A happy day

The entire summer break came and is almost over. 

Jr. came back from college but was mostly confined to her room, with her summer coursework. She also switched to a Noon to 3AM schedule, why I don't know. which meant I did not get to spend much time with her. 

The only good thing was that I decided to work with her on one of her courses and that gave us a chance to talk more. The little one has been having stomach issues for a month now and we are asked to wait for few more weeks before we get to see a specialist. There is ONE pediatric GI specialist in Kaiser Santa Clara and one in Oakland, if you believe the nurse and appointment center! There seem to be more oncologists than GI specialists which I find interesting! We did spend time together watching Loki. We are both Marvel fans and that helps!

San has just started walking again and that is something. So what I am trying to say in an elaborate way is that this summer was a wash! We wanted to have one day, ONE freaking day where the four of us could go to see some nature, have a good meal outside and just have fun like old times (but with masks on, which I call fun with a mask discount). 

We got our chance last evening. The summer courses are over as of last week. There was a good weeks rest. Now there were less excuses. So the kids agreed to sit in the car and drive an hour to SFO for the evening. They got to pick the eating. We got to pick the nature place. Given San has been to lands end many times and I have never seen it, we decided to go and walk down to the ocean. 

The hole in the rock out in the ocean does look like a heart from this angle!

It was cold and windy and the place smelled like a sewer and dead fish. God works in mysterious ways. He really does. San swears that in her previous visits, she only smelled the ocean breeze! What we smelled was something to forget but hard to. Every now and then the breeze would come in and cleanse your nose. 

The kids kept rolling their eyes going "this is why we don't come out!". We did manage to get a few pictures given this was our one day out.  It was beautiful to look at and thankfully photographs don't come with associated smells!

There is also a tunnel you can walk through. However, we took three steps into this thing and realized that it was a smell concentrator. Masks are not enough to walk through this thing. You need a respirator. So we took a selfie and kept moving. This blog is doing a public service. If you just look at the pictures and decide to walk into the tunnel, not good. Read the sentences between the pictures and you can thank me later.

Watching the kids sit there and talk made me think of my brother. We used to be thick as thieves but we rarely speak now. Hope they do better than us when they get to this age!

After spending an hour here, we decided to go to our dinner at Gracias Madre. It is my fourth or fifth time visiting this place and we were in and out in 40 minutes. We came, we ate, we left. 

Ghirardelli's is only 15 minutes away and we wrapped up dinner with some dessert.

On the way the kids who usually don't ask for anything asked me to drive there through crooked street, for old times sake and I obliged..they know I don't like to drive there! 

I always look forward to that big glass for the hot fudge Sundae and was disappointed to see it served in a plastic cup. The feel of the warm glass and the cold ice cream was lost with the plastic. It is also not easy to scrape off the hot fudge with a plastic spoon from a plastic cup. It is like serving perumal kovil sarkarai pongal in a Crème brûlée ramekin!

The ice cream did taste as good as it always does.The two different textures on my forehead was the subject of an interesting discussion...the shiny part defines the boundary of where hair "used to be" is a theory!

we walked around a bit and drove back!

A video clip..

It was the happiest we have been in a few months! We have to wait till the years end to do the next "family" outing and all plans are already being rejected by the kids.

Sometimes I think all this school and college stuff is taking out the fun for these kids! My sincere hope is that after finishing all this, they get to be more "outdoorsy" and the "travel bug" bites them hard!

I for one will remember this as the one bright evening for the last few months!

4th of July Fireworks in COVID times

We wrapped up the BIL's family visit with an entire day at Great America theme park which finally ended with some amazing fireworks..

Given all the walking San had done to that point, she was now on a cast and in a wheelchair. So that was interesting in itself. Great America is not designed to be friendly for people who have casts but the kids who manned the rides did their best to accomodate. They gave a list of rides that were safe for her and we took her only on those rides. San was actually smiling most of the time she was being wheeled around.. the irony of the situation was also making me laugh every now and then!

Great America is a poor mans Disney.. and you get to see that the poor man who visits this park is at least 3 sizes larger than the average person visiting Disney. 4 of 5 people you cross are walking with a struggle, are obese and in general show poor health just by looking at them. We saw many rides go down because the rides got stuck or people got stuck in the seats and had to be retrived. That apart, we went on a handful of rides which were in general safe and were not going to get stuck. BIL, me and Jr. spent one hour on a line when they shut it down and sent us back. We still put on a smile and went about the rest of the day.

The place is beautiful with all the fountains and floral arrangements.. 

The smile from the kids made up for all the standing in lines and josting for space with the wheelchair.

While Jr., the little one and BIL made it through some of the risky rides, the rest of us split up and did different things. My MIL and me went on the rotating tower and got a birds eye view of silicon valley. My old office is right behind this part and my new office was also visible. 

the day ended with fireworks. We got great shots on an iPhone with the right setting.. 

A few shots of the fireworks in a slide show.. Most of them were taken on an iPhone

 

and a video of the highlights of this day trip.

