Last Bachelor Post !! :)

This is officially my last post as a bachelor ... :) I am leaving for India in about 15 - 20 minutes now and wont be able to login - blog until after my wedding ... so just wanted to take this time to write my (99th post btw :)) last bachelor post... how cool of a coincidence will that be, 100th post, century as a married man ;) ...

I dont know whether I will miss being a bachelor or not ... Whether I will miss blogging as a bachelor or not or if there is any difference at all ... but I soon am gonna find out for sure ... :) .. I received so many emails in reply to the marriage invite which mentioned, 'tu to ab shahid ho gaya', 'Welcome to the ball and chain club' etc etc ... but as I said to everyone - 'ab agar yeh khudkhushi bhi ho, magar ek bar karke dekhne ka dil kar raha hai ' :) ..

See you all soon ... If you miss me, just listen to my songs above ;) !

Skiing !!

I have been waiting so long to write this post but was waiting for the snaps ... now that I have the snaps, here it is ... Last weekend, we all decided to convert the seattle snow storm to our advantage ... What better time for skiing, right ?It might sound very ironic but even after being in snowy weather for 2 years during my masters, I had never done skiing before ... so I was damn excited !

Beautiful views on the way

Saturday morning a group of 8 of us left early morning around 8 and reached there by around 9 ... Most of us were doing it for the first time so everyone was as excited as I was ... as we started approaching the summit at snoqualmie mountains, all I could say was, 'Yeh Hasi wadiyan, Yeh Khula Aasaman" .. It was just amazing, truly amazing work of nature everywhere ... Look the at the pics here ..

Ready to skii !!

Soon the long drive was over ... first I felt sad that the drive was over but then I got out and just had one look at the people skiing and all the sadness just vanished in like a second ... Looked like the whole seattle was there ... we found out that everyday ski rental was $34 + lift ticket was ~$50 bucks ... and then there was this pass for beginners called EZ123 which was for $99 - it included 3 days of rental (worth $112) + 3 lessons + 3 days of lift (worth $150) ... so thought thats the best deal ... and we were of course hoping that we will like it so much that we would want to return next time ...

We got our rental stuff ... and my god, the rental shoes !! They were sooo huge and so awkward to wear ! Walking with them on was damn tough ... I had never imagined them so big ! But oh well, it was not if I had a choice, right ? :) .. The beginner day 1 lessons started soon and I found out how tough skiing is ... well not really, to be frank, skiing was easy ! It was very easy to come down skiing down the slope, it would take hardly few seconds for that but walking up the hill would take more than 10 minutes ... not to mention, it was so damn tough !! It was more exercise than 1 hour work out in pro club ! Even in that cold weather, I was sweating like anything !

(Group snap1)

He started teaching with a normal walk with ski and then went ahead with right and left turns, weight balancing, how to stop (without falling ;) ) and so on .. things became tougher and tougher gradually ... but it was mostly about practice & confidence. After a few hours of practice, I could take left turns pretty well ... or at least i thought so :) ... It was great fun !! Falling down in all white snow and getting up and falling again ! :) ... After a while we lost our count ...

(Group snap 2)

After a good workout for 3 - 4 hours, we took a break, had our lunch & rested for a while ... Thats when we took off our shoes and felt like heavens !! thats why putting them on after the lunch was even tougher !

(The lift in the back)

After lunch we practised a little more and then decided to move on the medium level slope - This was at a much higher elevation and was serviced by a lift. Getting on and off from the lift was an adventure in itself ... it was more like a moving bench (imagine a bench in a park) which you have to catch as fast as a local train on Dombivli station :) ... You need a technique to get on it and to get off it ... but we found it the hard way ...:)

Looking down from that elevation, we all predecided our path down - it was a 'Z' shaped path so as to make sure that we dont go down fast on the slope and have a control on our decent ... but let me tell you, no matter how much even you decide, its gonna be a complete fiasco ... I dont remember how many times I fell down while coming down ... and most of the times my planning didnt work ... since to go down Zigzag, you need to turn both right and left :) and I could only turn left properly but I could not control my right turns ... So I always ended up going straight down the slope and falling down ... but it was awesome !! Its difficult to tell it in words, you have to imagine it for yourself !!

