long distances.

Incidentally I'm also raising money for Portland's AID chapter (pardon the mess of a website) in the process.

I'm running half a marathon this weekend as part of the RFI program.

I urge you to donate. Many thanks. :)

I'd like to pick up where I left off in my last post.

We were done with our temple sightings by early afternoon on the 31st and were looking for things to do. Our next big destination on this trip was going to be Udupi, which is a few hours south on the coast.

But did I not promise a party? Our definition of a party turned out to be a sunset on the beach! I really wanted to catch sight of the setting sun, considering how it is such a rare event where I live. So we headed to Marvanthe Beach about an hour before sunset. It is situated about 50 kilometres southwest of Kollur on NH 17. The journey reminded me very much of hwy 101 (for those who have been to California and Oregon), minus the cliffs. It was surprisingly clean, and free of certain smells that usually come with city beaches in India. Those intimately familiar with Marina Beach in Madras or Chowpati in Bombay (there are no beaches in bangalore, but Bangaloreans -- think Ulsoor) surely know what I mean. ;)

I started dabbling with photography somewhat seriously late last year and decided that a tripod will do me good as I have really shaky hands. Sunsets and silhouettes are my current favourite subjects. So I setup shop on the beach, and started clicking away. The resultant album is here.

Personally, I think most pictures are not worth a second look; but I've uploaded them for the record as a checkpoint.

Enjoy!

A hello, and a happy new year to my (ir)regular readers.

For those who have been looking at this space with nothing anew for a while, the dearth of anything interesting to share on this blog has kept me from posting. I've thought about a ton of things though, but some topics were more personal than this blog could handle, and others just not personal enough.

I've finally hit upon that just-personally-right topic, so here I am.

For those who know what I did in the past holidays, you guessed right...it's a travelog (travel-blog? trablog? tlog?). For those who don't know, I went home to India last December, and went on a tour of the western ghats in Karnataka. This was my first time in the ghats, and I loved it. It was mostly a temple tour, and I present here some pictures from one of our various pitstops.

My Mama, mami, and I set out in the evening on 30th Dec from Bangalore to Kollur. It was an overnight journey through most of the ghat section and the journey itself was quite an experience. We had the last seats in a "not-completely-insulated-from-the-outside" bus, which is typically how most Indian buses (and trains, unless ACed) are. Though the ghats are very close to the equator, it does get chilly. The roads being what they were, it ended up being a 10 hr roller coaster ride. As a result of both, I was awoken many times. I'd take a peak through the curtained windows and find that the sky was pitch black, studded with millions of sparkly stars. I caught sight of the big dipper many a time. It was a sight to behold.

My last napping session ended shortly before dawn, by which time we were so deep into the ghats that one could see only mountains and valleys all around. The sun peaked out from behind some mountains, and we quietly exchanged greetings. The road was unusually rough for me to take any decent pictures and so I didn't try. I just soaked in the crimson red colours of dawn with my eyes till it was too bright for me to do so. You'll find that a lot in the albums. Entire evenings will be missing because I didn't want to be chained to the camera.

Around 6 30 in the morning we reached Kollur, and we set out to look for a decent place to shower before heading out to the Mookambika temple. It was December in India, and it does get cold (though not as cold as here in Oregon) -- but we had a cold water bath (because that's all there was!). It was chilly but awesome still. A hot cuppa chai (and the best ever through the whole trip) later, we set out to pay our obeisance to the Goddess.

It was a small, beautiful temple, built in what I thought was a Kerala style. The temple was unusually crowded for a weekday and I was surprised at that. It turns out that end of December is the time when millions of people flock to an Ayappan temple in Sabarimalai in Kerala. I'll research and write about that another day. Anyway, back to the point...these pilgrims stop at any temple they can find along their way. And Kollur is in the way. As a result, we waited in line for about half an hour before we were able to get into the inner sanctum. There are many legends related to the origins of the temple, and you can read them in the wiki entry here. It was much hurried for me to register much about the inner sanctum, but I remember distinctly a silver plated snake on the rear wall of the temple. Mookambika sets out on a temple tour twice every day, and we were witness to her morning perambulations. The photos speak for themselves here. I don't have more detail to add to it. At a later (leisure) date, I'll perhaps write more about it.

