Tornado at work ...

Last evening, as I was preparing my status report for the week - I heard a few sirens in the background. Since I had heard such sirens in the past, I ignored them and continued to work. It being Friday evening, all I wanted was to finish my work and head out. However, the sirens got louder and the next thing I knew was an announcement on the office's public address system, informing us "A tornado has been sighted in the area. Please move to the emergency shelter immediately." So abandoning my work, I walked to the emergency shelter. This place was a stairwell in our office. We stood their for about half an hour - hearing updates of the tornado's progress. It was supposed to sweep all over the Chicago area, moving in from the South-Southwest to the North-Northeast. After a while, when told it was relatively safe to move out, we drove home ... and the status report?? Sigh - It's still pending.

The story of the tornado didn't end there. At about 9:30 pm, I got to know that a friend of mine who was scheduled to fly from St.Louis to Chicago and onward to Delhi - had missed her flight connection! This was at about 10 pm. Off I went to the airport to pick her up. The weather had totally calmed down by then, and it seemed impossible that we had even seen any thunderstorms during the day, let alone a tornado!

As usual - Chicago airport was a mess. The 2 mile drive from the freeway exit to the terminal took 20 minutes. Cars, cabs were all stuck in the bumper to bumper traffic. People waiting on the sidewalks looked harried and tired. Finally, after a crazy search at the Departure and Arrival terminal and some phone calls to find her exact location, we met up. This entire search had taken almost an hour!

Past midnight, parents and significant others back home were informed that she was safe and would be staying at my place. Dinner at IHOP and it was time to finally call it a day ....

Come to think of it, if it were not for incidents like these, how could any of us claim to lead a charmed life? ;)

Elephant bar

Dinner on Sunday night was at one of Bala’s favorite places – a restaurant called the Elephant Bar. This restaurant has an African animal theme. The first things that greet you are the elephant handles on the doors. As you walk in, the ceiling and décor has elephant, giraffe and zebra motifs all along. We met my friends Disha & Narayan for dinner here. Bala, being a veteran here – ordered for us. We had some spicy fried calamari with grilled vegetables and a shrimp adventure platter accompanied by some mango raspberry smoothie.

All the food was presented with flair and tasted as good as it looked!

It was fun catching up with Disha and Narayan. Narayan has lived in California for the past 5 years and had interesting stories of life in the Bay area to tell us. Disha and myself caught up on general gossip, news and friends.

Mystery Spot & Santa Cruz beach ...

Three days in San Jose. Visiting this place felt like visiting Bangalore in India. Tree lined roads – similar chrome & glass office buildings, commercial spaces with Indian food joints and the many Indian/Asian faces on the streets! It almost felt like being back in Bangalore.

Yesterday – we visited a place in Santa Cruz called “the Mystery Spot” This place is affected by some strange magnetic field, which makes it appear that you are leaning when you are actually stranding straight. It sounded too strange to be true – so off we went to check it out. The place is located on a hill, and is affected by a strange magnetic/ gravitational field. This actually affects all objects placed in the area – where you see objects rolling uphill. We actually saw a pool cue ball, a dry cell battery and a cigarette all roll up a flat plank placed at a 45 degree angle with the ground. Check the video out ...

A place where the gravitational forces seem to work in such a way that objects roll uphill instead of downhill !

Vegetation in this area is also affected. I found trees in this area growing away from sunlight. Also, there were no birds chirping or any animals to be seen in this area. Our tour guide informed us, that the magnetic field interferes with their natural sense of direction, and hence they stay away from any place where they might find themselves getting lost. Humans on the other hand – walk right into it, and even pay money for it! ;)

After visiting the mystery spot – we drove along CA – 1 North. This route goes along the ocean cliffs and offers breathtaking views of the Pacific. We stopped at one such place. This was cove by the cliffs – and getting there involved some agile climbing down a mountain cliff. Nevertheless, since my friend Bala had been there before, I was confident of making it down the cliff with my limbs intact.

Once on the beach – the view was spectacular. I tried clicking a few pictures, but the lack of a UV filter on my camera made it difficult to capture the breathtaking scenery in pictures. Here are some attempts …

There was a section of the cove where the waves would crash on the cliffs had carved out a path that joined two beaches. Since the tide was coming in – we had to run across the sand when the wave was going out, to avoid having to swim back! It was great seeing an un-spoilt (well almost) non-commercialized beach. Sitting on the rocks watching the waves crash in, was a serene peaceful experience. Just the sound of the waves and the wind, watching the waves crash onto the shore rhythmically was calming.


