I might sound like a broken record but as happy and excited as I was about ten days ago to be going there, I was equally sad & depressed to be going away from it - at least until the next time, whenever that may be… Looking back at these ten days while I awaited [...]

March 29, 2008 - a warm, yet pleasant Saturday afternoon - I was driving back from my first visit to the Delaware Water Gap National Recreational Area when I saw the signs to mineral museum - not one, but two!! I should have carried The Picking Table (Journal of The Franklin-Ogdensburg Mineralogical Society) that Dr. [...]

It’s hard to believe - at least for me - that it has already been THREE months since I moved to New Jersey, and more importantly, it has been an equally long time since I last tasted beer! With many of my friends graduating (or should I say gradumatating?) from Michigan Tech this Spring, plans [...]

As I mentioned in my previous entry, my camera gear has been catching dust most of the time - barring couple indoor occasions. The process of settling down and setting up the apartment - as I mentioned in the same post - had kept me indoors and more importantly, kept me away from the Weekend [...]

It was nearly 15 years ago that one of my high school teachers, during a casual conversation, explained/defined what marriage is - on a lighter note: It’s an examination where the guy looses his bachelor’s degree and the girl gets her master’s degree. And this past weekend, two of my friends started taking that examination… [...]

Like I thought in my previous non-technical posting, second part of Summer was indeed quite hectic. We didn’t get enough (any) rains and our UP fell under Extreme Drought label - making it nearly worthless to even attempt searching for any more waterfalls. With Labor Day marking the official end of Summer, following are a [...]

It has been almost five (yeah five long) weeks since I lost (almost) all motivation to keep writing these entries but break from writing gave me plenty of time to learn new things, read (what others write), weekend travel (mostly local), play (mostly softball but some [American] football as well) hangout with friends and shoot [...]

From my recent ramblings in this part of the e-world, I can convince myself (and hopefully you too) that I had a pretty productive/fruitful trip to Germany - mainly for work (workshop, Blue Gene/L) and needless to say, some extra-curricular activities (Cathedral & Brewing Houses in Cologne, Historic Jülich Citadel and Brown Coal Mining near [...]

Accomplishing the real reason for visiting NIC/CBB at Jülich meant that I have a full Saturday to roam around and see/do things that have been on my wishlist. Thanks to all the walking I got to do in town as well as between train station and the research center has added pleasure of walking to [...]

As I mentioned in the previous post, I headed towards Cologne (Köln) with most of the fellow workshop participants. Much of the traffic signs as well as other things along the way were kindly explained by Siegfried - which made a 50 km journey quite interesting

Towards Cologne…

Cathedral - each of these towers is [...]

The Journey
For those of you who have been quite regular at reading these posts, my trip to Germany is kinda old news. Unlike my previous attempt, weather gods in UP (Michigan’s Upper Peninsular) were more than kind and none of the flights had any technical difficulty (FYI - technical difficulty does not necessarily/always mean technological [...]

Ever since my first visit to the famed Porcupine Mountains last Summer, it has been amusing me and fascinating me during subsequent trips - be it the colorful drive with Dr. Orlando, or portrait trip with few buddies before winter made its grand appearance. My last attempt, to see this region when some snow still [...]

It was in March 2005; while walking back from Day #1 of APS Meeting I told my advisor that I had declined a $70 ticket for a Lakers-Sonics game at Staples Center. He wasn’t too happy about my decision and since then, I had been planning on making amends for it…. My fanatic affiliation to [...]

I don’t recall too many years (of the five I have stayed here) that actually had Spring-like weather during Spring break! But, weather gods have been unusually kind this time around and granted near +50 F (yes, +ve sign is a hint that we go on the -ve side too) temperatures as the break started. [...]

Part 1: Houghton, MI –> Minneapolis, MN
Part 1: Houghton, MI –> Marquette, MI
Well, some of you might have known about this for a while - either heard from me directly or read in my recent blog entry. Anyways, I got the VISA last Sunday (which, in itself, was rather surprising), got all the required paper [...]

Though I had some intention of seeing this city at least once in my life (yeah, I had never attempted to go there since my arrival in 2002) but never had any intention nor plans to see it in winter… or so I thought. Things shaped up in such a way that I needed some [...]

Warning
OK, before I go on to write anything about my experience on this day, I am obligated to warn you that the much (or almost all of the material) contained pertains to National Football League (a.k.a. American Football, Pile-Up Game, or whatever else you may know it as…) and that you may not appreciate the [...]

