25 May 2020

The legs are getting weary

54 years of standing up and 15 years of pounding the trails – the muscles are getting a bit stiff. The left hip is the main challenge.

Usually yoga, stretches and hot tub gives a lot of relief – but did I mention that I have lost some of the discipline in that? Need to get back on the horse again… of course, the left hip permitting 🙂

Category: Running | LEAVE A COMMENT
23 May 2020

Trying out another new thing

I was talking to Harsh on his birthday a few days back and he asked me about the not cross posting to Facebook bit. (I stopped a month back). We were discussing his favorite way of knowing about updates – you know, like RSS feed (if you use a news reader), simply email notification etc etc. Harsh felt that , personally, for him, it would be good to have an option of getting email updates.

I promised him that I will set it up. So, in spite of originally being against the idea (I am just worried of too many emails in others’ boxes), last night I have set it up. I am still playing with it – and you might find some changes here and there as I refine it.

But if you want to get weekly updates on the blogs from prior week, sometime between Friday evening and Saturday morning, depending on where you live in the world, you will get a blog digest. You should be able to read the first paragraph of each blog from the week and if it piques your interest, simply click on it – for the full content and picture.

By making it weekly, I am hoping to strike the right balance between too many emails in your inbox and freshness of the topics that I write on.

If you wish to subscribe, you can go to the website www.rajibroy.com and notice the subscription option on the right below the yellow box of “Topics”. Put in your name and email id. You will get a confirmation email that you need to confirm with.

Ishita and Ram, I know you were trying other methods. In case this helps, I am bringing this to your attention.

Category: Musings | LEAVE A COMMENT
22 May 2020

Relaxing on a Friday evening with a Rabindrasangeet

“Bhalobesey sakhi nibhritey jotoney
Aamar naam-ti likho, tomar monero mondir-e
Amaro poran-e je gaan baajhichhe
Tahar taal-ti sikho, tomar chorono monjeer-e”

“Out of old affection, gently and quietly
Do inscribe my name in the temple of your soul
Of that song that invariably sways my heart
Do teach your anklets how to dance to the rhythm”

18 May 2020

This week’s puzzle

This week is another area problem. Take a rectangle ABCD (as shown here). Draw two lines from the adjacent vertices A and D to two random points E and F on the opposite side such that they intersect within the rectangle. See picture below. Nothing is drawn to scale. The area of the two triangles are 4 and 16. One of the quadrilaterals has an area of 10. What is the area of the other quadrilateral?

Again, this is geometry from elementary school with a twist to it.

Note that the original version of the problem that I had posted had the quadrilateral area as 1 instead of 10. Harmindar Matharu successfully proved that such a diagram is not possible. I should have been more careful while picking some values for those areas…

17 May 2020

Memorable 150 mile ride

Woke up after the party last night a little tired. In fact, I was wondering whether to go out for a ride at all. I am glad I decided to soldier it on. “PoshGoonda” Rakesh Rao had planned a great route to a great destination. We landed up having lunch sitting by the river watching folks canoe and raft by on the Big Creek in a very small town in the Blue Ridge Mountains called Aska.

Avi was the steady sweep behind all the time to make sure nobody was left behind. Which in this case, means really me – since it was three of us who hit the mountain trails today.

I am most glad that I was able to do all those left and right turns in the mountains without making a single mistake.

All that said, the butts are really really sore 🙁