Revisiting the Tulips

Roosengarde near Seattle is famous for its Tulips. Three years ago, we visited the place but were too late to the Tulip fields. They had topped it off. 

This year we got a chance to go there. We miscalculated on multiple fronts. We had 5 hours in the afternoon to go and come back, before we had to drive to the airport to catch our flight back.

It was probably the first sunny weekend in Seattle area. The entire population was out on the freeway. The traffic made a 90 minute ride into a 3 hour ride. Also given we were in two cars and were using the iPhone as a GPS, the phone battery drained in the middle of the drive. That meant that we could not communicate between cars. We were thinking of turning back multiple times but given the communication gap, decided to go all the way and meet at the Tulip place. 

We spent 20 minutes there. Ran to the fields, took pictures and raced back to the parking lot. That was when some of the kids in the group said "pee pee". The attendant in the fields pointed us to a restroom that was half a mile away, or what seemed half a mile away. So we told the kids to hold it and started on our drive back. 

Made it back in a lot less than 90 minutes after some fast driving and we also made it to our flight as it was boarding!

Here are some pictures.. 

It is quite a sight. If you are in the seattle area in Mid April, don't miss it.

Loved this color.. 

This was my favorite strip.. bright yellow!

Finally a photograph that my mom will appreciate! She always complains that I am not in the pictures.. 

Next time we go, we will plan an extra day in Seattle instead of a Friday evening to Sunday evening trip and spend a day here.  That way I can go crazy with the photography. 

Infrastucture

One thing I have recently cherished is trips on the Maglev (Magnetic Levitation) trains in Asia. On a given day they do 300 km/hr speeds on the steady stretch and on a good day 420 km/hr. Was told that this is not the top speed and it goes higher on other days. 

The recent record in Japan is 600 km/hr! 

This was going to be a long post on "why can't we do this in the US of A?" The country that built the Hoover dam cannot build a single high speed rail line? at least for a "we can also do this" reason?

Then realized that the answer was simple. Our politicians are inept. Hoover dam came about because of some clever interstate deal making by visionary politicians. Today the country is so polarized that bullet trains have something or other to do with abortions, gay marriage and desert salamanders. 

We live in a funny world. I am glad that at least I got to ride in a train like that in this lifetime. Going to take my kids on one of these trips and show them that the outside world is not necessarily what the local news media portrays it to be! 

The best education we can give our kids is to take them around the world and let them experience firsthand what is going on in other parts of the world, where it is safe to take them. 

Like I said on FB before, have train envy now!

Sometimes life just passes by..

Recently was walking through a park.. Sun was about to set. This lonely park bench was really calling out to me. 

Kept walking.. really wanted to sit on that bench, cross my legs and stare at the trees.. but something told me, there is more to see, keep going! 

Then came the actual sunset through the trees. Thoroughly enjoyed it!

Sunset is sunset, no matter where you are! Watching the same sun set over and over again never gets boring!

Walked some more and saw this fellow on the path! He (or she) rolled around and showed the belly for me to pet! Have nothing against cats and dogs, but am allergic to them. So stay as far away as possible. Said "sorry" to the little fellow, took a picture and kept moving. 

Then there was the selfie.. this one is for my mom, who has not seen my face in two months. For that matter I haven't seen her face in two months as well.

It was a miracle that I did not get sick with all that pollen floating around.

It is time to stop writing about parks and cats and figure out a time to do video chat with folks in India. 

Now you know where I was going with the whole Life passing by thing!

An interesting start to travels

It has been an interesting start to the travels of 2015!

First trip of the year.. boarded a plane to Asia. We all sat down and within a few seconds after buckling my seat belts, the lady behind me let out a loud sneeze that sent wind rushing through the gap between my seat and my neighbor. It was gusty enough to compete with the directed air flow from the nozzle thingy above our heads! 

Being the nice courteous dude, I said "Bless you!' and she mumbled a "Thanks!" A few minutes later she did the same thing and we went though the subroutine again that brought back memories of GOSUB and GOTO 10 from high school BASIC class.. 

