city of Mumbai.
So we decided to throw a party with lots of good festival food and celebrate it with friends, and boy did we have a good time. It felt nice to have a good gathering on a nice summer afternoon. Meanwhile if you want to read up more on the festival, see what bing finds on the net for Ganesha Chaturthi.
It took me a while to understand, compile and build this checklist. Now you may not need or feel like carrying everything thats listed out here. But it is always a good idea to go through the checklist before leaving anything behind.
- Map
Never set out without a map especially if the trail is not well marked. It is very easy to get lost in an easy to explore wilderness and do not count on wireless phone signal or the phone GPS for help. A map that has the trail path on it is a plus. - Compass
Always helps to carry a compass to complement the map. - Food
Compact high energy snacks like energy bars are good. We dont realize but a hike no matter how easy/difficult and long/short will make the hiker hungry by the time the hike is complete. - Clothing
Although a personal choice, warm, rain and windshell clothing is always prefered. - Shoes
Hiking shoes always recommended. You can find some good hiking shoes at REI or other sports shops. - Sunglasses
Helps with the bright light at altitudes, avoids the snow blindness and helps with good looks in pictures. - Sunscreen
Never start without one. - First aid
Always carry atleast the basic firstaid kit. - Pocket knife
A multipurpose knife with the likeness of the swiss knife is recommended. - Matches
Matches or lighters are a must if it is a multi day hike. Day hikers may not need matches as much unless they plan on day camping. - Firestarter and wood
Similar to matches. - Water
Always carry enough water for the entire hike. The way we do it is carry two sets of water bottles with cold water in one and the other is half frozen. We drink the cold water on the way to the hike. The frozen water starts melting by the time we head back and we have cold water for the way back too. - Bug repellent
If the hike is through a lot of thick growth, bug repellents are a must. - Walking stick
Depending on the difficulty of the hike, walking sticks are a must. Most people find using a walking stick makes their life easier even for a hike rated 1. - Blanket (throw)
We always carry a blanket to use when we reach the destination. Most of the hikes dont have a place to sit once you reach the point. Having a blanket on hand makes it easier to sit down and relax for a while before heading back to the trail head.
| Difficulty – 7/10 | Scenic – 10/10 | Length – 5.5mi |
Living in the beautiful Pacific Northwest gives us access to a lot of serene picturesque locales not found elsewhere. Its weekend again and we set out on our Saturday hiking trip. This time we headed out to Lake 22 on Mountain Loop Hwy.
Full of old growth trees and with more than half a dozen water falls, this is a must do trail for all enthusiasts. Although rated as easy to moderate, we found that this trail was more of moderate to difficult with all the rocks and steep gradient along the trail. The trail is 5.5 mile roundtrip with no access to bikes or wheelchairs. Pets are expected to be on leash and we were glad to see most of the hikers follow these rules.
Hikers are expected to register at the trailhead incase of an emergency or if they get lost which as I understood can happen a lot. The easy to explore wilderness tends to lure people into taking shortcuts which combined with foggy conditions can make them lose track of the trail paths. The trail starts off in parallel to the Mountain Loop Hwy and you can hear the vehicles passing by. Soon the trail veers off in to thick growths and rocky trails. There are a lot of smaller water falls and streams all along the trail that keep the hikers excited.
Some wild flowers and plants along the trail.
The first mile is easier after which the trail becomes very rocky. This is the most difficult part of the trail but if you endure this, you are in for a treat. The last half mile is really easy but muddy for most of it. A bright clear day would give ample opportunities for nice pictures. Once you get to the lake, there are no simple words to explain the beauty of Lake 22. BTW, who would give such a dull name to this lake? A nice wooden walkway runs all along the perimeter of the lake that you can walk on. Lake 22 is rated 10 of 10 for scenic beauty.
To get to Lake 22 trailhead, go 11 miles East on Mountain Loop Hwy till you reach the Verlot Park Ranger station. Keep going for another 2 miles, past the Mount Philchuck road to get to the Lake 22 trailhead which comes on the right.
For full trail information, contact the Verlot Public Service Center, 33515 Mountain Loop Hwy or the Darrington Ranger District.
Here’s a quick look of the location on bing maps.
Tags: Hiking
These days everything that is shown on News channels is about the new health plan that the Govt. is trying to push for. Angry mobs disrupting town hall meetings, people getting down on each others nerves, pushing and shoving. Now all this reminds me of something that we saw on the same News channels about a month back happening in a different part of the world. The difference – people then were protesting against a falsely won Govt and the folks now protesting a legally won Govt, a victory that almost everyone celebrated out on the streets.
I have no idea what the new health plan is but it definitely shows how easy it is to manipulate a group of people with almost no knowledge of facts. It took Mr.Bush 8 years to become as unpopular but just 200 days for Mr.Obama to get there and beyond.
