Pretty formals

We attended a baby shower today and the girls decided to dress up for the event. Not missing an opportunity, we did another photo shoot in the backyard and they were at their posing best!

Lets see if these come out okay in blogger.. The originals uploaded were already reduced size images so there is not compressing involved!

It is always a joy (painful joy when they are doing monkey poses, but joy nevertheless) to take pictures of the girls!

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Portrait lens

Photography forums usually tout an 85mm prime lens or a 100mm prime lens as "the" portrait lens to swear by, but the 70-200 f2.8 L with the extender 2x ii gives me amazing sharpness and fantastic Bokeh even in cloudy situations..

The little one posed for me a few minutes ago (originally brought the camera out to catch the backyard squirrel jumping off the trees but it proved too difficult for a hand held shot and that brought out the model) and junior joined in briefly for a shot..

This lens is so cool that I am having issues deleting shots off the hard drive to save photos! Want to keep every shot.

Tomorrow evening.. Hornets! Found a nest near the front yard and two big hornets. Will see how they pose..

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Expectations

Expectation 1:

We were on a plane back from Dallas to San Jose..

Little One: How long is this flight?

Jr. : 4 hours (right daddy?)

Me : yes. it is almost 4 hours.

Little One: FOUR HOURS ?!

Me : yes.

Little One : If we have to sit in the same seat for 4 hours, we should at least have our own TV! There is no TV on this plane. What am I supposed to do for 4 hours? It is not night. I cannot sleep either! This is not fair!

Me to San : Ellam Neram di! (closest translation is "this is all a sign of the times") 5 year old girl has an expectation of fairness for a 4 hour flight.

Expectation 2:

We are at a friends place and I am showing them a picture of the Black Mamba which was posted in Bigstockphoto. Daddy Narayanan is trying to make some money from Photography to pay for his 70-200 zoom lens.

San : These days he takes photos only of animals, flowers, insects..

MIL : and takes portraits of the kids. We don't show up in photos any more

Me : Come on now! You guys never come pose during the day. You always show up when I am tired or after dark. I get great photos when there is daylight.

MIL and San : We need more photos of us!

So to meet this expectation there is going to be a Saree party at our place with a photo session.. all lady friends of wife/ MIL who need new Facebook profile photos are to be invited. Yours truly is building a small studio made of white foam walls and white LED lights.. a home made light box setup. Let us see how this shapes up!

Expectation 3:

We are looking at tickets to India. A narrow time window when kids do not have school, when parents are in a frame of mind and are in better health to see the kids, when work can allow a break. So usually the ticket prices don't factor into this equation.

We watched prices go from 1380 to 1700 in 7 days and we are talking cheapest tickets. Why? Libya, Egypt crisis causing Oil prices to go up.

Why would a few days of unrest in a few countries affect oil prices for summer? What is happening is a drop in the bucket compared to fuel consumption over time. So, obviously someone is using these events to make money and is price gouging.

Decided not to wait anymore. What if the prices go to 2000 a ticket? So we got tickets now. Then realized that we have a passport that is expired.

Me to San: Why can't we mail it in?

San : I would love to but if the kid is <15 you have to go with both parents and stand in line!

Expectation 4:

We went to the San Jose Post office Passport section at 10 in the morning. (we went to Mountain View office and it was closed. so by the time we went to San Jose we were an hour late). Our token was 876. they were serving 796 when we got the token. It was moving at 7 numbers per hour. No, not kidding. 7 numbers per hour.

It is noon and they are attending to 811 and the lady announces "we are closed now, but if you have a token we will serve you as long as you are here when we call your number"

So we wait and wait and wait. Some folks who thought they could go out, have lunch and come back in time missed their slots.

My expectation was that the ladies at the counter tell the people who did not wait that they did miss their turn to give the benefit to folks like us who sat there with starving kids to get their chance. They DID ! They actually told folks who showed up after missing their numbers that they have to come back another day.

We finally got our turn at 2:45 and came out just before 3PM. The little one was totally dehydrated and complained of knee pain. Once in five years we go through this ordeal.

They should make this less painful and have more people to serve on Saturdays. How many people have the luxury of taking half a day off (both parents) with today's work pressure ?

The blogging has taken a backseat as have many other things. Have had a change of jobs within the company last week and that meant more time at work.

Planning to get a fresh start on the health front by joining a Yoga class at 5:30 AM. Time will tell if this will last or join the list of failed attempts to stick to a health routine.

Well, the expectations continue.

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A new look

The last 8 days have been very interesting. First a bug that this body has never encountered so far that knocked me out the early part of last week and taught me dehydration was much more of a risk than a respiratory infection. So be thankful for H2O and drink it every chance you get!

Then an attempt to recover from the bug and act normal again only to realize that this one takes a lot of rest, sleep, water... and all for a long time planned flying visit to St. Louis, Missouri to visit my sister and her family.

We made it to St. Louis and back and really enjoyed it. Must have upset many St. Louis natives when I walked out of the airport wearing a scarf, a monkey cap and a jacket.

We had one great day for outdoor sight seeing and we covered the zoo, the Arch and the local Hindu temple. Then we spent one rainy day indoors in "The Magic House" aka the St. Louis children museum where the kids had a blast and the adults didn't have to do much except watch them smile and laugh the entire day. It was great to finally spend a few days with my sister and her family at their habitat! Think of it as the Chimps visiting Jane Goodall at her house..

Made it back today, to take a photograph with Daddy's new look.

Early last week, the doctor said my eyes were dehydrated and an eye exam was required. Turns out that I was in need of glasses for some time. The eye exam person just looked at me like "so, when exactly were you planning on getting your eyes checked?" when I told him my last eye exam to check for prescription was more than 10 years ago.

The glasses were waiting for me this evening and when I walked into the kids room wearing the glasses, the little one goes

"daddy, you don't look like a daddy anymore. You look more like a thatha (grandpa)"

and Jr. tells her "That is not a nice compliment, you know! you shouldn't say that to daddy".

Well, my five year old still has her innocence and the 8 year old already knows how not to offend my sensibilities!

They both told me they love my new look after they got used to it for a few hours...

Told them that maybe it is time to update the profile photo for the blog and they posed for me, knowing that smiling for my camera is one thing that will always make me happy.

Well, the reason for me having to be made happy?!

They are baaaaaack! We were gone for four days and the fish had to be fed a little extra and we came home to a tank full of ...

Tomorrow evening will be spent in cleaning them up, again!

Now that the respiratory thingy is gone and I am able to drive without getting headaches, should be able to visit blogger more often.

Until then....

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Happy fathers day

Jr. and the little one told me that their gift to me on daddy's day will be "great posing".

Both of them tried to pose for me at Twin Peaks in San Francisco and again at the Coyote Point Park and Museum. The Twin Peaks view point was amazing. Fantastic 360 degree view of San Francisco!

The Coyote Point Museum and Center for Environmental education was really good for kids. They made education entertaining. They taught kids all about Reptiles by bringing out some real reptiles like bearded dragons, tortoise, California King snake and a Boa constrictor! Jr. was thoroughly entertained and touched a snake for the first time. Apparently being a brave girl was another father's day gift..

We had a ton of fun at both places and are back home to get some rest before the week starts again tomorrow!

To all the dads out there... have a great father's day.

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