Back to Base

We are back in Louisville after a six day trip to San Diego and Vegas.
(I replied in the comments section of last post BTW)

There were quite a few things that I want to write about, a few hiccups but overall it was GREAT!

I certainly felt bad to miss the last ODI at Mumbai but thankfully it was compensated as I had to miss the Kolkata fiasco. Anyway, all's well that ends well.

We have about 200+ pictures (no typo there, I think it might even be 250+) of the trip and about 90 min of video. I have to understand the whole downloading and editing of video so it will take some time. It would be difficult to load the video anyway. Pictures would be easy.

The top picture is the one I took from our hotel room. I had exposed it for 8 seconds if I remember correctly. The green building is the MGM casino and you can see the sign of Monte Carlo.

Here are a couple more snaps. The second one is with DP and Vijay at Hoover Dam.

Before And After

My Zen Meditation Garden, Before and After.

Cool Links ... Again

Wonder how quick you are? Try this. (Select a new game and Use arrow keys to move the circle into the square without touching the moving balls.)

Sue you!!

New Harry Potter would be here in 8 days and I am looking forward to it.

I play WhoWantsToBeAMillionaire on GSN.com while watching the show on GSN nowadays. It is fun and you get to know how long the person is going to take to answer the question.

We watched Crash(2004) and Interpreter(Nicole Kidman, Sean Penn) last weekend and liked both movies. Crash was the better one.

I M B O R E D

Weekender #3

It's a simple one this week. Simple but fun. I am sure a few readers would appreciate the "user interface" ;)

The puzzle is at:
http://freeweb.siol.net/danej/riverIQGame.swf

Object:
Get everyone across the river.

How to Start:
Click on link above, and then click on the big blue circle.
Everybody has to cross the river.

How to play:
To move the people click on them.
To move the raft click on the pole on the opposite side of the river.

The following rules apply:

Only 2 persons on the raft at a time

The father can not stay with any of the daughters, without their mother's presence.

The mother can not stay with any of the sons, without their father's presence.

The thief (striped shirt) can not stay with any family member, if The Policeman is not there.

Only the Father, the Mother and the Policeman know how to operate the raft.

Before you think of some smart comments on the rules, remember that this seems to be a Japanese mind teaser. I did not make up the rules.

Let me know how many river crossings you needed for this.

For people looking for more challenge,

Can you arrange 1 2 3...9 with - and + (as many or as few) in between them to make 100.

This is an old one but do you know how many ways are there to achieve this?

valid ways

12 - 3 + 45 - 67..... etc

invalid ways

123-54+... (digits out of sequence).

Here's one more picture. This one is from our last year's trip to Niagara.

His Coloring Book

It is 4:15 am and I just got up to check the score and now watching Dravid and Venu. It would be great to win this one too.

I shrunk a few pictures so that I can upload them quickly here, there are a quite a few more but these ones are from Louisville.


This year the colors are here a little late because of longer summer, less rain, a combination of these two or more factors. I don't care, I just love the fact that they are here. We were at the Smokies last weekend. The colors had not peaked over there but we could still see nice patches. I will upload pictures from our hike to Laurel Falls pretty soon.

A couple days ago I took a wrong turn and was forced to go through a mile or two long stretch with such beautiful trees.


I cannot take credit for these photos as I did not have my camera then. But Swapna could drive today through the same area with my parents and all these pictures are taken either by her or my dad.

The Official Reaction

When India lost the match against Australia in the last world cup without giving a fight, people were Angry. They threw stones and black paint on players' homes. They burnt effigies.

When Ganguly was not selected for the ongoing ODIs against SL, people were Angry.They burnt effigies of selectors and of Chappell.

We lost 60+ innocents in another terrorist attack in Delhi and these effigy-burners seem to be on vacation.

Our official reaction, by the Prime Minister, is that we continue to be disturbed and dismayed.

I am impressed by this toughest possible reaction, I am sure we will be able to avoid further problems if we can provide a medical certificate that our PM was emotionally scarred and a couple of ministers had to use anti-depressents. Maybe Laloo wore a black armband while enjoying the cricket matches. Jayalalitha skipped the early morning dessert for a week. Shiv Sena called for a Mumbai bandh and yes, a bunch of people demanded the resignations of each other.

Meanwhile, there was another blast in Srinagar.

Happy Diwali

Happy Diwali to you and family.

And yes, May India win 7-0 against SL!