I really hope they figure this health plan thing out before it gets any more ugly. As much as I want an awesome plan that would take care of me, I cant but think the state of the country that is getting torn and misled by the wrong people working for their own advantage. Now this is where I would use my ‘I want my country back’ callout.
Yes and that’s a Billion Washingtons. This is not a trick question and there are no hidden parts to the question. One simple direct question – What would you do if you were given a Billion USD.
Its nice to see people come up with a variety of answers and more importantly similar ones. Almost everybody who gets this question asked, answers philanthropically with sentences like ‘ I will spend most of it on fighting poverty, world hunger and environment protection/global warming’. Though it is nice that everybody thinks of saving the world first, is that really what will happen once you land with the Billion.
Lets take a closer and practical look at the problem and the common answer.
A Billion is a lot of money. There is no denying that. This much money can fix a lot of problems in today’s world where almost everything and anything is possible if you can pay for it. Now there is no denying that either. Setting up stuff for goodwill is not an overnight process. It takes a lot of time, effort and thought to get it right. Small mistakes could end the money in wrong hands and not to mention that lots of money brings in lots of problems. There are folks all along who want a piece of that wealth for themselves. Not just people who you need to work on your philanthropic project, even family members are interested too. More money means more greed.
By the time you realize what is going on and keep everybody in check, you have already spent a whole lot of time and the interest and zeal with which you took up this task has faded away. Now this is what makes this question a tough one to answer.
I am yet to come across an answer that I feel would really work in a practical world. As for me, I would answer the question as – ‘ You keep the money and do all this philanthropic work. As a payment for getting all of it done, you can keep half of it if you like to after the task is complete. I am content with what I have. Thanks’. Honestly. smirk and wink.
Windows 7 is awesome. This is why -
I have a 512MB, Centrino processor, 5 years old dinosaur of a Dell laptop sitting on the death row for about an year now waiting to be recycled. Enter Win 7 and this baby is running like a race car.
Sweetness!
You know its not a good day for technology when a device that is considered to be a big breakthrough in the tech world stops working and starts frustrating you. Well that is the day for me today.
I recently purchased an iPhone. Now for people who dont know what iPhone is, it is the standard for smartphones as some might like to put it. I initially liked the phone a lot but not so much lately. The phone is slow, takes forever to load the apps, drops calls all the time, runs out of memory (oh yeah! I see the oom msg pop up almost everyday) and most of the apps dont even work. Not to mention the sluggish 3G network of AT&T and weird battery draining problem.
So today I decided its time to pay a visit to the genius desk at the mac store. The guy there basically ran a quick sanity health scan of the device and decided that there is nothing wrong with the phone. When I tried to discuss the issues I have had lately, he ran the list of issues and their reasoning which pretty much pushed iPhone out of my fav 5. This is how the conversation went.
Me (M) – So what do you think
Genius (G) – Your device is working fine. There is nothing wrong with it.
M – But the battery keeps draining all the time.
G – Oh. About that. You need to turn off wifi to save your battery. Wifi has a tendency to drain batteries.
M – mmm… But I need Wifi for faster access to content.
G – Not just wifi, you will have to turn off or better manage your 3G and push mechanism for email. These usually need a lot of power to keep running and are the primary reason for draining your battery.
M – But I need my mail and 3G gives me faster downloads where wifi isnt available.
G – Yah about that, 3G from AT&T isnt really that great. So you arent really gaining anything there with 3G turned on.
M – Oh. So whats your recomendation now.
G – You have about 100 apps on your device and thats basically chewing up all available RAM. You will end up with OOM no matter what you do unless you delete some of these apps.
M – (in my mind, but iPhone is famous for its apps)
G – and you might want to download the memory freeing apps to keep your device running.
M – Alright. Thanks (in me mind – for this sucky device.)
So I began a quick comparison of this phone and the Windows Mobile phone I had before. I used to run multiple apps, had easy access to outlook servers, could connect to windows machines without any issues, built in media players, better call quality and service from Sprint. This phone had none of those but for the form factor.
Bottom line -> iPhone – useless crap = nothing. (unless I see some improvement with the phone) If you are looking for more info on love/hate relationship with the iPhone, here is an interesting article on msnbc. Check it out. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32177251/ns/technology_and_science-wireless/wid/11915829/
This is just venting out my frustration with the phone, please do not take this as a review for iPhone or reco for their Genius bar service.
Now, I have been to this place atleast a half dozen times in the last 1 year and yet the scenic beauty doesnt cease to amaze me. Every time I feel like I am looking at something new and awesome. Thats the Hurricane Ridge in Olympic National Forest for you.
For more on Hurricane Ridge visit think link on Wikipedia.org http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Ridge
Tags: Hiking