(Snoqualmie mountains in the night)

It was about 5.30pm and we were tired ! we decided to call it a day then and left for home at around 6 .. In any adventure, the journey back is the most boring one as everyone is sleepy and tired and all ... I came back home and just threw myself on the bed and handed myself over to sleep .. :) I was a prisoner for more than 10 - 12 hours that night !! Thank god the next day was a sunday ... one full day to recover ...

Next day, whole body was aching and I came to know about various parts of back and neck and shoulders and legs which I never knew existed thru' it ... :) .. still even after all this, I am waiting for the next chance to enjoy skiing again ...

A trip to Vancouver, BC, Canada !

When I was in India studying in BE, it had always been my dream to visit Canada ! Even after going to US, I never actually saw myself fulfilling that dream. But guess what, I realized that I might have a chance after joining Microsoft. I had to get my H1 Visa stamped and what better opportunity than this one to go to Canada was I gonna get ! right ? So I took care of all the paperwork etc ... took the canadian visa (btw, that was my second visa .. for those who have travelled to many countries, its no big deal ! but I was so damn happy to get a second visa on my passport ! its silly I know but still I was happy :) )

Me with my Z in Vacouver Downtown -
parked right in front of this pathetic (from experience) Indian restaurant called 'Taste of India' ...

My friend Kumar (who also had a stamping appointment on the same day as mine) and I decided to go to Vancouver together .. its just 3 hour drive from here so going there wasnt a big deal ... We left on Sunday evening and reached there at about 8pm Sunday night. Hotel stay was already taken care of so no issues on that front. Monday morning we went to the embassy and applied for the visa. It was approved and we were gonna get our passports back on Tuesday at 3 pm. So what that meant was we were free for the next 27 - 30 hrs !

Vancouver Downtown !

At a heliport (not helipad) close to downtown marina ..

Stanley Park ..

So we started our 'Vancouver Darshan' ... Stanley park was first ... and boy ! was it amazing or what ! thankfully it was a bright sunny day and we could enjoy the fall colors to our content ! It was a treat to the eyes ...

Fall colours !

More fall colors !

Next we went to the acquarium right inside the stanley park ... nice one .. we met a few other friends there as well ...

saw the dolphin show and I am going to post this picture here ! Its the best pic I have ever taken .. have a look !

See the dolphin on the top ? It jumped out of the water even higher than 25 feet ! I clicked when it was at the peak of it !! Dont I deserve an award for this snap ? ;)

Octopus !

Apart from that we saw sharks, white whales, octopus and many more ... But we had to call it a day after that since It got dark pretty early ... so we came back home and later for dinner went to the 'House of Dosas' - a well known place in Vancouver for all different types of dosas ... dosa with chicken filling, brinjal sabji etc ... it was pretty neat & pretty cheap ... Vancouver is known for very good Indian food and sweets ...

Next day, we got up by 9 and went to the Grouse mountain. two attractions - 'Capilano Suspension Bridge' and ' ropeway @ Grouse Mountain' ... we went for the ropeway first and it was damnnnn cold ! they took us to the 3700 odd feet ... and it was foggy everywhere - reminded me of that sexy song by Vikas Bhalla - 'Hai Dhuan Dhuan - Har Taraf Hai Dhuan' .. on top there were a number of statues carved out of wood - huge ones ... two live grizley bears ... the view from the top was just great ! snaps tell you more ...

View from the ropeway cabin - going up ...

One more ...

With Wood Carved Grisley bear ...

With real grisley bear ...

After that went to the suspension bridge (btw, if you go to vancouver anytime, make sure you go for the ropeway first like we did as you get $2 off for the suspension bridge ticket - vice versa, you get only $1 off - just a tip ;) ) it was just like the Laxman Jhoola ... really nice .. the big difference between such attractions in US/Canada and India is that in US/Canada, they are well maintained .. even a small attraction is made to look really big and tourism itself earns a hell lot of money for them ... I wish Indian govt learns a bit from them ...

