Camping - Vermont - Emerald lake

Ater a long wait, planning, re planning, scheduling and re scheduling finally we went for our first camping trip to Vermont – Emerald lake. Sunil took care of the reservations and checklist for shopping and we were on the way to Emerald by 12:00 pm from Abhishek’s house. (Plan was to leave there by 10 …just fell over by 2 hours). 5 guys on a small compatible car with truck load of stuff. A tent for 8 ppl, 4 pounds of chicken and pack fo 24 chicken sausage in an ice box, case of beer, vegetables and paneer for grill and couple of cameras. It was 3 hour drive from our place, reached the camp site by 4:00 – just in time so that the park office was open.

Took an hour to set up the tent and set the basic things. We head for the walk trail which looked so small in the map but a long trail with two (foot ball injured guys) in the group. The terrains where not so challenging but injuries take tolls :), have to appreciate my brave friends to go walking on such terrains with nurtured ligament tare and twisted ankles… Folks once on track are all in one aim to finish the trail.


We found one amazing lake bank idle for swimming but we missed our bath towels. After spending a while we realized we are falling short on time to get back to our tent and do the grilling part.
On the way around, we found a nice playing area where the foot ball players showed of their skills, a little time running behind the Frisbee and a lot of walking.



When we came back and started to sort out things in the tent, we realized we are short of drinks, missed chilly power, the grill needs a bad wash and we didn’t had the rite tools. So we head out again in search of a general store in a remote place relying on GPS and iphone searches. Meanwhile Deepak, Bobby and Abhi set the grill to fire. After tenuous effort for about 45 minutes, they got a clean grill with steady flames – hats off to you guys.



After a 30 mile drive and couple of bad search results, we found a super market and got everything we required and started driving back. One the way back the weather took a wild turn. The 30 % rain chance showed up that the 70% fell on the day time and rain gods blessed us with heavy down pour. By the time we reached back, the chicken was marinated, Paneer already grilled and tent was filled with two petromax and rest searching for battery for our big lamp.



The chicken sausages where already grilled and it tasted so good (we had a long day on trail, games and shopping and all we ate was that sausage which tasted the best sausage I ever ate(hunger and taste are definitely inversely proportional to glorify the taste) After a tough search for about one hour, we confirmed that the battery pack is missing and we need to spend our night with two LED lamps and moon light under on a heavy rainy day. But our spirits where high, drinks where on and so do the grill! Grilling and card game went on late until 1:00 PM! We had to keep strict silence as the camp had rules that after 10 it is strict silence …. Also our camping neighbors looked like its mid night for them at 10:00! So we relied on sign symbols and LED lights ….and here is a glimpse of what we ate for night :)



It was an experience on what all we can do in limited lights which included fire display, guess whose drink is where and keeping track of who left what and where.



By 1:00 we had three heavy down pour of rain and it looked like rain is going to stay. It was dream come true for me to sleep under tent with rain sound just over our head, a little warmth of tent inside woods … felt a serene feeling once you close your eyes and listen to the rhythm of rain over your tent.

We woke up next morning around 8:00. We had to cook our breakfast, clean the camp site and leave by 11:00. Bobby again showed his master skills by putting back the grill on in 45 minutes which took a heavy toll from rain last night and some close to wet firewood. The rest of food was finished in no time! We noticed a young boy going to each neighboring camp site picking up the left over firewood (an arm load cost you 4 $s and felt even Americans do this ;)) A fellow camper came around and asked if they can take the rest of our firewood and we felt that these folks take this very seriously – to pay and get firewood. We left the site by 11:30 and were back in home on my bed by 4:00…

It is so refreshing to be close to nature, listening rain, eating from a grill with a shade of charcoal flavor in your food. Learned that getting the tent back to the packing back is a tedious task and all you need is one night to get attached to a place. Until the next camp, I am signing off …..

Shanks

Dude, where is my car ????????????

Dude , Where is my Vasu ?