Didn’t I promise to tell you about some exotic adventure in my previous entry? Hopefully, my narration/description will live upto your expectations - if not, take a tour of these places and you can feel it yourself. BTW, I am looking for a way to generate a map of the route that was followed in [...]

Much of about 36 hours after arriving in US were used, effectively to a certain extent, to get done quite a few things: a short research meeting, working on some SMEAGOL related issues, meeting Dave Tobias for GSC website related work, short stops at MTU Telecom office & Victoria’s Kitchen, a hair cut, Changgong Zhou’s [...]

In A Nutshell…
All in all, although I felt severe shortage of time sometimes, this trip to India was a pretty good one. Attending the Cochin Conference, visiting schools/institutions I studied in, talking to my teachers, hanging out with friends, roaming in/around/outside of Bangalore, seeing places that I had never seen before in my life, seeing [...]

Our trip to BiLigiri Rangana Hills helped improve my health to a significant extent. But staying in Bangalore and roaming around in some awesomely polluted parts promptly did its part and the cough/bad-throat related issues showed no signs of letting go. I was forced to stay at home, much to my mom’s liking - she [...]

We (Kalyan, Phillip Ross and yours truly) set off on a pleasant Sunday morning, amidst not so much traffic, far far away from concrete jungle and towards a more natural forest. I was very very impressed with the quality of Mysore-Bangalore 4-lane highway (last time around, I had slept for much of the journey) and [...]

It had been a few days since /me arrived in Bangalore from the Cochin Conference and I did catch up with few things - meeting some of my friends, visiting BASE (Bangalore Association for Science Education) wherein I not only had the opportunity to talk to BSS, CVV & HRM (Dr. B S Shylaja, Dr. [...]

Yesterday didn’t end till early hours of today and it was about 2.30 am when I got done with few last minute things - checking seating for first leg of the journey in CMX, having my carry-on luggage weighed, packing and re-packing, making sure that I had all the required documents, visiting Qunicy Mine (and [...]

I did mention in my last week’s entry that our team (in Church as well as Grad leagues) needed to work lot harder (and play lot smarter) to perform better. Being a double-elimination scheme, we lost our second game in the Church league play-offs after a tough fight. Score was 6-7 and it was pretty [...]

Thanks to Ars geeks (and Kyle), I found WiFi in Holiday Inn and Kyle helped me fix a WebDAV related issue. Let me explain what this is and what this does: some of you might have accidentally/intentionally ran into this page. Until recently (as recent as 40 hours ago), I used to manually enter events [...]

As planned, I woke up around 4 am and Kyle (along with Steve and Peter) were at my house around 6 am to pick me up. Journey started on scheduled and it was after a long time that I was sitting in the backseat. This (I mean sitting in the backseat) has its own advantages [...]

As planned, I started from Parsippany (after having Rags’ Upma for breakfast) around 10 am and just like last few days, didn’t miss any exit and reached Baltimore around 2.30 pm or so. I almost got bumped off in BWI - but the Northwest agents put me back on flight. It wasn’t the prettiest feeling [...]

As planned, we (Vathsa and me) started off towards New York City (NYC from now on) and Rags was kind enough to extract a few minutes (from his busy Saturday work schedule) to take both of us to Newark Penn Station (yes, it’s Newark and there is no typo). It’s a whole different story that [...]

Going by Yahoo! Maps instructions and driving at / around the prescribed speed limit (who cares about +20 anyway?), it should have taken just over 3 hours and I should have reached Rags’ latest by 3 pm. Put food, gas in NJ & evening traffic into this equation and 3 hours become 7 hours. Yeah [...]

Just like all through the week, I woke up quite early and reached BCC around 7 am, via Burger King - mostly because I wasn’t able to connect to Days Inn wireless network. Editing few slides and making sure that contents in all slides had the same speed took about an hour and the session [...]

This was another long, intially boring but interesting later. As usual, I got up early, did somethings I had been meaning to do for a while (no, nothing special - just laundry) and headed towards the BCC. After a couple of talks, it was about time to feed myself. So, I headed towards Burger King [...]

It turned out that I didn’t have to wait too long in Minneapolis - the flight was booked just to capacity and importantly, took off on time. I wish I had a bit longer lay-over in Detroit - got just enough time to request an exit row seat and munch couple slices of bread along [...]

Well, this is the first time that I am heading for a conference with an incomplete presentation! Life’s been busy of late, like I mentioned in my previous entry, becoming hectic in the last 2-3 days. We (Ralph and myself) had to get some calculations done as few slides in the second presentation were empty. [...]

