Another memorable birthday

This year, started my birthday with a hot yoga class. This time Michele Vennard decided to a science experiment to see if people sing happy birthday better.. at the end of the class when folks have their lungs fully open. It was a correct hypothesis. Have had a class full of yoga buddies sing me happy birthday so many times over the years, sometimes at the beginning of class, during balancing stick pose, triangle pose… now at the end of class. This was the loudest and most musical version! As always a heartfelt thanks to BYSJ for giving me a second chance at life and making it a second home!

After this moved on to my second favorite activity in recent times.. Singing. We had a smule singing meet with a bunch of local bay area singers. Have been doing this once a month for almost two plus years now. We have all become family friends, especially since every house has a singer and a critical spouse in the audience most of the time. There was an amazing potluck lunch. San made mysore pak for me to take to the potluck which was yummy!

After spending a fun afternoon, went to Palermo’s Italian in San Jose to have a nice birthday dinner with my birthday buddy and family. There was some fireworks involved! Given hiking had to be pushed out, San made sure that we did hike the very next morning, bright and early.

There were three avid hikers who went ahead. Ended up walking at my pace with San’s music teacher and we just walked as we discussed music. Didn’t feel the strain and we made it all the same. Missed my friend Prasad on this hike as we were discussing TNS. The two of us have a track record for getting lost in hikes while discussing TNS’s music. San’s music teacher gave this alarmed look when she realized that she may be dealing with not a fan but a TNS fanatic! Will write about the hike in a separate post.

We came home and got some rest. Then we lost internet for 8 hours. Spent a lot of time on the phone with Comcast but finally gave up and they had to send a technician out Monday morning. We realized that without the internet the house breaks.. doorbells to heaters to solar panels .. they all have issues. Need to start wiring some backups!

The little one and her bestie have been cooking a thanksgiving dinner for our two families every year. Sometimes it is early given travel plans. This was the 10th anniversary of this tradition they started. They come up with a menu, do everything from scratch and cook all afternoon. They both know of my allergies and always.. always have something for me to eat as well. This year, they took a chance and we figured out I am not allergic to Kale or celery. Not sure if this discovery is a good one given San will now add these two to everything. Next year, I might get Kale Mysore pak for my birthday.. who knows! This years dinner was just amazing!

The entire birthday weekend was awesome!

Video highlights reel…

Now there is a big birthday left to celebrate…

Imagination point and Pink Valley- Kapadokya, Turkey

The previous post in this series is here.. The reason I put this link is because sometimes there are trips before other trips can be blogged and this thing looks like the Inception movie. Hopefully the links help in stitching together a timeline. Squarespace seems to have become bad at searching and showing the right results in the blog in recent times. Think their new AI is trying to understand the blog timelines and went “screw this guy.. too jumpy in his timelines”

Where were we? Yes.. After that pottery stop and lunch we went and stopped at Imagination point, a place where the rock formations are very interesting, followed by another stop at Pink Valley. This is apparently close to where the balloons land. Our driver used a back route to get us to an unofficial view point. It was 100+ degrees out and we wanted to get out and right back in after taking pictures. That was the plan till I decided to do Yoga poses overlooking Pink Valley. The rest of the group went back into the van, but my darling wife did stay back to help take photos.

Short video highlight reel

After this we were going to be on a longer drive. So folks took a nap while we went to our next big stop which was the biggest tour highlight!

Summer 2025 Bikram Yoga 60 day challenge

After the India trip and father’s day, had still not gone to the Yoga studio for a few days. I really did not want to face the string of condolence hugs. Then came International day of yoga.

We went there to smiling faces. Bikram Yoga San Jose has been home for me for 15 years now. Was not going to miss this. Got to pose with my poster to everyone’s amusement.

Then came July 1st. Was sitting there before class and was reminded that the challenge started. In spite of San giving me the look, signed up. There were conditions. No skipping hikes or other duties. No complaining of any kind as far as time constraints go.

Started on 1st and finished the challenge 5 days early. Felt good to be back in the hot room regularly. It was the best therapy I could ask for. Wanted to do all the 60 classes in my usual corner spot. Managed to do almost 90% of the classes in that spot. Everyone asks me why I pick that spot. There is a back story. BYSJ’s first manager was a wonderful man named Chris Cannavero. He left us too young. He always used to goad me into doing things with his sarcastic wit. When BYSJ moved into the new studio in 2012, he set up thermometers in different parts of the hot room and asked a few of us to keep watching the temperature through the class and report the temperature range. I was in the corner spot and it went to 112 F and for the most part stayed at 108 F. He claimed after that exercise that the corner spot was the hottest.

A few days later I went back a few spots and he called me a wuss for chickening out of being in the hottest spot. After he passed away, I just go to that spot in hopes he is giving me energy when I am about to collapse in a heap or when my brain tells my body to sit down. It may be my imagination, but my % of sitting out poses has become negligible over the years. Just will myself to do it. Now I can add my dad to the list of folks giving me energy every time I put my palms out facing the ceiling.

Every challenge is different, every class is different, every set is different, every side is different. Yoga is something that works on me at glacial pace. It works though!

There was a lot of clutter in my head and yoga helped me still my monkey mind, at least 90 minutes at a time.

A video clip..

A heartfelt thanks to Michelle and all my teachers, fellow students, friends and family for continuing to support me on this yoga journey!