We had a great time the entire day, except for the exit out of the park. The design of the exit and the procedure leaves a sour taste.. Everyone was trying to exit the park after fireworks. There were no traffic cops to get any order. It was a free for all towards the exit after being in a gridlock for 1 hour. Finally we made it out and home closer to 11:30 PM when the fireworks had ended at 9PM and we had sat in our car at 9:15! It is a 15 minute ride back home on a normal night! If there is one thing they could fix immediately, it is the directing of vehicles out of the park.

Our hope is that we eventually make it to Disney with the kids(?! at heart) soon, once the delta variant makes its exit. Till then, we will always have memories of this Great America trip, when it comes to roller coasters, fireworks and parking lot exits! 

Moneys worth for a local day well spent!

When you visit a place more than 20 times..

We visited "The Mystery Spot" in Santa Cruz for the 20+ th time with the BIL family on the way to Monterey beach.

Think I toppped the number of visits list on this group by a wide margin. I was not alone in visiting this place multiple times. There were other folks who were bringing family and friends for the 10th or 14th time.

Still this place never loses the wonder it brings.. you get to experience something different and weird for that 30 minutes. The high school and college kids who act as guides for this 30 minute tour try to one up their jokes and now they have a cafeteria outside as well! So the place is doing well.

we checked the level.. it is still almost the same after 20 years.. not much earth movement! 

Here is BIL doing the MJ thing..

and if you are wondering what happens at the mystery spot... we start walking with a lean without realizing it. the video below says it all..

The outside has some decor added with a couple of cars completely covered in mystery spot stickers and bunch of US flags now and that adds a little color to the entry!

Something tells me we will be visiting this place again in a few years when more guests show up!

Why did this blog go dormant?

It has been almost two months since any blog entires. It was not intentional. We had a great summer beginning when every weekend saw a new hike, nature photos and happy smiling faces. 

Then things changed, in a fraction of a second. My wife went to Windy hill hike with a friend and did the simple common mistake of not looking where she is walking. In a spilt second her shoe gets stuck in a root on the path and her ankle was twisted. She decided it was "just a sprain" and decided to go on a larger hike during memorial day weekend which made matters a lot worse.

After many X-rays, MRI, bottles of Ibuprofen,Voltaren,Icy-hot,dencorub,CBD oil, etc. etc.. (it is actually a long list), ankle braces, doctor appointments, chiropractor visits, even Bikram yoga with me and my MIL later... she is almost walking normally again within the house and on solid concrete floors. 

Every week was "it will get better in three weeks" and almost three months passed. We are still happy with the progress. If the queen is not happy, the kingdom cannot be happy. Given the blog is usually positive, I just stayed away from it. 

My new job also got interesting. A lot more work came up in the last 6 weeks. After being in startups for 15 years, a big company has a very different feel. Some things work more efficiently. There are systems in place for everything and that is great. Some things are incredibly slow which is to be expected and I had to significantly reduce my internal clock speed to set realistic expectations. Think I am reasonably adjusted now, we will know in a few quarters (you expected me to say "shortly" didn't you! have learned my lesson). 

Then things got interesting everywhere else. We had a flying visit from the BIL's family for three days during the July 4th weekend and more sickness around the house. We are all on the mend now and that is why I decided to catch up on blogging.

First for some small things. My co-sister decided to bring us a gift when they visited. We have a lot of hummingbirds in our backyard. So asked her to get us a hummingbird feeder. I had plans to get a regular bird feeder. We recently had a bird hit our window and die right there. Wanted to give back something to our backyard birds for the hours of entertainment they provide when we drink tea on the swing and watch them.

Got a couple of shepards hooks, posted them inside flower pots and set it all up. As an added bonus set up a water fountain as a project, working with my two nieces. It was an instant success. 

Here are some photos and videos..

I have never seen a baby hummingbird.. we all call it "baby hammu" and it is incredibly cute! 

The rest of the sparrows, finches, crows, doves and squirrels are all gathering around this small area and I just watch the backyard as I work. Making powerpoint slides becomes easier when these critters are around!

Never even got to edit all the photos from the July 4th trip. Will spend an hour a day and get back to blogging and the photo editing! My connection to music also got stronger over the last few months. Will write about it later!

For now, I am happy that the blog saw a post!

Lovers point Park - Monterey

Given San is still on the restricted ankle regimen and wanted to go somewhere, anywhere.. we went to the easiest accessible beach, at Lovers point park in Monterey.

It is a 90 minute drive from here, but totally worth the drive. The weather was perfect there, a good 15 degrees cooler. We parked right next to the park, walked around the park and went down to the beach and got our feet wet.. 

My photographer is getting better every day!

There is a carpet of pink flowers everywhere, which makes for great pictures! 

we had to dry our feet before wearing shoes again.. so we just sat on a bench and watched the waves and seagulls and the incredibly human friendly gophers that were everywhere! they even beg for food on two legs and that was scary to watch!

I also got to climb on the rocks here and there and try yoga poses. Not recommending this to others as it was a risky move.. was in the moment and shocked my wife by trying to do this on top of the rock.. by the time she started to protest in terror, was out of the pose.. 

Long exposure trick on the waves.. 

slowly getting the hang of this.. have to go wider as the long exposure adjustment crops the picture!

Some pictures from the park and beach!

and what is a blog post without a short video?

Had a lot of fun in two hours and drove back! Definitely recommend it for a short walk in a scenic setting!