The grand Jupiter

Yesterday was a telescope day again, Rahul and I went to Phantom lake to have a look at Saturn. It was so scary in the beginning, all sunsaan, dark. It was a no moon night. First we set up our telescope in the parking lot itself. There were a bunch of bright stars, none of which though really looked like Saturn. The first thing we pointed to turned out to be Mars. Then to a bunch of other bright stars. Now that we were accustomed to the dark, the place was looking less scary. We moved a little into the Park, and there it was really bright planet. Once we pointed the telescope to it, it turned out to be Jupiter with all its glory and its moons. We could clearly see at least 7 of the moons, and with some patience, some colour was also visible on the planet. It was just a amazing site, seeing Jupiter after such long time! Finally we failed to locate Saturn though, guess it was already set.

Day 10 Week 4 amazing Rahul

6 miles, yes! I ran almost 6 miles today, and all the credit goes to Rahul. He was there in sun all the time, running or just waiting for me to get back. We ran on the Sammamish River trail again, it was of course very hard, and I had to take a couple of walk breaks.

moving time again!

I can't believe that its moving time again, and I just hate it, it was only yesterday that I opened all boxes and put up all posters. But well, you cannot control circumstances. Thinking about selling / giving away all my stuff and go back to the nomadic light weight life. Its obviously very economical. I wonder if that is the best way to live, all those people buying houses, buying all stuff for their houses, are simply ignorant of what's coming.

Day 9

Had planned to run at least 3 miles at 5 today. But ran little under 2 miles at 5 though, no walk breaks.
why - lack of motivation, it gets boring to run on treadmill all alone
todo - get a interesting book, run outside, sammamish river trail?

Day 8 Week 3

Today I was thinking of running around the green lake again, but that was not suppose to be. 520 bridge was closed, and going over I90 was too much effort. So Rukmani and I decided to run on the Washington River trail. Its a nice trail, running along a stream, best thing is that the trail has mile markers. We ran for about 5 miles, and it was a stretch.

2001 A space Odysse - Arthur C. Clark

As ironic as it sounds, the vision of 2001 is good :). I have mostly read Isaac Asimov's books in SciFi and his main theme about space travel is hyperspace etc. This book introduces another concept and its quite interesting, though its still very limiting and does not allow intra-galactic travel. I enjoyed reading the book, it starts out quite slow. You know something is coming, but you turn pages after pages waiting for it, and then there it is with a bang! One thing I found annoying with the book was that it just alludes over the mystery, secret, adventure, without really getting into depths of the mystery. The last few pages are quite action filled though.

Day 7

Wednesday training day. Went to Everyday Athlete for training (great neighbourhood BTW). Unfortunately there were no beginners to give me company, and I did not want to hold rest if the group, so I just ran little uphill by myself, 1.8 miles only. It was good weather and 30min. just passed without even realizing. Could have ran a little more with more persistance or company. Route map -

Day 6

Regular treadmill day, ran 30 min @ 5.0 with 2 min walk bread @3.5, covered 2.5 miles. Seems to be getting better at it :)

Day 5 Week 2

Today we met at the Spiritridge Elementary School in Bellevue at 7:30. It was easier to get up and go today. Thanks to Tarun, Yogita and Rukmani's company, I managed to run 4.6 miles. The last 0.6 mile felt like another 4 miles! But it was a good run. Took me a little more than an hour. It will get better :) Here is the route we took today -

Day 4

Today's treadmill run was a total disaster. Ran for 5 min and that was it. Just lazy I guess and also tomorrow's long run was a excuse, maybe I should start going to Thursdays instead of Fridays.

Day 3

Today I decided to go and give the treadmill a shot. I was suppose to go for up the hill practice, but that was just too much work. Ran for -
2 miles @ 4.5 miles, last .3 @ 5.0, 2 walk breaks in between @ 3.5
totally exhausting!

Marathon

I can't believe it, but I have actually started training for Half-Marathon. If I can finish it, it will be one more personal achievement for me after the Inca Trail in April. I started a new blog for the training -
http://tulika-run.blogspot.com/

Day 2

Sunday was a break day, and I totally enjoyed it. Today morning I decided to go for a 1/2 hr run in the nearby park. It started out well, I got up early, went out, no rain. But I got really tired in only 20 min, and since I was running all by myself, it got boring and I abandoned last 10 min and came back home. Not feeling very good about it, but its just the second day anyway.

A series of unfortunate events

I don't know why I read this book. Everywhere in the book it says that its not a happy book, no happy ending, no happy beginning and nothing happy in between. But that was ok, its a story and tured out to be somewhat interesting. But the writing style us just awful, with each word there is a detour to explain the meaning of the word, real annoying, made me wonder if I am reading a story book or taking a english lesson. The style of writing really makes you feel that its a adult writing for children, making the assumption that they are dumb and do not know anything. I can see that author wants to use difficult words, and then also give the meaning in case dumb children did not understand what the word means, but then why use the word in first place, just use the simpler word instead. That would be a art for writing children's books which the author clearly lacks. I have read other children's books (Harry Potter for instance) and have really enjoyed them, but this one was just awful.

Day 1 Week 1

Today was day 1 of the training, surprisingly good weather on the Green Lake. The goal was to run 1 mile, maybe 2, but I ended up running 3 miles, thanks to the company of Meghana and Reema. It was fun, I have never been able to run more than 2 miles on the treadmill, but running outside 3 miles gave me real confidence, maybe I can do it afterall!

Morning, noon and night - Sidney Sheldon

This is a average novel by Sidney Sheldon, or maybe now that I have read so many, he has become predictable. Its kind of a thriller, takes twists and turns Sheldon style, there are surprises in every chapter. If you decide to spend time to read this book, it will not disappoint you.
Like most Sheldon's novels, its the story of a very rich businessman, his childen, out of wedlock (fancy word!) children, story of rich people's greed for money, betrayal and contented lives of not so wealthy.

Surprise Creek - what a surprise!

So after coming back from Inca Trail adventure, I had decided that I was done for the hiking this season. But on Friday after Srijan's mail about going to this wonderful Surprise Creek hike, and Rahul's convincing, I decided to go.
http://www.wta.org/~wta/cgi-bin/wtaweb.pl?3+tg+fetch+english+1112
The hike was such a disaster for me. Only after 1/2 a mile of walking we started seeing snow on the path which got deeper and deeper. I was totally scared that either we are going to get lost in the snow or I am going to fall in one of the holes in snow and become a Discovery Channel story. We somehow reached covered a couple of miles, crossing perilious creeks, falling, getting up. Had our lunch at a some point. After lunch we started to climb higher and snow got deeper, that's when I wanted to call it a day, I knew I could not go all the way to the creek, path and time were both against us, and there did not seem much point in climbing any higher. If only we had read this story before, it would have saved lot of trouble.
http://www.wta.org/~wta/cgi-bin/wtaweb.pl?7+reports+displayM+2006050400

BITS, Pilani Video

Found this great nostalgic video of BITS, Pilani in 2005. Really cool, amazing work!

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4980019485488318714&q=pilani

... and Google Earth presents...
BITS Pilani

... and even more pictures. Beware - there are 200+ photos here, and it will take more than 30min, and you can't stop once you started.
http://camelinthedesert.blogspot.com/2005/04/photos-from-bits-april-2005.html

Freakonomics

Prey - Michael Crichton