By the time they made us watch the seat belt video and we were waiting in line to take off the GOTO 10 thingy had been executed more than 6 times at which point I was tempted to change the subroutine from "Bless you!" to "#u%k you!".  If she was that sick and sneezing away, why was she on a plane?! Doesn't she know that I have to deal with critical meetings, watch my food everytime for allergic things in carnivorous countries where even an order of plain rice comes with a few black sesame seeds as garnish! There are enough death traps that one has to watch out for, without having to deal with "flu or flu like symptoms". Does she not care?! 

After take off she fell asleep which was good. Soon the good folks at United cooled the plane down so much that we all went into Cryogenic freeze. I think United is learning too much from Star Trek and other Sci-Fi movies. Pretty soon we will be submerged in some blue fluid and put in capsules before take off. It is only a question of time and you heard it here first!  Their real idea is to probably force everyone (even those 6'4" viking looking guys whose thighs are as thick as my waistline) to sleep by dropping the plane temperature and that way they don't have to serve more folks those pesky drinks and snacks between meal services. 

Things went well till the hotel was reached and after a good nights sleep, woke up to find out... you guessed it.. "flu like symptoms". It was not that bad. A slightly runny nose, spitting some blood into the sink aka sore throat and the best part ? Come back and see blood on my pillow. Was trying to think.. "maybe I was drooling and this blood came from my mouth? or maybe my nose is bleeding because the hotel air is dry?" etc. Later found that the blood was from my ears! 

Three things went through my mind in a split second. In sequence they were:

1. I was in a foreign country

2. Have never had to go through healthcare options in said foreign country

3. Blood from ears invariably means some death sentence thanks to zillions of Sivaji and Kamal movies where blood dripping from various orifices in face is promptly followed by a bald doctor (same doctor in all those zillion movies) checking patient with just his stetoscope, rummaging from his medical bag for some other thing and promptly declaring "you have lymposarcoma of the ear/nose/throat and you have only a few months to live!"

Did a "cut cut cut" to the thought process and decided to ask my colleagues for help. One of them came up with some Amoxycililn (we will not go into the details here) which cost by the way the equivalent fo 4 USD for a box of 24 tablets.. except it was twice the dose. Given that 90% of my visits to the doctor over the last 20 years have ended with a prescription for Amoxycillin, decided it was a safe bet to start myself on yet another course in case the ears were infected.

Turned out it was a wise move! Things got better and all symptoms are gone. Now I have my hands on the US dose of Amoxycillin and some antibiotic ear drops and things are getting to feel normal.

They say "when it rains, it pours!". So while all this recovery was being attempted, my SVTC Jacket which has pretty much been like a school uniform for the last 8 years gave in. The zipper broke. Had to trash it and go jacket shopping.

It has been my observation that in East Asia, they have a lot more variety for outdoor winter jackets. The women have really pretty jackets in a multitude of colors and designs that walking through busy streets will be a photographers dream for catching some "color". Even the men seem to have a lot of options when it comes to jackets that actually fit them in various colors! 

Contrast that with Cupertino where the entire populations jacket supply comes from probably 4 sources.

a. Costco Jackets where the guy's position inside the oversized jacket is similar to an electron in a cloud. 

b. Target Jackets that make guys look like they are about to empty their bowels with one wrong sneeze thanks to the tightness in the chest and waist

c. The ubiquitous gray NorthFace fleece or 

d. A Columbia jacket that takes the puny desi or Chinese guy look like a polar bear cub

It is also important to remember that the average Cupertino resident is probably a desi or chinese dude who is 5'4" to 5'8" height and is a size "Medium". The only jackets that will be left on any local stores will be things with  3 or more "X's" in front of them. One would think that given the demographic the local stores would wisen up and stock more medium.. but no!

Where were we? Yes, Jacket shopping!

We went to a local market ten minutes from the hotel and there were a dozen jacket stores all reminding me of Burma bazaar in Madras in the late eighties (not sure if that place is still there!). Every small 8x10 store had sales people literally pulling us into the store. 

Then we went into a discussion of what is the best brand in this part of the world that is a "copy" of the Nike's of the western world?