Capilano Suspension Bridge !

Canopy of trees ...

Then we went to this Indian chinese place called 'Chilli Pepper House' - after a long had time I had indian chinese food - Amrican Chop Suey , Chicken Manchurian ... felt good ! after that we got our passports back from embassy and drove back ... on our way back, stopped over at this place called 'Surrey' for some Punjabi homemade sweets ... and then another immgiration check at the border ... we were pretty damn tired by the time we were back ... but looking back, both the days were very well spent ...


A few funny things about Vancouver:

1. Green signals there are almost always blinking ! yellow and red are constant but the green arrows, or just normal green signal blink ! why would you blink green signal ??? Coming from US, took a little time to adjust ..

2. Its just like any other Indian city. Driving there is a mess ... signals are not visible .. Drivers dont listen to the signals ... in fact its a very poor country so not many cops around. in 3 day stay, we saw only 3 -4 cops and it very well could have been the same cop going around the city ...

3. Its very rare to have a dedicated left turning lane. So the leftmost lane is always throttled if there is one guy who wants to turn left. The rightmost lane has a number of cars parked ! You will driving nicely in the rightmost lane and then suddenly out of nowhere you will see a number of cars parked on the road !!! reminds me of india totally !!

4. We were at this McDonalds ... when you go close to the dustbin, it opens up automatically and after you throw the trash, it says 'thank you' and closes ... isnt it funny ? A dustbin saying 'Thank you' to you ? & more than that .. for such a poor country, why do they need such hitech dust bins ?

5. We were at the suspension bridge and there was this place named 'Thinking spot' with just a bench and dustbin there ... Americans really know how to market a place man ! Here is a snap... I am trying to think what to think at the thinking spot ;)



6. The hotel we were staying at, had so much security even for the garage ... the parking garage was in the basement 2 levels down with automatic gates (whose remote keys are given to residents only) and still the doors of the garage had this huge locks so that no one can break in .. it was pretty unnecessary I felt ...


Do go to Vancouver if you get a chance (visit the links I gave above and you will realize the beauty ... the tickets are a little costly but what the heck ! Here is what all you can do) I will make another trip there soon ... have to cover a lot more stuff that I missed in this trip !

Yaaron, Main India Chala ...

After a lot of thinking and planning, finally I bought tickets for India trip ! I am going to India in Jan !! Yes ! I am so excited .. cant wait for January ...

But buying tickets for India trip is such a herculian task .. In last 4 years of US stay, I have been to India twice and everytime its the same story ... first you got to decide the timeframe .. and you have to do that well in advance ! at least 3 months beforehand you should know about it ... well if you have to get your H1 stamped before re-entering US, then you better know about it at least 4 - 6 months in advance .. You have to take online appointment for stamping either in India or in Canada ... its such a pain !! Well, the story doesnt end there ...in fact, its just started ! Now you have to look for the best deal keeping in mind the frequent flyer thing... so weigh your options, sometimes its better to pay some more money but get yourself some miles. Find yourself the best agent who can take all these troubles for you and will give you the best available deal ... once you get the tickets, then its the shopping time ! thats the phase I am gonna enter in now ...

For this trip, initially wanted to go there for Diwali like last year ... Believe me, Diwali is like the best time to be there ... its the biggest festival, goes on 5 days, everyone has holidays and its cold (at least being a 'mumbai'kar, this is a very important thing... I always hated the sweaty weather there :) ) ... But this years Diwali is like way early .. So it was kind of tough ..

So then the plans shifted to December- around Christmas, new year time ... but the tickets for December are soooo costly ! So finally January was decided as the timeframe ! and I am sooo excited ! Cant wait till January ... its still more than 2 months away and I am desparately waiting for it !