On climbing back up the cliff – we walked farther along to view the beach and the cliff and here are the views ...

Fisherman's Wharf & Pier 39 ...

Fisherman's Wharf & Pier 39 by night ...

Lombard Street & Oracle Headquarters ...

Pictures of Lombard street and Oracle headquarters at Redwood city ... Notice the database shaped - cylindrical buildings!! :)

Pacific Ocean

Golden Gate bridge n' Fisherman's Wharf

Pictures of the Golden Gate bridge, the Pacific ocean - on a Sunny day.

On Saturday morning, we drove down from Sunnyvale to San Francisco. We were driving along, and before I knew it - I found myself on the world famous Golden Gate bridge! Supposedly one of the 7 modern wonders of the world! This bridge is huge. For a change it was a warm sunny day in San Francisco. Clicked a lot of pictures, but only a few were worth keeping. :( I really need to explore the features of my camera better.

View of the San Francisco Bay, from the Golden Gate Vista Point

From the Golden Gate vista point - I had a fantastic view of the Bay. It's a dream to sail there someday. :) Just watching all the sailboats there, felt great.

View of Alcatraz ... the most famous prison in the world

Also saw the Alcatraz prison from a distance. This was one place I was not keen on visting. Not my idea of sight seeing to go visit a prison! :)

Westward ho ... Off to SFO ...

Finally, a much awaited weekend break - off to San Francisco. :) For a change my flight out of ORD was on time. As I boarded, I realized that it was a Boeing - 777 aircraft, with seating as 2-5-2. As luck would have it, I had the center seat in a row. Fortunately, was too tired to think of the uncomfortable seat, slept through most of the flight.

This was one of the newer flights equipped with XM Satellite radio. As I wore the headphones, the DJ announced generic details about the flight - for a second, it was like having an in-flight DJ. Of course, I figured that this was probably a recorded program for United airlines. This was confirmed when my next connecting flight - Denver - San Jose, also had the same DJ making the very same announcement and playing the same songs! :)

Time to turn in - SFO awaits ...

Cruise down the Ohio river & fireworks ...

On Sunday, I found myself on a cute steam boat cruising down the Ohio river in Cincinnati. We'd planned to cruise down the river – anchor there, enjoy dinner on the boat and watch the Labor Day fireworks display. The Ohio river borders the states of Ohio & Kentucky. Our boat was docked in a marina in Ohio, but we anchored near the Kentucky bank.
Navigating & dropping anchor in these waters was tricky – especially since it was so crowded, but my cousin's friend (Israel) – who owned the boat and his son Andrew did an excellent job. The rest of us alternated between following instructions to help out and staying out of their way.

It looked like half of Cincinnati and part of Kentucky was on the river that evening! Just look at all those boats!

There were quite a few small planes flying overhead with banners endorsing local businesses, but one I found interesting was a Cincinnati bell banner on an airplane, protesting against outsourcing. Innovative style of protesting!

It was great to sit on the boat deck and watch the sunset. As it neared dusk – the city lights were reflected on the waters of the river and I totally regretted not carrying a tripod for the night shots. The swaying of the boat, the delayed shutter speed required for the night mode, and my amateur handling of the camera resulted in some shaky & blurred pictures.

B'day Blog ...

Yes, it has been a while since I last wrote here, and the entries here are going to appear in a flurry. What with my birthday – always a big deal for me … ;) I mean – another year older, has got to be an event…! This followed by the long Labor day holiday weekend. I was too busy having a good time to post blog entries!

My birthday started off in great style at midnight – with Lata, Dharini, Sudipa, Aseem, Mukesh & Neel at my door with a huge black forest cake. In true "tradition" I had cake on my face but they thankfully spared me the birthday bumps/kicks/bashing. You can see pictures of the cake here ...

After a relatively short day at work, I took a flight to visit my cousin & her family in Cincinnati. At the airport, the lady at the security checkpoint, on checking my ID, wished me a happy birthday as well! That was indeed a pleasant surprise. The flight to Cincinnati was thankfully on schedule. After boarding the aircraft, I was so tired that I immediately went off to sleep even before we'd taken off and woke up only when we had touched down. It was great meeting my cousin, bro-in-law, niece & nephew. After a sumptuous meal – I got to cut yet another cake. This was selected by Natasha & Nikhil.
It was an ice cream cake, made up of chocolate, choc fudge & vanilla ice creams! It was the first time I was eating such a cake and I was totally thrilled with it.

All in all, a brilliant day!