Thank you!!

The traveling Narayanan's went on one of their most adventurous and eventful trips in recent memory over the last four days.

We went to Alaska.. saw Glaciers, Grizzly's, natures beauty and wonders at its finest and to just round it off.. we encountered another one of natures anomalies on our return flight from Anchorage to Portland enroute to San Jose.

A guy for reasons we don't know decided to open the exit door while we were still way above the cloud line. We heard a hissing sound and a lady screamed "Someone please help.. someone help now!" and a bunch of passgengers set about securing the door and tacking the guy. 

After a few tense moments the guy was on the ground restrained and we made a speedy landing and watched as the cops took the guy away. He seemed to be calm and collected as he was taken out. 

Why someone would want to do that is beyond me.. why want to take a bunch of others with you if you have a death wish?!

Like a fellow passenger told me after we came out "the good news is that we are all still here!" 

To the alert lady (as most of us were sleeping!), and the folks and crew who held the door and restrained the crazy dude, many THANKS from the bottom of our heart. 

There are heroes all around us! There are 10 heroes for every idiot! At least that is the lesson we are teaching our kids today after this experience. They were both disturbed, as were the adults for the second flight.. they kept watching the exit rows for action. 

This puts a lot of things in perspective!

The rest of the pictures and videos can wait. Time to get some much needed rest...

Kayaking in Monterey bay

A few weeks before we hit Lemony Snicketts in this house, there was a nice trip to Monterey Bay to Kayak in the open ocean for a few hours.

It was during Daddy's dedication to Yoga getting in the way of taking the kids out on weekends.. what with doing double classes on Saturday you see..

So one afternoon the kids go "Daddy, you have to take us somewhere today!" So off we went to Monterey, after being inspired by our friends who took their little one through this adventure just a few weeks prior.

It was 63 F out there and the water was cold, but we had a light breeze going and didn't get too wet and had a ton of fun.

Our tour guide was a student who had immigrated from Russia and she really loved the water and the creatures in the sea.

After giving us a crash course on Kayaking, we went on the water in three teams of two. The little one insisted on doing everything herself and she did an outstanding job! There were times when I was just sitting there letting her kayak me out.. it was fun.

We saw Seals, Sea otters playing..

We got to handle starfish and also learned that nothing sticks well to the top surface of the starfish because it has a bunch of hooks that are active. We put the starfish on our head and it gripped on to our hair (in my case whatever was left of it!)

There was one small mishap! We were advised not to bring a camera on the trip as there was a high probability of getting it wet. Having taken cameras safely through other adventures, parasailing included, I decided to take the camera in a small pocket in my life jacket. The camera survived a safe return to the beach without getting wet.

In my eagerness to tip our guide before leaving, I put the life jacket, which happened to have the camera in the pocket on the life jacket rack and went towards the car. The cleanup crew quickly came, dunked each jacket in a bucket of cold water and put it on another rack to drip dry! I almost cried when I realized what had happened.

Luckily the camera started working again after drying it out at home with a hair dryer over time. It still works but has a white balance issue. Maybe more drying will fix it. For now it has become an art camera!

Next time.. special ziplock bag for camera going on such trips and curbing the enthusiasm for tipping good tour guides.

Would strongly recommend Kayaking on Monterey bay as a family outing.

A long trip..

The traveling Narayanan's visited Florida between 4th and 10th July. It was a bold and risky move taking three older people with health conditions and two little kids with only two able folks handling the other five through air travel, theme parks and adventures!

The good news is that we had our ups and downs but overall we had a great time and made it back in one piece. It has taken a few days to get back to the old routine and get settled...

There are 1600+ pictures out of which at least 250 hold promise and that means a lot of photo and video editing over the next few weeks whenever time and Sangeetha permit the process!

On tuesday we had got up at 6AM Florida time and reached here at 1 in the morning, which was 4AM florida time. That was one 22 hour day for everyone. So we came in, threw the suitcases in the living room floor and hit the bed and it was lights out for everyone in a few minutes. The next day Sangeetha had told me that she had a very important meeting and had to leave at 8 AM.

I was still getting visions of going in various rides and was a little dizzy and tired. So at 3AM, in the middle of a dream, I wake up thinking we are in a boat and the ride has ended and we have to get out.

The fact that the home exercise machine that used to be at our bedside was sold a day before we left on the trip and yours truly has not yet got used to the empty space and the green light from the smoke alarm on one side and the red light from the TV monitor on the other side made the dream realistic..

Frantically shook Sangeetha and said "we are the only ones left on the ride.. everyone has left. get down"

Sangeetha :We are in our bed. Go back to sleep

Me : We are on a boat. look, it is floating. we have to get out. I can't get out on this side. you have to step down from that side.

Sangeetha : (fully awake and totally pissed off by now) Ok. That's it. This is our bedroom, you are on our bed, that is our bathroom and I am go there right now. So wake up, go to the bathroom and let me sleep!