I wish someone develops a time travel thing and we can forward the time wheel so that Jan comes earlier ... that reminds me of the new movie 'click' ... I guess what better time to watch that movie than this one ! right ?

Off I go ...

Olympic National Park !

This last long weekend again gave me a chance to get back to my hiking trips ... It had been quite some time since I had done an outing and as my friends had told me, this is probably the best time to go out & see some natural beauty of Seattle as Summer is about to be over ! so, yours truly called up three other friends and decided on a one day hiking trip to Olympic National Park ... The park (or forest is a better name) is so huge that you probably need a couple of days to visit it to satisfaction but we didnt want to camp out and stuff as the plan was a very last minute thing ... we just picked up one trail called the 'hurricane ridge' ...

Four of us left early morning around 8.30 ... The total travel to the Olympic national park was about 3 hours including the 30 minutes travel by the ferry... The best thing about this travel by ferry was that you could load your car on the ferry and then unload it at the other end ... I love ferries and I love travelling on water ! The deep blue color of the water is just amazing ! Again, pics speak much much more than words ... here they are ...

On the Ferry ! (Vaibhav, Mukti and Me)

Deep blue sea ! ;)

So the plan was to drive out of the ferry to a place called Port Angeles... Have lunch here and then start the hike on the Hurriane ridge .. So around 12 noon,we reached Port Angeles ..

Port Angeles !

we found a place 'Secret Garden Buffet' .. now Indian mentality told us that buffet is the best place and the name sounded like a chinese buffet ! Everyone was more than happy to hog on some chinese food !! But we entered, paid for 4 dishes and to our surprise, it was all american food ... Our apetite suddenly dropped to zero :( ... But we had no other choice ! We had to eat that since a 3.2 mile hike was waiting for us and mroe than that, we had already paid up !!

So, anyway after that fiasco, we started driving towards the real attraction and really hoped that this hurriane ridge does not turn out to be like this !! But soon we realized that the park is beyond our expectations ... the drive through the park itself was filled with breath-taking scenery all around ... we stopped at almost each halting point, took snaps, filled all the beauty into our eyes as much as we could and only then moved forward ...

one of my fav snaps .. amazin isnt it ? notice, we are all in air !
Doesnt this look like a 'Dil Chahta Hai' Snap ? ;)

After we reached the hike location, we took only the essential stuff with us and started the hike ... It was a HOT afternoon and we were sweating but still the hike was fun !! We started singing and soon we all four of us were singing pretty loudly ! Many of our american fellow hikers gave us complements for cool group singing !! :) .. It was fun !! Snaps, songs, scenery, jokes etc made the hike a worthwhile one ...

The successful ranger team ! :)

A view from the top !

Once we reached the top, to our surprise, we also found some snow !! There was scorching heat on our head and we were standing on snow !! another one of those natural wonders !!


we played snow-fight for sometime, took some snaps and started out decend by about 4 pm .... coming back down was easy and hence, the song volume was louder ! :)

beautiful sunset !

On the way back ...

But by the time, we reached down, everyone was pretty tired ... It was because of the heat and also the steep uphills ... but it was totally worth it ... We drove back on the ferry and back home ... tired and sleepy :) ... a day well spent !!

aahhh .. Dentists !!

As the wise men have said, never go to a dentist ! ... ;) ! you feel so helpless sitting there with a bright light focussed on your teeth and almost always more than one ppl peeping into your mouth trying to figure whats wrong & where !! Worst thing ? You cant do anything about it ? In fact, you are paying them to do it !!!

The doctor always sees his/her convenience ... whenver they want to check health of your teeth, they will poke it wherever they want, they will tap it, also if they want, they scratch it, do whatever they feel like ! You want to tell them that I need a break now, just 2 minutes break, my jaw is hurting but you cant ! You want to rinse your mouth but you cant !! they make sure you cant say anything by putting 2 - 3 different metal pieces in your mouth ! I mean, its such a pathetic situation ... And the end is almost always the 'sad end' types ... they will tell you, this teeth is on the verge of a root canal or this filling needs to be redone or other comments of that type ...