My friends were obviously shocked by the US dude who wanted to go bargain shopping for local brands. Explained to them that most of my cloth shopping was done during India trips and the brand name shirt that I am wearing is purchased from a dude who is allowed to sell "rejects" from an export only unit that makes it in India for 8$ when the shirt costs 44$ in the US. They asked me what was the "reject" in the shirt and my response was "it failed a quality inspection from the US inspector. Instead of two spare buttons stitched on the inside bottom of the shirt, there was only one! The discussion turned to "quality" and we went back to more store hopping.

After watching me haggle with the local store keepers they said "Li-Ning" is  like the Nike here to which my counter was "then what is the New Balance here?" and the response was "361 degrees".

We found a nice jacket made by this wonderful company! 

This jacket will give all the above jackets in sections a through d, a run for their money. For that material, stitching quality, attention to detail and price point, it simply cannot be beat!

So from that stand point, this has been a good trip so far. The guys I work with are very thoughtful and understanding. They let me have enough rest between antibiotics to survive the week!

One more week to go in Jan and we will see if Feb turns out to be better!

With all this going on, my dream of finishing a 60 day Bikram Yoga challenge was pretty much dashed. So this year, I get to watch everyone else finish it and that is not an easy thing for me to do. Watching people put up their stars and cheering them on knowing I won't will be my yoga challenge for this year. 

One has to learn to let go, no?!

Hoover Dam and Lake Mead Recreation area

We spent a good 6 hours on our first day of the trip to Las Vegas area at Hoover Dam and the Lake Mead recreation area. Our original plan was to go see Bryce canyon or Grand canyon. A blizzard ruled out those plans. The decision was to see what we could within a two hour radius of our hotel. 

San and me have seen the dam and lake as well as west Grand Canyon on a mini plane tour from Henderson when we were newly married! That was ages ago and we don't even have a way to replay those mini VHS tapes these days!  This was our chance to see the dam, up close and personal.

So we went on the "dam" tour!

This tour takes more than an hour and is twice as expensive as the regular tour but totally worth it. 

Lake Mead is behind this 750 foot tall 600+ foot wide monstrosity! If you see the larger version of the pic by clicking it you will see four shield shaped markings on the concrete.. 

You can see one of them on the center of the picture above. It is actually one of four air vents that balances the air inside the dam so that the concrete cures. Concrete takes years to cure. This one is to cure in 125 years. So they keep monitoring the moisture content and curing rate of the concrete from inside the dam. 

Concrete sets in an exothermic reaction. The designers of the dam used special steel tubes to vent the heat from the setting concrete to cool it down while building the dam. Otherwise there was no way it was built that fast. They had a refridgeration plant cool down the concrete through these tubes while pouring blocks of concrete 5-6 foot tall at one time.. 

You go through these nicely finished tunnels to reach one of the four air vents on the tunnel.

This is the view of the end of the air vent from the inside.

and that is what you see when you look out of the vent. A mighty Colorado river that runs in a very controlled way out of the dam!

After seeing the view from the vent, we also got to see the staircase that runs up and down the dam as an emergency exit in those days. 

We also saw the turbine room. There are these LARGE turbines each weighing more than 600 tons that generate electricity. 

There is also a smaller generator that is on the ground that supplies power to the dam itself. The scale of this building and everything in it is simply mind blowing. 

Once the water comes out of the turbines, it exits down through the gates. You can see that in picture below.

 The dam's mid point is the state border between Nevada and Arizona. So the kids had fun magically moving through two time zones and being in two timezones at the same time.. The older kids understood my idea of trying to a collage showing them in two zones and posed for me, but my execution was flawed.. Should have taken more wider angle shots to merge.. 

We spent another hour wandering around the exhibits and the statues of the two angels and drove on to the Lake Mead Recreation area to have lunch. 

It was very scenic spot (stitched shot below)

Will definitely recommend this as a day trip activity for the entire family. If you have really small kids under 3 would not recommend it. The Dam tour can be pretty claustrophobic. 

The parking lot, restrooms, exhibits etc. were world class! Everyone enjoyed it. The kids learned a thing or two about of hydro electric power is generated using stators and rotors and that was really cool. 

We did not know what to expect when we hit the parking lot, but we came out after having a great time!