This weekend was a double date night…

Just like last Puja, this time too in the evening I walked up to the restaurant nearby (from where the Puja was going on) and settled down at the bar for a glass of wine. This time Sid joined me instead of Rupak and Amitesh. The bar still has a chessboard. So, Sid and I tried to solve the 8 queen problem again manually. Sid came up with one very quickly and that is pretty much all we got this evening….

One of the best things of the team I work with is the end-of-week or sometimes end-of-day call for “Let’s go for a drink before we go home”. Unsurprisingly, we have solved a lot more problems at a bar than actually sitting in a office. Today’s rule was – “No office discussions”.
Gasan, the team entertainer introduced Sunjay and myself to a new drink – Patron Cafe. It is a shot of coffee and tequila. While we were impressed with his knowledge of the history and owners of the drink, he was no match to our ultimate question – “Tequila makes us sleepy. Coffee wakes us up. Why go thru that hysteresis curve?” 🙂

Great evening with the family at Azul with the new tapas menu. Amitesh, Sudipto and Mishti joined us to make it a perfect evening. Chris, Holly and Jenny took great care of us. Lauren belted some mind blowing songs. Owners Chuck and Saloni were unbelievably gracious, as always! Got to meet the Consular General of India too!!
The new Indian tapas menu is perfect !!!

Hmmmm… Look at the name of the product I ordered. Now look at the specs for size written a little below !!!! You think they might be making a mule out of me? 🙂

Lovely evening with friends at Milton’s yesterday. Great wine, great football game and a great local band – Battlefield Collective!

One advantage I have of making a lot of friends is that I get to interact with some really smart and wise individuals. Had a drink with a few of them today. The discussion went around Snowden – traitor or whistleblower? A memorable quote from a guy at the discussion I admire immensely – “History is not about the truth. History is the opinion of the victors”!!

After the stress of the prospect of having to cancel our India trip (visa issues for Natasha) and the scramble to end the year at office, meeting Amitesh for a few late hours was the perfect antidote that the doctor had prescribed. Nothing can take my mind off than sitting with Amitesh at a very quiet bar nearly into midnight discussing topics that few would think of as “bar topics” 🙂

Today, we spent a lot of time discussing (and researching on internet)
(*) the effect of Calcium level in heart by high level of LDL in blood. (don’t ask me how we got started)
(*) the importance of understanding why we do what we do (especially in professional life)
(*) the relativity of the definition of happiness (this is an effect of a prior FB post)
(*) the plight of gays in India (recently, India has taken a Russia-like position on gays)

While the topics can be mundane, the discussions are always lively !!