It was a gorgeous day for a ride to the lake
Some things never change!!!
As of today, I have spent as many years with her as without her. Does this mean I am ready for a mid life crisis? 🙂
A lot of things have changed in the 27 years but one thing has not – she still can’t figure out which anniversary it is for us. Nikita asked her last night “Which year did you get married?”. She got it wrong again. At least she is becoming consistent. If her answer last night was true, she was totally justified in giving me the 20th anniversary gift that she did on our 19th anniversary!!!
From the bartender’s corner – Oriental Cocktail
You know why she is laughing so much?
Nikita could not find her phone. So, she called her own phone from the home phone.
The phone happened to be right next to where Sharmila was sitting.
She picked up the phone, DID NOT realize that the number is our own home phone number, ASSUMES it is a friend of Nikita and starts talking to her!!
Then she went… “Wait for a second. This is Niki’s mom. Let me get her”.
Niki must have said something.
This was the result!! She could not stop laughing for five minutes.
And she calls me the crazy one!!
From the bartender’s corner – Martinez
Thought to be the original drink that eventually became a Martini, there are many compositions of this drink. I am going with the book Murali sent me, which would have you 2 ounces of gin (I used Bombay Sapphire), 3 ounces of dry vermouth, 4 drops of maraschino liqueur and 4 drops of Angostura bitters.
View from Burnt Mountain
Ominous clouds in the sky but you could see all the mountains around Atlanta – including downtown Atlanta from Burnt Mountains today. Stone Mountain is not visible that often from there. It is on the left end on the top picture. You can see the magnified picture in the bottom one. There was not much sunlight – but I suspect the lowering of pollution (shelter at home and the recent rains bringing pollen count down) had something to do with it.
It was windy and cold as heck. The views look great though!
Earned my first badge of honor as a motorcyclist
After a long time, the three musketeers hit the road with the motorbikes. As always, Rakesh planned out the trip and led the caravan of three. And Avi stayed behind as the sweep to keep me safe. It was an absolutely enjoyable ride. Altogether, a little over 120 miles (200 km).
Of course, the serpentine roads up in the mountains kept me on my tenterhooks. Made a terrible mistake once of not relaxing my body and leaning the bike enough on a right turn. I had not slowed down enough, got scared and stiffened up and slipped over to the other lane for about 30 yards. Fortunately, there was no traffic from the other side.
When we stopped at Burnt Mountain look out point, while parking the bike on a steep climb, managed to earn my first distinction of “laying the bike down”. That is a euphemism for dropping the bike. Not sure what happened, but the motorbike leaned over while I was backing it in to park and I could not pull it up. Rakesh quickly came to help me. When he learnt that this was the first time I had laid my bike down, his only remark – after some 25 years of motorbiking was – “you have a lot of catching up to do”.
We started fairly warm in the sixties (I still had five layers on). But boy, it got real cold up in the mountains and the strong wind was making me wonder why I had not put another layer on. I think Avi bore the burnt of the cold temperatures – I believe he had less layers than me.
I am still bummed I made that mistake. Almost will make me go back there by myself and keep my speed under control this time (which is much lower than other motorbikers on the road) and make all those twists and turns once again without that mistake.
The view from Burnt Mountain Lookout Point was awesome. First time saw Stone Mountain and Kennesaw mountain. It was a cloudy day but perhaps the lack of pollution with all this shelter at home gave a clear line of sight to mountains that are 70 miles away from Burnt Mountain (as the crow flies).
Like making a drink was not a problem already…
… I got it into my head that I need to create an environment to take good pictures of them. My rather low-end-technology solution was to drape a one yard black velvet cloth that I had bought from Jo Ann Fabrics (there are few things in the world as funny as watching me clueless in a fabric shop) over two bottles of wine and take the shot with the cocktail in front.
I am not the best when it comes to DIY projects. But that does not mean that I have not inflicted my share of damage. Yesterday, I started on a project to build a dark box to take pictures of my drinks. The end product – a result of a wine box from Raptor Ridge, couple of trips to Lowes, some indelible marks on my arm for not taking proper precautions while spray painting and a burnt finger aside (you will be surprised how those Gorilla glues can hurt you), I have something that is workable. Even put in a LED light in it.
I am going to try this for some time and see how it works out. If it does, I might put a paint on the outside and put in a carrying handle.
About that crossposting to Facebook bit…
First thank you to all of you who voiced their opinions. Certainly, overwhelmed by the votes to keep the crossposting on. After thinking about it for quite some time, I have decided to go with Parijat’s suggestion – which is basically – “try it for some time”. I think that is invaluable advice. If we do not experiment in life, how will we ever know what we are capable of? Or for that matter learn about our limitations?
I will stop crossposting for sometime and see how the experiment works out.
So that you do not completely forget me (try as you might), I am going to put up a weekly digest every weekend on Facebook to give you an idea about what all blogs I have posted that week. If any of that piques your interest, feel free to go to the website and read it up.
I have enhanced the comments section (you do not need to put in your email or URL any more – you can put in your name but it is optional) as well as put in a Like button if you want to get a Facebook-like experience. (It toggles just like in Facebook). Looks like some of you already used it last night.
I am not putting in any email subscriber functionality that is going to notify you when there is a post. I figured that would be a nuisance to your inbox.
Before I forget, my blog – which is mostly an anthology of snippets of inconsequential moments of my life – called “History of my Future. First Draft!” can be found at rajibroy.com (which, I am sure you realize is my fullname dot com)