Vasu is the short name for my car ‘Vasumathy’. We named my car so after naming D’s car as Kalyani kutti and A’s car as Meenukutti. (note: these are names of characters from two super hit Malayalam movies of Mohanlal, and when we discussed about naming my car, it was more like Vasumathy, ….athumathy, another movie dialogue, but not from Mohanlal’s movie)

This is happened on a very cold morning in November. The temperature outside my apartment was 26 degree f. (Close to -3 Degree Celsius). Time was around 6: 30 in the morning and I was rushing through my morning routine. I had packed up my lunch (whatever was left behind from the experiment in kitchen the day before), polished my shoes and headed out to the drive way. Then realized that I forgot my company ID card and came back to find that I left my wallet as well! So I had to remove my shoes again and get into the bed room to get all the possessions!
Phew!!!!! what a way to start the day. Doing all this, time was around 6:43. Every day or most of the days I have an in-person meeting with my team at 7:00. So my trip to office is a 20 minutes drive to cover around 17 miles and a 6 minutes’ walk ( others usually takes 12 to 15 minutes ) I have long legs and I always walk like someone is eating my lunch at the other end of the building, so I cut it down to 6 minutes.

So I had all this running in my mind that I am going to be late for today’s meeting as I am already late. To cover a 17 miles drive and a 6 minute superfast stride in 17 minutes, not a chance. I didn’t count the time to start up my vehicle, clean the ice off and warm it up so that it will actually run! Imagining all those, I walked to my drive way and alas!!!!!!!!!! I am looking at a different car in the place I had parked my car yesterday. I had lot of things going on my mind …..

Where did I park my car?
When did I park it?
Do I have my car key?
Where is the insurance paper?
Where is the title?

Do you know the moment your throat just go dry even if it is freezing cold and you were not even close to thirsty? Then the stream of thoughts went something like this ….
Ohh I lost a lot of things with my car ….was it stolen? How will I commute until I get the car / new car …. Lots and lots of questions! Then the thought came to call Thimmashan ( Mr D, who is the car guru in our group. He is a wonderful Business analyst but he love cars) so tapped his number and woke him up on a cold first light ….so the tête-à-tête went like this

D: Halla
Me: My car is missing

D: What???
Me: Eda, My car is not where I had parked it yesterday!

D: Look again, where did you park it yesterday?
Me: In the open parking lot next to our building

D: Are you sure you parked it here, or it was in a marked parking lot
Me: I am pretty sure, I parked it here ….(or if was one lot on the right side thinking in my mind ), So what to do now

D:What else, call up 911 and tell them your care is being stolen!
Me: WHAT ?
Me: Yes , go ahead and call them

So here I go tapping 911 …

Me: Hi
Officer: Hi, please state your emergency

Me: it looks like my car is stolen , I had parked in my parking lot and it is gone today morning
Officer: Can you please give the license plate number and the location

Me: It is XCP …. And location
Officer: your car was towed yesterday night at 12:30 as it was parked on someone else parking lot. Please contact the tow vendor at (address& phone number) to get your car.

Me: let me write it down and thanks for the info

I went back to house with D, and sat on sofa thinking ‘Did I park there ???’ Then called up the towing company and they said I have to pay 75 $s to get my car back. This is towing and handling charge …. So I bought my car again from the towing company for 75 $s…. I remember the incident where my mom bought me from a police man when he caught me for driving a scooter without a license ….That day I still remember the conversation with my mom and the police man.

Policeman: You shouldn’t allow your kid to drive the scooter at such young age
Mom: how much

Police man: 500
Mom: OK, I will make sure he doesn’t drive out again ….

And she came back home saying … Look what I bought today for 500 ….. Me.....

:)

The KD story ......

