Recession Birthdays

There used to be a time in Austin when we used to buy multiple cakes for a single birthday. You guessed it right; one was for smashing on the face, messing up the kitchen floor and the other one for "celebrating" the birthday. But now times are hard and days are tough so we celebrate multiple birthdays on the same day.

Here's what happened, yesterday was the birthday of dear S Mathur and we gathered at Mt. Bonnell to celebrate the same. We were merrily celebrating his b-day and suddenly I realized I had become the center of attention and we celebrated my birthday along, which is not due for a few more days. Since we had extended till my birthday we extended a bit further and celebrated Priya's mom's birthday also, which I believe is some time in July.

In short we celebrated 3 birthdays at the cost of one, isn't that the true example of cost cutting and tough times.

Here are some pics for you to enjoy.

Decorated Mathur

me cutting the cake

Priya's mom enjoying her time

No posts in a while

I haven't posted any blogs in a while, If I think what happened, I can come up with a few possible reasons

• there isn't much intersting things hsppening around me that I would like to comment on
• I have stopped thinking
• I am watching too much TV and becoming dumb every day.
• Texas heat

If you ask my wife she will go with reason of TV but me, I will go with no thinking or less thinking.Well, Me and S are visiting Niagara Falls this weekend, I think I will get motivated after the trip and come back to blogging.

Marley and Me - Movie for all dog lovers

One true movie for all dog/cat/animal lovers. The movie tracks the life of a very very hyper active Labrador. The owners adopt him because the husband wants to distract wife's attention from having kids. The dog was sold to them as a clearance puppy and since the owners didn't have time nor the patience to train him when he was a puppy, he grows into an almost unruly dog. He pretty much chews upon anything and everything. He gets kicked out of obedience school. Everybody in the movie but the owners think he is pure evil. As people who are watching the movie, we can see that his intentions are pure and he loves his family very dearly. He is one true companion.

The movie very well documents the frustration of the owners with the dog. The scene of Marley sitting quietly near Jenny when she loses her first baby is heart wrenching, it appears as though only he knew how to handle the situation. Also, the scene towards the end when Marley, just back from the hospital walks up to the front of the yard waiting for kids to arrive is another great one.

The movie ended with a beautiful quote

"A dog has no use for fancy cars, big homes, or designer clothes. A water log stick will do just fine. A dog doesn't care if you are rich or poor, clever or dull, smart or dumb. Give him your heart and he'll give you his. How many people can you say that about? How many people can make you feel rare and pure and special? How many people can make you feel extraordinary?"

It is based on a true story and someday I will read the original book.

Me and S saw this movie last Sunday and by the end of the movie I was almost in tears and S was crying away.

Aa Dinagalu

I have seen quite a few gangster movies both in Kannada and in Hindi but none of them are as real as the movie Aa Dinagalu. The movie is based on the book Dadagiriya Dinagalu. The story is the rivalry between two gangs with a love story in the middle. Here is the detailed Wikipedia article on the same. The salient features I liked about the movie are

• The movie had only 2 songs and both are good
• No effort to fit extra songs or shooting at some exotic locales outside India
• The movie was tightly scripted and the story develops really fast
• The people in the movie were real, they do get hurt and the hero of the movie wasn't portrayed as superhuman
• There is no glorified violence
• The fight scenes were shot more naturally
• The vulnerability of the gangsters and their superstitious behaviors were shown really well

On the whole the movie is well done and the story is novel. I really liked it. I recommend the movie.

Day 3 and 4

Day-3 started with a beautiful sunrise behind the mountains, the presence of a few clouds at sunrise added color to the sunrise. Followed the usual drill and had a heavy breakfast. Also, we packed our lunch today as we wanted to do the SOUTH RIM.

We reached the hiking place at 9:50AM and after re-shuffling the bags headed towards the trail head. Surprisingly there was no map available for south rim. MK took a photograph of the displayed trail map and R remembered the trail names and junctions.

So began the biggest hike any of us had done. The initial gain in elevation was pretty steep and we got split into two groups, me with MK and S enjoying the scenic beauty and the huge rocky mountains and the rest ahead. After around 3 miles the elevation gain stopped and the land became flat for some time (around a mile). The last 2 miles was another elevation gain and we almost stopped to have lunch when some one walking back suggested us to hike up 15 more mins and we will be at our destination.

We packed our bags and hiked to the end. Enjoyed the spectacular view of the chisos basin and the chihuahua desert from an elevation of 7500ft. Devoured the sandwiches, the fruits and some trail mix. After resting half an hr or so we all got some energy back and started the descent trail.