After following her out of the boat (er.. bed) and realizing that she was indeed right, apologized and went back to sleep.

When driving to work it was so weird. I kept looking to the passenger side and behind the van so frequently to check on non existant passengers! Six days of going everywhere on a 7 seater van loaded with 7 people and suddenly driving an empty van gave me a lonely feeling.

Now the dreams of the rides are not recurring but there are tons of happy memories from the six day trip.

That was just a sample of how wild things were..

More to come!

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There is always a first time

At 36 years and pushing, decided to put on skis for the first time on saturday.

What could prompt such lunacy?

Well, it was one of those blanket IOU's that had been promised to the wife. After listening to the Ramayana since my first memories formed, it looks like I have somehow selectively forgotten the part where king Dasaratha gave such a blanket IOU to his wife and paid dearly for it with massive cardiac arrest when his wife exiled her stepson to the forest just before he was to be annointed the king!

One never learns!

After one of those bouts of work (yes, worked for almost two days straight two weekends ago) where yours truly completely neglected the wife, MIL and kids and played spoilsport with all of their weekend plans, I blurted out:

"I had to do this work for the last two days and I cannot even keep my eyes open. please let me sleep and will do anything, ANYTHING you ask me in the next two weekends!" and went on to sleep for 13 hours straight. (It was actually 12 hours, but the damn daylight savings made it look like 13!).

San has not forgotten the Ramayana. She used Kaikeyi as her mentor and fairy godmother and said "we have been cooped up in the house all weekend for the last few weeks because of your work. We are going to go out somewhere. I have always wanted to Ski!"

Note, there are priors when the wife has said the sentence "I would love to _________".

Once upon a time , approximately ten years ago, when we were just married, the wife would get a present every month on our wedding date. As it so happened, a few days before the fourth monthiversary, she said "I would love to play the piano." So on my way back from work, I decided to surprise her with a full size Yamaha keyboard from what was then Circuit City, something that AR Rahman would have wished his mom got him when he was a toddler!

I bring it home and yell "SURPRISE!" and setup the piano and say "ta da! you can play it now. Come on, show me how you play" and San replied "I don't know how to play the piano. I said I would love to play. Didn't say I know how to..." A slow motion replay of a Courtney Walsh delivery uprooting an Indian tail enders middle stump and ejecting it straight up a dozen or so feet played over and over again in my head. Those were days when Cricket was still followed in the house....

After that episode the wife has loved to do a lot of things without knowing how to. Skiing was one such thing, I inferred. In any case it was time to honor the IOU by banishing myself to the snow and after a long journey in peak traffic we reached the destined hotel on Friday night. It was facing the lake and there was such a wonderful view when we woke up. Some breakfast later, we were on our way to Donner Ski resort on a cloudy saturday morning.

The entire family took turns skiing. Jr. and the little one went first. They did a lot better than the adults, considering they were fearless! The parents did not fare so well. Daddy took the brunt of the falling and came back sore. Unable to support his body weight equally on the van seat, he drove back the entire way like a tilted mannequin.

The first time on skis was not easy, but, yes.. there is a but, I liked it. I might actually go back someday and try it again! Somehow the few seconds of balance on the skis outweighed the slips and falls.

There might actually be a second time!

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I just wanna fly...

Over the Christmas break, we had decided not to go on any long trip, partly because our trip to Santa Barbara, for the last week of december was planned way ahead and also because the BIL and his roommate were driving down to visit us!

We decided to do something local, but different.. we went on a free fall trip (just like jumping off a plane without a parachute), except you are 6 feet away from the ground inside a wind tunnel!

They spent 6 million dollars to build this tunnel in the bay area and for a modest(really!!) fee of 50 dollars a person, they give you two chances to go in the wind tunnel and experience free fall!!!

(needless to say, San looks real pretty in that suit and therefore her picture has been cropped on demand! Now back to the topic...)

Of course, there is a training class, safety instruction, gearing up with a suit, pads, helmet, ear plugs etc.. just like you would prepare for a free jump. So the preparation is half an hour for a two minute jump! That is to be expected for any adventure I guess...

It was fantastic!!

We took the kids with us into the outer chamber where they watched daddy and mommy and uncles fly. They did start screaming uncontrollably when Grandma decided to fly. Good thing no one could hear them. Grandma made an attempt which was aborted but did a nice comeback on her second try! She flew for a total of 1.3*10^-13 seconds. Those video clips will never see the light of day, I am being told!

If you want to try this, go to www.iflysfbay.com , but you have to call in well in advance to get a reservation. The instructors are really nice, courteous and extremely patient with first time fliers! They practise formation flying inside this tunnel. We watched the pros inside the tunnel for a full 15 mins before we got in. It was mind boggling..

We had a great time!

ps. make sure there is someone with a steady hand outside to take your pictures or you will get out of focus shots. It is noisy in there..
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