If you are wondering what KD stands for, it is ‘Kaama Devan’ which roughly translates to ‘Eros’ in Greek philosophy. It all started when one of my friend ‘Youth’ took a 7 day wonder diet. He took this diet and lost 12 pounds in one week. So everyone (who got some extra pounds to lose) got inspired and took the challenge. For more details on the diet plan click here

I was wondering about the Americans ads about diet – healthy diet – happy diet etc. I never thought that people are so mad about diet and their looks until a small tummy which looks like tortoise on a pillar started to appear on me! But earlier this week I saw to what extend people care. Our so called crazy4, except ‘me’ started the GM-Diet plan. I am an underweight - mal nutritional guy who will die if I skip a lunch :D (Most of my friends do agree to this ;)). These three folks out of crazy 4 D, P and A), they just live to eat! So I thought this would be an eventful week. The first day was full of enthusiasm on dieting. There were animated discussion about the things they are going to eat, a list of things they would eat and how wonderful they are going to look after one week.
The first day we ended up visiting Stewlenords/ and bought vegetables for the wonder soup. Also picked up 6 packs of soup mix from Shop N Stop to make the soup! First day, they can have only fruits and vegetables. The after effects were visible! My friend P ran into the car with a bag of apples munching into it yelling out how tasty an apple can be! Then they prepared the wonder soup with little customizations, as they put only 4 onions in place of 6 and added three packs of soup mix instead on one. But believe me; the soup did taste really good for us. US – Me and ‘B’. We were not in the diet plan in the first place ( Intro for B - best Chappathy maker I have seen as he make very soft tender chappathy, which even I can eat 8 or 9 one go) So the wonder soup was more of an appetizer for us and the whole dinner for the KD’s. The dialogue of the day came from A!

‘A’ looking at the bag of potato chips. : Can we have an exception for two potato chips?
D : No, rules are rules
P : No way, you only told us that there will be moments of hunger which will test out patience, so no to anything fried.
A : Don’t listen to all the crap I said then, now the lays chips looks so crisp. I am ….
P: No, we are all together in this, don’t you stand for your word?
A : Nee onnum nannavillada ….@#$%^&* and drank a glass of water and went inside.

(Cursing that you guys will never improve on a lighter note looking at US who are eating away chappthy+ curry + curd with side –baked potato fry when the three are eating only fruits and vegetables for the whole day!)

Day 2.
The initial enthusiasm is missing, three of them A, D and P are just waiting for the breakfast. The diet doesn’t allow them to have tea. So they came to the cafeteria and had boiled potato with some pepper and salt. Second day is the toughest as it is a vegetable only day. By 3 O’ clock in the evening, I could see what a day’s fasting can do to ppl. Three of them where looking like tired plants on a desert. Their cheeks were already sagging. At dinner time, they had again started with cut vegetables (were eating just raw + boiled broccoli with pepper) and the wonder soup. Wonder soup which tasted good yesterday was not so tasty for them today. Even fruits where not included. Between this,
D: From today I re-define ‘Dried dates’ as fruits, so I am going to eat them and started munching into a pack of honey dipped dried dates
P:I cannot stand this torture, I am going sleep! Oh my god, just get us to 12 O clock, at least I can start eating some fruits and give rest to this boiled vegetables , cabbage and lattice

Day 3

They had baby carrots for breakfast and were just praying to get over the next day. It seems that by end of day 3, guys were already into a mode where they are getting used to ‘Starving’. Three of them were cursing about how bad the wonder soup taste and still having it as it was their only option other than vegetables. Three of them looked energy less and were roaming around like zombies.

Day 4

This was an anticipated day for P as he loves milk. He was planning all along about how to distribute the rationed 8 bananas to the entire day so that he won’t feel hungry. The three glasses of milk were a little compromised by taking big glasses. Folks were feeling a little relived as they got through the toughest day where they were eating cabbage and carrots for the whole day. I wonder, rabbit eats these two their whole life and still they are so energetic!

