21 July 2022

American goldfinch

I think this is an American goldfinch. Some of you who are experts in birds might be able to correct or confirm this. Can you spot the female of the pair who had just taken flight? (Check on the left side close to the sidewalk).

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18 July 2022

Airport #151

First time in Hartford, CT airport.

The airport was dead – and I mean dead dead – when I landed. And it was not even 10 PM!! Curiously it is called “Bradley International Airport”. I was wondering about that International bit. Looked up every single flight that leaves or comes in to this airport. All 27 of them.

The only one that qualifies – kinda – is a Frontier flight to/from Puerto Rico. That is not even “international” in the sense you do not have to do customs or immigration.

That is a bit of stretching, I say!

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18 July 2022

Here is a cocktail head scratcher

All my mixology friends (I have tagged some of you on this post), I got a challenge from my friend Steve on how to make a cocktail using garlic.

That is a difficult one. A garlic is too strong on the nose. I do not believe I have ever come across a cocktail using garlic. Have you? How would you go around making one if you had to come up with one?

Asked the chef at home – Sharmila. And she assured me that you cannot beat the garlic at its game on the nose. The only other thought then is to overwhelm the nose with the palate. Building on Sharmila’s suggestion, one idea could be something like a Bloody Mary with the tomato juice (or something like carrot juice) giving a lot of thick texture to the tongue and mix salt with something to veer towards either spicy or umami taste (jalapeno or horseradish for example).

What other ideas might you have? I am going to try your ideas this weekend.

Anand, Ashleah, Tathagata, Akshay, Alexa, Alexis, Bensan, Hope, Joel, Joy, Kaitlyn, Katie, Kree, Leigha, Mathew, Ranjan, Rosalind, Sarah, Satyabrata, Whitney, Subhash

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17 July 2022

Gorgeous Columbia River

Beautiful view of the largest river in the Northwest from the airplane. As best as I can tell, that angular dam in the middle of the picture, is the Rocky Reach Dam – famous for being the first dam to be designed to let young fish have a bypass to find their way to the ocean.

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17 July 2022

What the Travel Gods giveth with one hand…

… they taketh away with the other.

After 2 not-so-happy experience with rental cars this week, the third one – where I switched from Avis to Hertz – worked like a charm.

But then again, the flight karma caught up with me in the fifth and last fight for the week. Switched from Delta to Alaska airlines and promptly had a mechanical problem in Seattle!

3 hours later we are threatening to re-board in a new plane.

Let’s see where this one ends up!

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16 July 2022

That picture is so reminiscent of times a quarter century back

The Aroras and the Roys had not had their progenies yet. Many a weekend lunch and dinner used to be spent just like that picture. Lot of laughing and a little of eating.

For the record, to explain Gagan’s face, I must admit that I had timed one of my jokes precisely at the time he had taken a mouthful of beer. He could neither spit it out (august company and all that) nor gulp it (for fear of choking while suppressing laughter – or worse, snorting the beer out). Had to laugh with a mouthful of beer.

If we had smart phones a quarter century back, I have no doubt, I would have had similar pictures from those days too!

Thank you Gagan and Bharti for driving all the way to the city, buying me drinks and then dropping me where my college dorm reunion was going on.

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