Among other reasons, I was here in Kollur because I was curious about Adi Shankara. I believe in Advaita in its most basic form, and this trip was partly an effort to learn more about the person. So right after the temple, we endeavoured to set out to the Kodachadri hills, where there is (yes you guessed right!) another more ancient temple. There is also a shrine of Adi Shankara on the mountaintop (though we didn't go there).

The journey to the hills is where the reality of the western ghats hit me. A friend had once contrasted the western ghats with the US forests, and surmised that though thick, the forests in the US are somewhat tourist friendly, as there are many markers along the trails. I think he was right for, as we were driving to the hilltop, I was able to see nothing but thick forests *everywhere*. If one were to waver from the well-trodden paths, I'm not sure if they'll ever make it back to the right track. That said, I found it amazing that Adi Shankara had almost 1200 years ago travelled the entire length and breadth of India on foot, not to mention the numerous unsung and unheard-of trekkers.

We went atop the mountain on a nearly-unmotorable path, spent some time communing with nature; and turned back. That's pretty much all we had time for at Kollur; and we headed out late in the afternoon. Where to, you may ask. I'll save it for the next post, with a teaser -- we had had our dose of religion for the day, it was now time for some party. ;)

I've put up pictures from Kollur here. I hope you enjoy it!

• ...the colour of my toenails. Ugly. If accused, I'll plead not-guilty on grounds of temporary insanity.
• ...the colour of a snug fitting top, to cover up the disaster of the toenails (for want of nail polish remover.).
• ...ear rings, to go with the rest of the getup.
• ...the colour of Tilamook Cheese Factory's Oregon black cherry ice cream. The exact same shade as the top. No, this was not pre-planned.
• ...the name of the chosen movie of the night -- The Pink Panther. It happened to be lying around near the player. A hilarious movie.
• ...the colour of roses in bloom in my home garden. Yes...I can take care of living beings. And no...I haven't named it yet. It is part of chotu's (my miniature rose bush) adopted family.

Note:
1. These were true oddly coordinated occurrences on a certain unforgettable day.
2. I haven't gone completely cuckoo, not just yet. Just halfway there.
3. Stranger events (pun intended) also occurred that day. Another day, maybe.

Remember the bit about dancing in the disco downtown sometime?

I just did! At Berbati's in downtown Portland, with some friends. It was a decent bar. Very enthu crowd. I didn't realize that dancing can be such a workout!

MJ's Don't stop till you get enough was playing when we just entered. One of my favs. :)

Loved it!

Do I really need to add to this? But I will. Just that I can totally identify with every frame in this strip, even though I've not done a PhD (yet?). Lately I'm finding myself on step 17.

From time to time I look outside my little world to learn about the rest of the world. Occasionally knowledge happens to be in the form of news articles I find on the web. I bookmark some of these links.

I travel light, and hence I prefer to have my bookmarks stored on a remote server in public domain so that I can access them from any machine connected to the web.

And thus my del.icio.us account started, courtesy splogs  (who used to be the source of a lot of new web technologies that I came to know about).

It turns out that del.icio.us is also a social bookmarking site -- meaning that unless made explicitly private, links one bookmarks can be seen by everybody. Now that's precisely what I'd like. There are some links that I'd like to share with people. Some are not amenable to blogging or emailing and hence end up on my del.icio.us site.

But here's the catch...most people I know don't know about my del.icio.us account, and hence there's the danger of the links not really reaching people. Such as the following ones.

• On habits (not hobbits, you silly folk).
• or this one on the existence or not of half a bee.
• or the Umpqua river (inside the forest) on the banks of which my friend and I drove -- through almost the whole length of the river.
• or mathematical puzzles from folks in the Math and Computer Science departments at CMU.

If you're into using a feed reader to catch up on ever changing web content (such as news and blogs)...del.icio.us is easily eaten up by any one of the popular ones.