Instead of going back the way we came, we went around the mountain on a different trail. The return trip seemed more brutal but more scenic and beautiful at the same time. Lot of us had some or the other forms of leg injuries and the water reserves were going low too. After hiking around 3 or so miles we started to spot the place where we parked our car, but disappeared after a few minutes. Some of us started walking in different styles to avoid pain. At the end of grueling 3 and half hours the hike ended and we were all happy to see our car.

We again ate at the same restaurant inside the park and headed towards the cottage. On the way back we saw one of the most beautiful sunsets. Even though we were tired, we played UNO for some time and celebrated Dr. R's birthday and dozed off.

Day 4 - also started with a beautiful sunrise but not as spectacular as day before and finishing up all the remaining breakfast items we had left. Started packing up and make a quick stop into the park to check out the Rio Grande village and hot water springs, turns out the spring water was barely warm let alone hot. And finally we headed back to Austin,on the way we had lunch at the same pizza place where we had dinner previously. Ms. S ate almost all the Jalapenos in the pizza and we returned to Austin at 8:30PM.

Day 2

Day 2 After breakfast began our trip towards Big Bend national park itself, it was an hr long drive to the entrance of the park and after paying the entry fee another 45mins drive to the center of the park. We stopped at the visitor center at the center of the park (called panther junction) and consulted the ranger who said "We don't want to for our opinion on you so we have survey published in the news paper which can help you decide what to do".

We thanked the ranger headed to the Ross-Maxwell scenic drive. The winding drive ended at Santa Elena Canyon. The canyon was gorgeous and as Dr. R observed lots of the rocks and stones are so precariously placed that a small jolt can get them rolling down. There wasn't much water in the Rio grande river. We walked up the trail till we hit the narrowest part of the canyon and headed back.

Meanwhile it was time for lunch for some of us and way beyond lunch time for others. After a short and quick debate we stopped at Canyon overlook and created an assembly line to make sandwiches. One slice of bread had green chutney other had red chutney (thanks to A and R), some cucumbers, tomatoes, spring veggie mix, cheese and sprouts were stuffed to make the sandwich. Some ate 1 some ate 2 and we topped it all off with some good bananas and some not so sweet oranges.

After food we traced our way back towards panther junction while stopping along the way for another small canyon, bunch of amazing rock formations and a rock formation called mule ears. Since we were running low on gas we decided to head to Terlingua to get gas (nearest gas station as per the GPS) and check in to the cottage which were to host us for next 2 nights.

Terlingua/Ghost town true to its name looked like a ghost town. The population in the town was very less and I doubt if the town has a high school. It is right next to the park hence it shares the desert vegetation. The entry to our cottage was through an unpaved road. But the accommodation was really nice. It had a full fledged kitchen and place enough to accommodate 4 people in each room. We tried inquiring about vegetarian food and the locals looked at us as though we were from Mars :). Our initial google search for restaurants in Terlingua had resulted in a Thai place which was no where to be found in reality, I think it is the bad economy.

After grumbling some time about dinner we decided to head back to the park. There was still some time for sunset so we decided to hike up the Lost mine trail, We stopped half way the trail and enjoyed some breath taking views and decided to head back to window view for sunset. We spotted a few mule deer on the way. MK had to switch his lenses to capture the Deer properly. The evening light on the adjacent mountains made them really colorful. It made us realize the power of twilight in bringing out the natural colors. After hiking down we drove to the window view to watch the sunset which we hoped would be really spectacular but it wasn't as we expected it to be. We didn't want to take chance at Terlingua looking for a place to eat and hence we devoured at the restaurant inside the park.

Trip to Big Bend National Park Day-1

Couple of weekends ago, me and a few friends made a trip to Big Bend National park. It is the only national park in Texas (for the size of Texas I think it should host a few more parks:)). All thanks to MK and his the persistence, the trip finally happened. Initially we thought we will have seven or eight people but we ended up with six people, enough to fit into a minivan.

Day 1 we started at ~3:30PM, almost per the plan. The drive was nice, coasting at 80+ miles/hr along the straight roads of west Texas. We made a stop at Fort Stockton for food at the Pizza Hut and continued our drive to Marathon,TX for the night stay. The place in Marathon called Adobe Rose Inn was a bed and breakfast place, It was a struggle to find that place even with the GPS. We had booked what was called the Garden Suite with 2 adjoining rooms. One room with a local fire place was taken up by girls and guys took the room with bunk bed. The place had an artistic touch to it, it had paintings and carvings from lot of places around the world (Africa, South America, India, Nepal) and a collection of wide variety of books arranged artistically all over the suite. Since we had reached the place at ~11:20PM we just crashed for the night. The breakfast next day was provided by the Inn and it was also nice.