Day 5

By day 5, D had lost 8 to 9 pound, P lost 9 pounds and A lost 7 pounds. They were very happy about their wait. Day 5 is the feast day and rice looked so delicious to them. Again there was a debate whether it is one cup of uncooked rice a day or one cup of cooked rice. Finally they settled for one glass of cooked rice. The tomato part was again compromised with fruits

Day 6

Again a vegetable day and folks were tired of things. They wanted to lose 12 pounds and from 9 pounds, 3 pounds didn’t look that good. So they left the vegetable day to fruits and a little bit of bread. Also D and I had to travel out of state which disturbed the whole balance. D was again tested as we went into a ‘Karakudi Resturant’ famous for Tamil style ‘ Naatu kozhi curry’ (Country chicken curry) But he held his restrain by eating only rice and a little bit of curry without taking any meat. But he consumed a lot of fruits. ‘A’ was settling with a proper pulishery (Curd curry) and one glass of rice and hibernated rest of the day in his house. P rigorously followed the plan and had only vegetables and one cup of rice

Day 7

We all were sitting in a Mexican restaurant munching into cheese quesadillas and fried chicken wings. Three of them were convinced that the ‘Wonder Diet’ will work out with 10, 9 and 9 pounds reduced from their body. There was a visible change in each of them, but a little tiredness also. So after 7 days, the folks didn’t turn to a KD, but they did turn some faces around and made them ask
’What happened? You are looking different!’ !!!
Also at least three or four folks started following the diet plan looking at the KD’s change
Following a diet plan and getting out of it when you feel like, looks funny. But looking at our life style, the kind of food we eat, I am pretty sure that we end up following stricter diet rules by the time we will be 35 to keep us alive until 50. It is not always the food, but the life style which makes us so vulnerable. Less water, more of sugar, carbohydrate, and no or very less exercise, a lot of oil….I guess this is enough to reduce once life by 10 years! It is not so long before each of us will hear what to eat and what not to, from a dietician or a doctor! One thing I learned is following a diet is not fun! So if I can take control of what I eat now (How much), I can at least taste these delicious food items until I recognize taste!

It is the first weekend of spring 2009 for us. All of us were tired of being inside our apartment for the whole of winter. Without much plans, Mr D got a ‘Check out the groom’ interview in Jersey City. So we thought of clubbing a driving experience and an interview together for the weekend. On last Tuesday night, on half sleep D rented a car and he left a message saying he got a deal for ‘Ford Mustang’. We were on a high on Saturday about the car and went to the rental office on Saturday. We were received by an elderly chinky aunty.
Chinky Aunty: Hi Gentle man, How can I help you? or you want to proceed to the kiosk machine ?
D: Hi, we are here to take the rental car
CA: Your last name please …
D: He said the 24 character long name and handed his driving license.
CA: Oh ….You r taking mustang out for this lovely weekend. Have fun! We have a convertible also available! It is going to be sunny this weekend. Do you want to upgrade?
Me: How much it will come to?
CA: Don’t worry; I will give you 10 bucks less. Are you in? (Flashing a chinky smile)
D looked at me with a pleasant smile and I returned the smile
CA: OK, do you want full coverage
Me & D: yes

CA finished the formalities and she asked another lady to pull out the car for us.
When we got our hands to the car, we knew we are going to have a good time. For the first time in my life time, I had to look into the manual on how to operate the car. We were looking for the light button, gear shift lever, the hood open/close procedure and the audio system controls. Man this is what we call GIZMOZ! With a good car in hand, the atmosphere changes drastically. Everyone is ready to go out even if it’s a little on the cold side. We went out to HammanoZet beach on a chilly evening just to take snaps (posing with the car). Everyone had their dream snaps on a convertible. You know what happens if there is a digital camera, guys with nothing else to do and a sports car. In the crowd of 6, poor Mr. R had some thoughts of sitting lazy on the ground resting on the car, but see how the snap came out. Blame it on our creativity.