I would love to visit this place (Pictured Rocks, Munising) atleast once a year and what I like more is the fact that I get to see this with different people every time, and I get to know a new place in its neighborhood. Though people are different, their expression when they see gorgeous rock [...]

As planned, I got up around 2.30 am and started towards the big city, with a hope of reaching Phoenix before it woke up for work : after a non-stop 4+ hour journey (didn’t even stop for gas) and missing only one last exit (which did not make any difference whatsoever to my trip), I [...]

I got up around 5 am, took everything I wanted to and walked over to the Maswik Lodge. My journey, kind of a package tour, started off in a reluctant mood/mode, but all traces of reluctancy vanished pretty soon, with Rick (Guiding Driver) lightening up everybody and the view from the Desert View. Soon after, [...]

I got up, as planned, pretty early and made it right in time for the Sunrise in South Rim. It wasn’t spectacular or anything like that, but the change in shades of various colors was nevertheless enjoyable. Needless to mention that I took quite a few pictures and soon, around 6.30 am MT, started my [...]

But for Dave waking me up around 5:20 am, I would have to be satisfied by watching canyons in my dream or probably on TV! We started around 5:35 am and I was the first one to check-in. It was good to see an operational coffee/snacks shop (a satellite center of Shipping Shop). NWA agents [...]

Like I mentioned in the previous entry, my annual-three-day vacation was in Arizona. I am glad to be back in Houghton, in one-piece, and more importantly, glad for the fact that three months of detailed planning/preparations paid off. Following is the day-wise summary of what I did, down in the desert. They might look like [...]

Immediately after Dr. Beck’s (yesterday) class and photocopying class-notes from Wil Slough, we (Dr. Ranjit and myself) started our journey to Detroit. I drove until the bridge, as I was more familiar with the route. After about 4 hours of drive, we were in St. Ignace and Dr. Ranjit took over the driving from thereon. [...]

I got out of bed around 5 am and reached LAX around 6.10 am. Check-in, like yesterday, was pretty smooth and straight forward. I didn’t realize, until I got into the plane, that I had been given first class ticket I was treated royally all through the flight and I also took some nice [...]

I woke up around 5.30 am and packed up all my stuff - fortunately I did not miss any exits and I was in National Car return by 9 am. Filing a damage report and returning the car did not take as long as I had imagined. I reached LAX via National Shuttle by 9.40 [...]

The day got off to a good start and I fixed the problem associated with xmms in my notebook. I had some good food and cleaned up the room, as Dave had informed that someone was coming over to take a look at the room. I then went to school to get Dr. P’s travel [...]

I got up early, around 7 am (after a bit of restless sleep early in the morning) and as was decided yesterday, after having breakfast and taking the lunch box, headed off to DC with Nagesh - he dropped me off to the bus station and I got into route # 950. Seeing a ‘big’ [...]

After a very sound sleep, I got up around 7.15 am and just when I was getting ready, NSM brought me coffee - it felt a little too awkward for couple of reasons - one, I am not used to somebody bringing in coffee for me and second, she it too elderly a person to [...]

After a restless and disturbing sleep, I woke up around 6.45 am, had some breakfast and it was already time to leave. I reached the airport well in advance and checked in about an hour before the scheduled departure. The journey started on time, and for the first time, I did not feel uncomfortable during [...]

Journey started around 6.30 am and first place that we stopped was at the ‘corner lake’ - I was even able to capture the passing clouds and moon with my camera. Next stop close to Marquette provided a great view of Sunrise. We stopped at several ‘regular’ places and took lot of pictures. Breakfast in [...]

I got up around 9.30 am and called the National Car about returning the car. As there was no difference in the charge between returning the car in the morning or evening, I decided to go around some more. I first went to then drove to Eagle Harbor, stopping at several places to take pictures. [...]

Getting up at 5.45 am without the help of an alarm ? I don’t remember doing this in a long long time. I took some very nice pictures of the Sunrise and after placing the required amount (Sherman’s Park Fee) in an envelope, I started out. After eating some Onion Rings in the Burger King, [...]

I got up, after not-sufficient sleep, around 6.20 am and my plan of leaving around 5 am had gone for a toss. My journey started around 7 am and after a comfortable length of driving, I reached Munising around 9.30 am. After refuelling the car and taking a bit more time to memorize the driving [...]

Taking the result of lot of discussions (with localites, and non-localites alike) into account, a rough outline of my route looks as follows:

Friday, 23 July 2004 : Go around in Houghton / Hancock and visit McLain State Park
Saturday, 24 July 2004 : Mackinaw City, Mackinaw Island, Sault Sainte Marie
Sunday, 25 July 2004 : Sault Sainte [...]