You don't decide when you go..

That was pretty much the summary of my conversation with my grandma. Spent an hour with her on the three day trip. Wish I could spend more time with her. Grandma never sat up and walked after her surgery more than a year ago. 

My conversations with grandma have the usual points (from her or me)

Her points :

1. Grandpa is gone. I have no reason to live. Just praying that God takes me soon. (understandable given she got married to him at 5, started living with him at 13, had 8 kids, had a long and happy married life for 65 years and he passed away)

2. the doctors did something to me after the surgery. I try to move my body but it doesn't respond

3. I am doing my best but it is not working

My points :

1. you don't decide when you go. 

2. as long as you are here, might as well try to do your best and do the rest room thing yourself

we have had the same conversation twice in the two one hour visits over last year and this year. 

She is still sharp and is probably the most progressiver person in the family given her age and situation. She always wants to know if the kids are still practicing music. Never asks about their academics or school.. Only "are they still learning music? are they practicing?"

The woman truly believes that the only thing worth leaving our kids is art ! Sometimes I actully agree with her. 

Hopefully, next year when I see her, she will be up and walking to the restroom on her own! She is trying... 

Never miss a chance to say hi..

I had three days in India. One was to go shopping the day before Deepavali. One day was to celebrate Deepavali and visit relatives. One was to visit more relatives, pack (yes.. stuff as much as possible within one suitcase. Threw away old clothes which were worn on a business trip mind you, and replaced them with sweets and savories!) and do the other must do things.. 

Which was to visit two of my two favorite temples. Did a whirlwind visit to Kabali kovil on a rainy morning. 

 Have written many posts about this place.. it always brings back amazing memories, mostly of my grand father and mom and playing with my brother.. meeting my wife for the first time.. long list.. (read this old post and got happy tears thinking of grandpa)

Took a couple of snaps on the way out. The Gopuram has been freshly painted and the inside of the temple has got a face lift of sorts! 

A stone base from the 7th century with freshly painted statutes on the top! The contrast is interesting and is pretty much symbolic of everything in Chennai, when I see it with my own filters of what is new and what is old!  I could spend hours with my kids, describing the stories those statutes tell, but that has to wait for another trip, when they visit the temple. 

Spent only 30 minutes inside, but Kabali always gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling on the inside, no matter how short the visit.

Until next time... 

All work and no yoga, makes me a ...

No. Don't bother filling up that blank!

Will tell you. Very tired is the right answer.

A light post to end the day..

Had worked on this picture over the weekend. It has potential for more editing..

Behold, Gotham.. err. Pittsburgh! 

More Pittsburgh pictures over the weekend.. 

Cucumber Falls

This is going to be a short post as far as travelogs go! After finishing the tour of Falling Water we had one hour before heading home. SIL suggested we visit Cucumber falls, a place 20 minutes away. We made it to the falls and all of us trekked down to the water level. 

Then we realized that there was some steep climbing over slippery rock and fallen trees to get to the falls. 

Only four of us made it. Me, the kids and my athimber. We got 15 minutes in the falls, but could not take a lot of pictures as a young couple kept photobombing us. After a 15 minute wait we decided the photo op was not going to get any better.. 

I photoshopped them out of the picture above.. but it was too much work to Photoshop them out of the one below.. Thanks to Athimber, at least got a picture of the three of us! 

The place was really nice and cool. We spent the hour at Cucumber falls and moved back towards Pittsbugh..

 A family portrait that will go in our gallery for 2016!

If you decide to go to Falling water, don't miss this place. The water was not as cold as we expected. You could actually bathe in the falls! 

We will take that chance, next time!

Falling water

On our second day of the Pittisburg trip over summer, we raced from Laurel caverns to Falling water. The reason for the race was that we had tickets for a fixed tour appointment. 

First, about Falling water. This is the house that made Frank Lloyd Wright, famous. The Kaufmann family commissioned him to build this house over a waterfall, with money that in today's equivelent if ~50M $. 

It is an architectural marvel that was nominated to be on the 8 modern wonders of the world. You have to see it to believe it. The whole thing is a layer of cantilevers hanging over a vertical concrete structure, above a waterfall. 

HDR processing has some advantages!

There was one problem. No cameras allowed on the trip. You could take pictures outside the house. We were asked to switch all cell phone camera's off as well. Given we had not heard about this place before, they could use the publicity is what I thought.... 

All the pictures were taken with the iPhone 6 and processed in Photoshop! 

The tour guide hyped the cost of repair and how badly the place was crumbling. The little one did not like the guide. She said "we have eyes, we can see how beautiful this is without him having to tell us".

The place speaks for itself. It is a true marvel. The attention to detail in every door, every window, every corner and how the furniture is built into the house, the views, the privacy and open ness where it matters, I could go on and on about this place.. 

Frank Lloyd Wright was way ahead of his time! Wish he was alive now... we would be seeing a totally different class of buildings! It was a good thing my sister-in-law picked this place for a vist. We thoroughly enjoyed it.

If you happen to go to Pittsburgh area, this is a must see! 

If you are an architecture buff or into engineering, you will love this place.