The best part about the car was its stability, sudden acceleration and comfort. Speechless about the audio system and wonderful power! Now I know how a Ferrari owner would feels when a Ferrari just zoomed passé s us. I had my hands on the steering and give a thought of giving a tough time to the Ferrari but before I could put my thoughts to action, Ferrari had long gone out of sight. That much for racing on the roads! We had our fun ride in jersey city with hood open with two of us with shades looking like vampires ( karinja vampires, vampires are meant to be fair, we are on the dark side!) People do look when you travel in a convertible, even if it was a rented car, it got style and we did turn some good looking blond heads.
These are some things which can be done only in US or such foreign countries. I can only dream about driving a merc back in India. A convertible will be not even in my dreams. But US gives you such wonderful options to have things for a day on rent and feel it like you own it. Only regret I had was on Monday when I stepped inside my good old ‘Vasumati’ ( that’s the name I had for my car, again we have mary kutty, meenakshi and kalyani around, mind you these are names of heroines in different Mohan lal movies except Vasumati). and peddled it, it was taking more than 12 secs to reach 60 MPH where as the FM would have jumped to 85 MPH in 7 secs ! .

Drive to DMV V

So if any one has doubt about my long standing stint with DMV’s in US, please check it out here As my job demanded a location shift, it also made me go to a DMV to give a driving test. I have to say, it is destiny. But I have to wait until next month to see if it is actually destiny.
As per the US law (GA state law), driving license expires together with I -95. So my precious US-Driving license which I got after all the memorable events was expired on April 15th. I moved to a new state by May 21! My visa extension paper took a big route and reached me on June 28. I don’t know if its my luck or just fate that June 25 means 60 days mark for my expired driving license, which mean I have to get a new driving license, going to DMV, stand in queue, Write the test, get a slot for driving test, gave a ride to another fellow DMV officer and not to mention the number of documents to be submitted.

So after an initial search I found MR ‘B’ who was also planning to go to DMV for driving test. I got with him and other two friends to the DMV. The first trip was un eventful. We where four folks appearing for test that day and all cleared the written test. Mr B had a tough time answering the last question of 16 in which we were allowed to have 4 wrong. He had already 4 wrong by the time he reached 16th question. The question being the % of speed reduction on a snowy day on road with provided answers where like
1) 50%
2) 25%
3) 75%
4) No need to reduce
Was a little tricky, But he cleared it and we got driving slot for two days, two guys on a Tuesday and other two on Wednesday. The other two folks cleared it on Tuesday, B & I had on Wednesday. As the other two folks cleared it on Tuesday, we (Me, B) where under real pressure. Mr B has been driving in US for last one year with his Indian Driving license. I had been driving in Georgia (I drove exactly three times)
So on the charming day, we left our office by 12:35. B’s wife also accompanied us as the owner of the car is required. I had a very bad feeling about the test. On that day I got to know that even B had the same feeling. We reached exactly at 1:00 pm for our test appointment at 1:00 pm. We had to wait until 1:45 to get our driving inspector to get to the car and start testing. B went first with the car as I waited for my chance. He came back after 20 minutes. He came directly to me and said,
B: It’s your chance, best of luck
Me: How was the test?
B: I flunked
Me : How come !

I was thinking if B, who is driving for last one year was made to fail, which means I don’t stand much chance. Anyway I had to give the test. I went in, sat in the driving seat. I am driving this car for the first time. The seat was too close and I tried pulling all the cables out from underneath the seat, but of no use, the seat didn’t move back. Finally I thought, I will give the test like this only. I started acting as required by adjusting each of the mirrors, and driving seat. Then the Driving inspector asked me to back me up.
Even when there was not a living thing around, I looked 360 before backing up and backed up the vehicle. Then went around the ritual of stopping at each stop, giving signals, changing lines until he took me to a big junction with an protected green for a left turn. I had a straight green but I waited for my protected green to take a left.
Driving Inspector (DI): Why are you not taking an yield left?
Me ; I am waiting for my protected green
DI : Ohh, you are pretty safe guy.
Me : Thanks
DI : By the way, please put you seat belt.

My mind went blank for a moment. I had drove almost three miles from the DMV office crossed a rail road, covered two blocks to the main street without wearing my seat belt on my driving test with my inspector sitting next to me!

Me : I think this was the most stupidous thing I have done lately.
DI : hmmm may be, I don’t know what else you have done!

