Burf ki baarish

 Some snaps from the trees around State College after the ice rain we had day b4 yesterday... (click on the pics for the best view of ice formations)

The Sin City From Air

Long time since I posted anything here... Actually had a very hectic last month of the year.. So first of all ... heres wishing u a Happy new year!

Recently saw some snaps of the sin city (Las Vegas) with the brightly lit Eiffel Tower restaurant .. that deceives u to thinking u were in the city of light (paris). I also remembered having seen a couple of posts on a friends' blog.. highlighting the fountains @ Bellagio and the interiors @ the Venitian... amazing city I thought.. but as I hovered over the city for some time .. thanks to a delay in landing the flight on time .. I got to see a different Vegas .. something that nobody else had shown me so far...

Barren mountains with no hint of life in the near vicinity

Makes you wonder if the earths gravity failed for a moment and the flight was attracted towards mars! :D

But then ... no alien would probably construct asphalted concrete roads in mars.. hmmm...

now! that seems like some remote human civilization .. or is it ?

and there we enter the city... have u ever seen a corner of any city ?? ah there!! I did...

and this was a more "rounded" border of LV

and for those of u who cant beleive its the same LV with the casinos herez the proof.. a strip of the "strip" of the sin city...

Airports in 2008

As I am travelling back from San Jose I was comparing the San Jose airport to the old Bangalore airport (guess its got something to do with "silicon valley" again... beleive me .. its not any better than that.. another thing in common between the two silicon cities is that San Jose is about to have a rennovated airport too!). That said.. I also wondered if I had the right to comment about airports and I started counting the airports I have seen in 2008... and I was pleaseantly surprised by the number!!! Here is a list of the airports:

1. State College (SCE)- all through the yr for obvious reasons
2. Washington DC (IAD) (in March to attend ASPLOS conference in Seattle)
3. Seattle-Tacoma (SEA) (in March, May, July, Aug.. for ASPLOS conference and MSR internship)
4. New York (JFK) (in May on my way to Bangalore)
5. Mumbai (BOM) (in May on my way to Bangalore)
6. Bangalore (BLR-old) (Landing in Bangalore in May)
7. Bangalore (BLR-new)(Departing Bangalore in June)
8. Paris (CDG) (On my way to Seattle for internship)
9. Detroit (Treavelling to State College to move into a new apartment and return to Seattle)
10. Cincinatti (CVG) (Return from internship)
    
11. Cleveland (CLE) (Return from internship)
12. Philadelphia (PHL) (To give a talk a GSRC symposium, San Jose)
13. Las Vegas (LVS) (part of GSRC and ICCAD conference trips to San Jose)
14. San Jose (SJC) (GSRC and ICCAD conference trips)
15. Phoenix (PHX) (return from San Jose - GSRC trip)

Add to this growing list.. 16. London Heathrow airport that I will pass through as part of my December India visit!!! :)

Happy Deepavali

Deepavali is here ... and after a long time... we had a wonderful festival celebration ... apart from the great food (obbattu and basundi for sweets!) it was obvious that we celebrate it with lights! So here are some snapshots of our celebrations:

Happy Deepavali to all of u!! Have a blast!

Fall Again

I cant beleive it myself.. its my third fall season at State College... Decided to celebrate with some more colors on my blog...

More Reflective Splendors

Home chweet home

Came back home today ... its been only a month since I last came to state college (to move to our new home).. but it seemed like eons since I was last here. I must concede that I was missing everything about state college ... most importantly Ramya :)

Feels so nice being back home ... feeling cozy on my couch .. and wow! what a welcome I received! It was beyond my imaginations that the house in which I had dumped all the furniture .. just a month ago could be turned into such a sweet home ... everything in its place .. clean and neat ...all clothes arranged well in the walk-in closets... beds well made... I know .. very very unlike me ... to keep it that way... but it does make me happy too .. to see it that way :D Apart from all this .. there were sweets .. all of them that I luved .. Lindt Lindor swiss chocolates that melted in my mouth .... yummmm .. Thanku so much .. sweetheart :)

Some pics of our chweet home ...

Living room

Kitchen

Dining hall

Master bedroom...

and the guest bedroom

Idiosyncracies of preeminent researchers

Here is an excerpt from a commendable repository of explicatory comic strips illustrating the superlative benefits of ostentatious and intimidating writing skills in research. I would also like to bring to the notice of the reader that such writing skills are a universal trait cultivated by individuals implicated in research for more than a couple of years. It is further fostered by supplementary and reciprocal inter-subjective interactions with other concurring and prejudiced researchers. However an excruciating verity is that, researchers perpetually affected by such an idiosyncratic mannerism construct sentences that are utterly oblivious to any associated connotations.

didn't get what i mean ? check this out!! ;)

Lakes and Rocks

Mount Cephern (Icefields parkway)

Notice the building in the middle of nowhere .. I luv such places !!

A better view...

The best view I have ever had...period. No picture can do justice to the view of Peyto lake one gets from Bow summit on a bright day.. with the star shaped emerald colored lake and never ending range of snow capped mountains in the background.. its just amazing!!

Lake Maligne (Jasper national park)

Emerald Lake -Yoho national park ... btw .. these pics were taken @ 9:30 pm!!