Anyway...the point is that there are some links that I really want to share, and they're now on both del.icio.us and on livejournal. I guess the title question is now moot. ;)

I've moved a lot in India as a kid, so I'm never sure where my first home is.

But I know the exact location of my second home. And it is Austin in Texas. I've been out of Austin for a while now (I recently realized - 2.5 years), but have not felt away even one day.

I'm glad that at least some things are certain in life. ;-)

The day starts out as winter -- chilly, light rain, dark ominous clouds in the sky.
Afternoon come and clouds part to make way for the sun. It's hot and humid. And you may catch some clouds hovering above Mt. Hood.
By evening a cool breeze and really light showers reminds you that it is still Spring.
I'm sure you'll see autumn some time in the day, I just haven't found out when.
Night brings its moon and a chill wind of the winter.

All in one day.

I'm in love (with this town).

Did you know that when there are scattered clouds in the sky; and their distance relative to each other, the observer (me!!), and the sun is just right; one can see shadows that one cloud casts on another?

It was just awesome. Sadly, the observer moved; and the show ended. It was all gone too soon. No pictures to prove it, except the unforgettable stills in my head.

I was googling run length encoding, and one of the links pointed to an implementation of RLE. This was by a guy called Arturo Campos.

And then suddenly, the squiggly spirals of Flaashbaackk!! happened.

Fall 2003. My friend G2 and I were at Football practice at the UT stadium (no silly, we were just watching and cheering on.). This was our (at least mine) first brush with this game. We didn't know a thing other than the funny outfit (and a rather funny looking ball).

To our rescue came Arturo. He sat there on the bleachers with us, and taught us the basic basics of American Football. In return, Arturo was curious about the dot on our foreheads. I personally wear it because...well I think I look pretty in it (so do a few others) and my dad never fails to point out the lack of a point if he ever catches me without it. G2 explained that there are others that believe that they protect one of their energy points (or some such thing) by wearing the bindi.

After that long winded explanation, I said "but I don't subscribe to that."

And to that Arturo said "really...is that a magazine?". He was surely pulling my leg.

I don't remember much else of that evening -- except that Arturo gave us his number (to call him, I imagine?) at the end of an hour long chat.

Now where was I...Arturo Campos. RLE. I must get back to work.

Afterthought 1 : The first semester was the superest fun time.
Afterthought 2 : Such flirts we were. And after a few incidents in the really recent past, I'll have to note -- such flirts we are.

I found out that Ayn Rand *didn't have* any kids. No...I did not find out by accident. I was halfway through The Fountainhead, and I couldn't continue reading it anymore without seriously affecting my work life.

Some day, I hope to go back and finish it (just like Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance...let's see...how long has it been now...6 yrs?). It just became too heavy to be consumed at that point in time.

Yes...at some point during the course of the book I began to wonder...what did she think about kids...and what were her experiences with them. And the burning question -- did she have any? It has been nagging me for the last 4 months now. And I just found out -- none. Interesting. Something inside me feels vindicated. I can't place my finger on why. I do have some guesses:

1) I guess kids can be irrational and needing attention?
2) Something about her philosophy doesn't go well with kids?
3) There's too much adult content in her books?
4) A case of too much objectivity spoils the kids?

I'm in awe of her decision to stick to what she didn't want to do in life.

Mental note: I need to find something that I'll not feel like burning down halfway through.

Today is Earth Day. I just found out (for sure).

How am I going to celebrate...I'm thinking about doing what we used to do a lot when we were really young (due to the incessant power cuts AKA load shedding) -- a candle light dinner.

Inspired by my music guru's family -- who have moonlight, candle light dinners pretty much everyday!

I hope your celebrations are just as fun!

Update: In addition to the aromatic candle light chipotle-leftovers dinner (which was great!), the lights are all also low power now - save one in the closet. There are even these "natural light" low power fluorescent lights available these days...and they fit right into my floor lamp, and feel almost like the Edison bulbs too! Woo hoo!!!!