Dentists are probably one of a kind .. I mean all the other doctors are on one side and the dentists are on the other ! If I have to compare them with anything, then I would compare them with the Mumbai 'Rickshaw-walas' .. We know that we need them and worse enough they know that we need them ! So they are the King of the road ... they will drive the way they want on the road, go in a one-way, create traffic jams and what not ! but still, they are there and we use them for daily travel !! Just cant do anything about it right ? Dentists are just like that !

If you are smart, you will take good care of your teeth or else be ready for the torture !!

Visit to Austin ...

June 29, 2006 - Microsoft shipped beta 2 of Live Communication Server 2007 and for the efforts that we put into it (yeah right ! :) ) we were given Friday (June 30) and Monday (July 3) off .. which meant a 5 day weekend as Tuesday - July4th is the Independence day, a national holiday !!! Without thinking twice, I booked the flight tickets to Austin ...

Seattle or should I say Redmond (thats where Microsoft campus is) is a very very boring place for a single guy ... This area is over-filled with couples (who hang out with other couples and so on ..) no single/ available girls and the university is way too far in Seattle downtown and so all the hustle bustle and happening roads are way too far ... so if you are single and if you have a 5 day long weekend and if you dont have much work ( & also of course if you dont want to just sit on your couch and watch 4 movies a day for 5 days)- your best bet is to get out of Redmond as soon as possible ... so Austin was an obvious choice for me .. firstly I really miss Austin , also my best friend is in Austin and and few other friends' friends were also on their way to Austin ... so we were gonna be a big group of around 10 ppl ... what more can u ask for ? For last 3 months I was waiting for such an opportunity and I was not gonna let this one go by ..

I am going to keep this post a short one & I am not going to talk about what I did in Austin much in this post as it wasnt something new or something great - out of ordinary .. I have stayed in Austin for almost about 2 years and I know Austin roads better than many of my friends there .. so it wasnt a new city for me ... but the moment I landed in Austin, I felt that closeness .. I always knew that I hold Austin very close to my heart but I realized how very close this time .. that smile I missed in Redmond, came back in seconds after landing ... All 4 days were total fun even though it was normal routine of getting up at 12 - 1 in the afternoon and sleeping at 4 - 5 in the morning (if thats what u call normal ;) .. ) and spending the day doing mere timepass ... visiting same old places in and around Austin like San Antonio (I think I have been to San Antonio like 10 times by now :) and the only thing you can do here is Riverwalk, which reminds you of Venice (Italy) with Restaurants, hotels etc right on the banks of the river, its really good), Austin park etc, playing cricket, golf & other games ... It was very hot in Austin and heat is something I cant bear .. I can live with snow and freezing temperatures but not heat ... but despite the heat and same old places, I enjoyed my trip to the fullest ...

Tuesday evening was my flight back to Seattle and I literally had to drag myself out of there .. back to this dull & dry life .... I wonder, will I ever feel the same way about Redmond ? Will I ever long to go to redmond ? Will redmond ever be a place I would want to stay & own a house at ? I know if Microsoft gives me a offer to relocate to Austin, I will take it with both hands ... but redmond ? Whats the way out ? I think I have to get married ;) !! ... ok ! I have to call up my parents now .. and convey them these thoughts ... ;) ...

Visit to Snoqualmie Falls

After my new Z came, couldnt just let it stand in the parking lot ... me and my roommate- we decided to go to Snoqualmie falls ... about 20 - 25 miles away ... Google maps (read Windows local) shows 20 minutes drive but anyway we were going to complete it within hardly 10 minutes ... ;)

As they say, a picture speaks more than a thousand words .. will just let the snaps talk it out ... :)

View From Top

View from Top 2

Steep Trail to go down

thats me !!! almost at the base of the falls ..

Me again !!

Look at that !! I am sooo close to the falls ... it was such a lovely scene ... fall , rainbow, light breeze sprinkling water all over me ... too romantic ..;) ..lol