15 July 2019

Family Reunion. Of sorts!

On Friday, after having dinner in Gastonia, NC, we decided we were tired. Booked a hotel in Charlotte about 30 minutes away and called it a day. Next day, we got started at 10am and then kept climbing up I-95 one state at a time. Every two and a half hours of drive, we took a break to relax at a Starbucks or have lunch and all that. Finally when we were an hour away from Washington DC – which is where I was targeting to stay the night, we realized that the roads were a mess. It was around 6 in the evening and all roads around DC were parking lots.

We got off 95 and headed towards Baltimore on 301 bypassing DC altogether. After driving thru some beautiful rural country, eventually, we got near Baltimore and we thought we had some more energy left. Booked a hotel in Wilmington, DE and crossed one last state border for the day. That was a marathon 12 hours on the road.

The good news was that it left only around 6 more hours to be driven the next day. Even better news was that we would be going thru New York! Guess who came out of the city to have lunch with us in a restaurant off I-95 in Secaucus? That was a family reunion of sorts!!! I think the last time the Roy family got together was after Natasha came back from Ghana last year!

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14 July 2019

Battle of the deadlines…

I have to cover 1200 miles (nearly 2000 km) thru 12 states in 48 hours. (Dropping off Niki at Providence, RI and Sharmila at Boston, MA). Niki starts summer course in Brown and Sharmila is headed out to India and then Dubai.

Niki has to finish her online computing course by midnight of first day! Laptop, T-Mobile hotspot and a few hundreds of miles is on her side…

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21 February 2019

Stranger than fiction!

Last morning, I swung by my friend Jacob’s desk when I was visiting their offices in San Francisco for some work. Less than half my age, he has twice my wisdom. Little wonder, I enjoy being around him and learning new stuff from him. (He is a trivia wizard too).

He was standing near his desk – talking to his neighbor – when I approached him. Who he introduced to me as “Raj Das”.

Jacob: “Believe it or not, Raj and I are born on the exact same day. And we went to the same college together. Now we work together.”
Me: “That is a coincidence!”
Jacob: “Do you remember Seena?”.
I immediately recollected Seena from about six months back. Jacob, Seena and I had worked on a project for some time then.
Me: “Of course!”
Jacob: “Here is the crazy part! All three of us share the same birthday!! And all three of us went to the same college”

Now, that was SOME coincidence!!

Me: “And what is that birthday?”
Raj: “March 5th”

Me (after gaining some composure): “Yeah! Here is something you will not believe either. That is my birthday too!”

I don’t think Jacob still believes me!!

We all believe I was not good enough to go to U. Va. though 🙂

That was one heck of a coincidence!!

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30 January 2019

I am checking off Antarctica from my bucket list

So this is how minus 51 deg F (minus 46 deg C) feels like. Put on innumerable layers and stepped out of the hotel to take a five minute walk. Lasted for one and a half minutes. Just the frame of my glasses became so cold that its contact with the skull gave me a headache.

Some day later in life, I will probably look back to this day and realize that this was the coldest temperature I ever stepped out into in my life.

An unique face to face meeting with Mother Nature.

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