Time to be thankful..

Thanksgiving as a festival always eludes me. The whole Indians-Pilgrims-Turkey-Corn thingy doesn't strike a chord. 

Since getting married though it has been a means to celebrate Sangeetha and my birthday at nice locations as this holiday falls between our two birthdays. 

People tell me "this is a time to say thanks and be thankful for the good things in your life". If there is one thing to be thankful for in this life, it is family!

For the last 16 years we have mostly spent this long weekend with the cousins family at parks, theme or national..

This year was no different. We went to Yosemite Falls for two days. Got to see some wondeful sights, get way more exercise than we bargained for and had some fun times playing board games in a cozy cabin!

The pictures are promising so far..

San turns 29 again today! I am thankful to her parents for their first creation, who gave me a second chance in life and has made a better person out of me than I would have thought possible.

Here's to San, second chances and family!

Pumpkinography 2014

This year we did do the pumpkin carving with the cousins.. somehow all the travel made me miss out on a lot of posts. One can always catch up!

This years creations..

This one was Jr.'s. She wanted her own pumpkin to carve this year. 

This one was the little one's. She did the large pieces and I had to come in to do the delicate pieces. 

The lineup from this year.. the kids are all growing up and taking over the carving business!

Previous Pumpinographies are here..

This whole thing started with a lot of reluctance..  but now it has become a "tradition" that we all look forward to! 

Repeat it!

No, not a post on Rajni.. 

Just an attempt to recreate an old photo with the kids..

Our home is the one place where I have lived the longest in one address. Eight plus years with same mailing address is a record for me. We would be in and out of rental places as kids and by the time my parents built their own home, I started traveling!

Good thing is that nothing has changed in the house over time. Status quo is welcomed here.. 

but the kids are a lot bigger now and they remind us that there is no "quo" here!

The other three kids were telling the little one "can you look innocent like in that old picture, please ?!"

Instead of innocence, she pulled some attitude.

We thoroughly enjoyed watching them getting into the "repeat it" act. 

Start with the clouds

It has been a good three months since the India trip. There has been a lot more traveling, all work related. Interesting places, experiences, people! A lot to write about.

However, work dicates I keep my travel locations confidential. It is a funny request given I meet so many familiar faces at various international airport waiting lounges. Also, there are only a handful of fab locations in the world one can go to these days, if you group it by country!

For now, the request has to be honored.. so let's start with the clouds!

This picture was taken somewhere at 33000 feet above an ocean, with the iPhone 5S

Think that is generic enough!

Now don't start asking me which ocean.. 

While I was going through iPhone pictures, came across another recent one taken at Big Sur where we went camping a few months ago. 

Both photos were sent through Photoshop for the same reasons. The first photo had way too many light spots from the plane window. So eliminated them on the middle of the picture. The second one had raindrops on the windshield which showed. Removed most of the drops that showed up on the road (you can still see the drops on the tree and sides). 

Here are two photos taken with the 5D Mark II the previous evening at Big Sur.

Have now found a new treasure trove of pictures on my iPhone. 

A friend who works at Adobe just got me a copy of the latest Lightroom! 

Apparently presets are a breeze with Lightroom. Will tell you how it goes soon.. 

Architectural marvels, modern and ancient - Jaipur

This is the last of the series of posts on our Jaipur trip from summer!

In our last 24 hours in Jaipur we covered the Jantar Mantar, a Radhe Shyam temple, Birla Mandir and in the morning we covered the Hawa Mahal (air palace). We also managed to get stuck in a heavy downpour and photograph the Jal Mahal (water palace) in the evening!

The previous post on this series of visits is here.

We left Abaneri in the afternoon and came back to Jaipur city to see the Jantar Mantar. Another place that you do not want to visit on a hot and sultry afternoon. It was about to rain and rain big. Walking through those giant "astro-reader" implements was like being in a Hot Yoga room. If you are a big fan of astronomy, this place is a must see. They have precise instrumentation that tells you the position of everything related to everything else in space and time! That pretty much sums up the place.

I am not into astronomy. It is one of those things that I don't grasp easily. This thing in a marble hemisphere with lines around it tracked every planet and constellations position very precisely. It made my head spin!

After walking through all these "Yantras", we walked through the lawns. This little bird was shouting at me. Given I intended it no harm and was tired and weary, took another look at it to see "what its problem was". Turned out it had 4 legs!

After realizing I was no threat, she got up as though smiling at me and walked around. This beautiful chick came out and posed for me! That made my day...

Later on we visited two temples.. one was a Radhe-Shyam temple built in the 1600's by the King of Jaipur and another was the marble temple made by Birla.

It had also finished raining and we went through quite an ordeal getting back into level ground after that downpour. Jaipur's drainage system is probably one of the worst in the world. We were lucky to be in a van instead of a car. 

Cars were literally floating away in the flooding waters at one point near the Jal Mahal. The fresh rain did make the Jal Mahal stand out. If we make another trip to this place, we will definitely take the boat ride to this palace and see inside. Unfortunately, the boat rides are stopped during heavy rains. 

and here is a HDR version.

We were so tired that I did not get my camera out to take pictures at the Birla mandir. A cell phone photo is all we got.. guessing I have very few Birla mandirs left to cover in India!

On the last half day, we visited the Hawa Mahal with a tour guide who went over the kings and queens story yet another time.

This place is a true architectural marvel. It has 900+ windows on the wall facing the street. It has seven levels built staggered so that the foundation can handle it. How may other such massive seven storied structures existed 400 years ago? All the colored glass was imported from Belgium.. or so says the tour guide!

The views from this palace are all designed so that the many queens can watch the king and his processing come from the other place to this one from very far away. Have tried to capture some of those view points in the photographs below..

 The street we see now is where the processing used to come from..

You can see the Jantar Mantar from the top level of the Hawa Mahal and realize how big some of these structures are.. 

A view of the pink city from the top of the Hawa Mahal.

The air flow in this palace was amazing. The 900 windows are placed perfectly to usher in a wind gust that keeps the palace air conditioned 24/7. Here is the Hawa Mahal from street level on the outside. 

Here is an inside view..

Belgian glass takes care of light.. Marble and windows take care of the air circulation. Awe inspiring design!

A view of the courtyards inside. Dancing and entertainment was watched by the many queens through the windows. You can see the slats in the windows are all angled towards the courtyard. The queens can see the center but they cannot be seen. Again, ingenious design!

Even the passages and corridors were curved and lined with cool marble to circulate the air in such a way to create a cooling effect. They should show the Hawa Mahal as a case study for architecture students across the globe. 

After spending the morning at the Hawa Mahal, it was time to say bye to the Pink City!

I had to fly into the domestic airport in Mumbai from Jaipur and within 3 hours go to my in-laws place, grab suitcases and get back to the International airport to travel to east asia, for a business trip! 

Do not know if I should thank Cathay Pacific for their cancelling the flight. For one, I did not get on a plane that had engine failure. I got to spend 3 more days with my family, even if for a few hours each day and had to work during the night and sleep during rides. It also gave me a chance to calm down and get my nerves in order after that ordeal on the plane. 

A good two months later, they did refund that cancelled trip and give me a coupon for the phone bill (from all the calls I had to make from the plane to rearrange things)!

It has taken a long time to get the photos, videos etc. on to the travelog, but that seems to be the norm these days with the busy work schedule. Seriously thinking of buying a personal laptop and installing the Photo editing software on it. Can come in handy during long flights!

Here is to the next trip, to a location we have not seen before!