I kept on driving, pretty cool now as I already know the test result. The DI took me to a free way, I reached around 60 MPH and got a lane change also and got took an exit from there to the DMV. In between I had a signal where I had a steady yellow in which I could have stopped but I accelerated. I think by the time we reached back, DMV, my DI forgot what all mistakes I had done as there were too many. So the stint with the DMV continues as I have next driving test on Sep 2nd! God knows whts in store for me there!

Trip de Newyork - July 4rth

I wanted to write up a travelogue for the trip to New York but I am pretty bad at it. But worth a try I guess. We (Abhijit, Sreeraj, Deepak,Rajeev(Non-mallu), Rajesh, Sanu & me) was the gang assembled. Sriraj and Rajesh joined us in New York. Poor Rajeev had a bad time roaming around with five mallu speaking guys who took liberty to talk all the time in malayalm. But it was nice that Rajeev understood 'Enniku Vishakunne - I am hungry' all the way because that was one phrase that repeated all day.



This was not at all a planned trip and we liked it that way. None of us had anything specific to see in NY. So we started off around 5:30 am from Newhaven train station. The Newhaven station, CT is a small compact station with a great waiting lounge. Also took a snap of the toy train display in the station.



We had a 2 hour train journey from Newhaven to Grand central railway station. The train journey was made memorable with some amazing snaps from my friend Sanu and a good deal of posing.


Me trying to read the NY map, its really complicated! Courtesy Sanu



Abhijit giving a pose Courtesy Sanu

Deepak, lost in the poster Courtesy Sanu

Grand central station stands up to its name with heavy looking pillars, a four sided round clock and some beautiful sealing drawings.
Grand Central Courtesy Sanu
From Grand Central our first stop was at Brookline Bridge. A long cable stayed bridge with twin pillars which made us think about SRK running around in the movie ‘Kal Ha NA Ho’. The view to Manhattan from the bridge was too good.

Brookline Bridge Downtown view from Central park
The day was too hot and humid. It made us think about days we had in Trivandrum and Ernakulum. After a 30 to 45 minute walk and bird watching the fellow joggers over the bridge we head to the Battery park. One thing I did not understand was, why these joggers where particular to run on this busy bridge on which people hardly allowed them to run. But on an empty bridge even I would have loved to run.
This is my second visit to central Park in New York. Last time when we came here, we were busy doing this
Sleeping Beauty - Anoop (last trip to NY)


This time we went into the church near by the ground zero which had lots of memories from the sep11 day. The place was quiet and I felt really heavy going around. . On the way we visited another church with heavy and beautiful glass windows. I struggled to get a good shot of it. Even with a 'No-photography' sign board, people were crazy taking snaps @ this place
A fantastic shaded glass work in Trinity Church


Next to the famous 'Bull'

Next stop was near the fire holding lady.
Lonely lady on the back ground Courtesy Sanu


Kids playing in water fountain, A joy to watch .....
We didn’t bother going to the island as the queue length was too much and we spend almost three hours sitting around the bench doing bird watching and also one of the best things I can do – Sleeping. My cozy cushion bed was a better option to sleep but sleeping in the busiest city in the world is another feeling. The central park had a touching moment when I saw this ballet dancer who was posing herself like this for more than an hour for money. The worst part was her mom was sitting by a side bench watching her doing this.

The dancer and Kid posing

Kids @ Central Park

Saxophone player ....all alone


The small girl trying to pose hardly knows what exactly is going on. We spend another three hours in the central park before moving to the Time square.


Relaxed horse ride @ Central Park


A peace ful evening @ central park Courtesy Sanu


Contrasting smiles ;)


After another set of photo posing in front of NASDAQ and time square we headed for the 34rth Street to see the fireworks as it was on July 4rth.We managed a place by 11:00 pm on a drizzling rain to see 20 minutes fire display. It was not an ideal place to get snaps of Fire works and I didn’t bother much to loose the amazing fire works by futile attempt to catch them in my snap-N-shoot camera.

Other than posing for snaps and bird watching we didn't visit any place of particular interest. It was a wonderful get away trip to New York. Some how I felt New York is crammped than any other place I have been to, even crammped than Tokyo ...

More snaps at http://www.flickr.com/photos/kurianjose