'Twas rather funny celebrating this year...as my roomie was not aware of it and went around switching on every light in our apartment; while I went right behind her and switched off every light that was turned on! And thus balance was achieved. The dinner was quite comedic, if not romantic. ;)

So I've thought about this, and often. What I'm about to say may gel well with some, and not with others. My sincere apologies to both. Oh...and the disclaimer -- I'm no psychologist, just trying to sort things out in my head.

As humans with some amount of non-volatile memory, we remember things that happened in the past. Some things we tend to remember more than others. They are mostly due to

a) emotional reactions they caused in us (such as the DSP class that really sucked, or the breathtaking evergreens on I-84), and

b) others are simply due to the fact that we go back and revisit them every day (like the math multiplication tables we learn in primary school till they are etched in our minds. Wake me up from a deep slumber, and I'll still be able to tell you that 4x2 is 42.).

My opinion is that most events in our lives evoke some kind of an emotional response. The more intense the response, greater is the tendency to remember it. My theory is that most naturally occurring memories are due to case a) above. Whether it is permanent or not is what is determined by case b).

Now what has all this memory talk got to do with moving on?

Say you had a great positive experience, and it was the best you've had. Now the mind naturally tends to compare every other similar experience with that single best one. It's easily possible that the others are in some way not as good as that single one. And so though these experiences may all be positive, they may still leave a void -- they're not as good. You tend to pine for that good experience again, but you don't get it, and feel frustrated. So positive memory turned negative here.

The second case is the slightly more difficult one to handle. Say you've had a negative experience. The mind works in strange ways (believe me!). It tends to remember that negative experience, and the associated emotion *every single time* something negative happens. Eventually this can sap one's present life.

In either of the above cases, b) above is what is in play. It works to strengthen the memory of that event -- with time there are perhaps even additions and deletions. The memory is vivid, as if it just happened yesterday. The associated emotion is almost a pavlovian conditioning, I think. The event may not have any significance in present day life, but it may still evoke the same response today as it did 3 or 26 years ago. That's what makes me think that it's akin to pavlovian conditioning. This tendency I'd like to think as "living in the past" -- negating all events happening in the present, and pining for/moping over things past. Moving on fails to happen.

I'd like to experience the present -- smell the roses and tulips, sing like no man's business, design the best darn network controller there is; make a hot cup of tea, stand in the porch, and watch Spring bloom in front of my eyes. Don't know... may be even dance in the disco downtown. Above all, live today for today's sake.

The past has had its run. I've learned from it. I'm still learning from it. But please go away. Do not disturb my present day. Denial it is not, an acknowledgment of a great time gone by, a requiem to a really sad day. But please go your way, do not take away my today. And who knows...may be something even better than ever before will come my way!

I don't know about y'all, but I want to move on. And hey (sloowllyy...you know -- everyday)...I am! :)

Heard at lunch today:

E: So...what time do you get to work?
V: Some time between 8:30 and 9:00.
E: What about you, K?
K: Some time between 8:00 and 5:00.

Priceless.

I feel that there's some steam blowing going on in my blog too! ;)

A friend of mine put together the following video of his adventures in western Oregon. From a snowy tunnel on hwy 26 to Mt. Hood, he has done a great deal of travel in his old an' faithful Prelude.


Sadly, he's leaving town. But sweet memories remain. Good bye, dear friend. I'm going to miss you.

Update: I found out the names of the two tracks in this montage (from my friend, of course).

1. The first (approx.) half of the audio track is a song called Indian Ink by Chequerboard.


2. The second track in this video is Loreen McKennitt's Between the Shadows.

The Capitol Steps take a day off on the first of April every year (in addition to certain other significant days -- significant only because I get a day off on those days).

Listen to some politically significant US politicians make conversation with the Capitol Steps on their day off.

From John Denveren music to a Shakespearan play...enjoy!

"Sometimes it takes time to get somewhere."

Just want to publish it so that it remains for posterity.

For some, it takes a "formal" class to realize that they already know most of what they wanted to learn. Some people never do. (Striken as I feel it is irrelevant to the post. Should eliminate some punny questions. :P)

And as Doree from Finding Nemo would say...Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming...