14 September 2013

Knee How? :-)

Trying to heal my left knee, I have been alternating between the Merrel barefoot shoes and the Nike Frees. To test the knee, put in a non-stop 10 mile (16K) run in 95 minutes. 17,500 steps and 1550 calories later, the knee is holding up strong. The lungs, on the other hand, are not amused πŸ™‚
After the run, made friends with a fellow runner, Karen – who is training for her half marathon. She took this picture of me taking rest after the run.
There is a Bengali word to describe my condition – “biddhhosto” πŸ™‚

(The title of this blog was inspired by a terrible cross-language pun by my friend Narayan – who co-authored the Wall Street Journal crossword thus Friday)

20130914-142655.jpg

14 September 2013

Teenage-speak

Last night, I volunteered to take my teenager daughter to the football game in her old high school. On the way there, I made an attempt to see if I could wean her away from the constant earbuds-in-her-ears mode and have an actual conversation with her.
First I got the car radio on her favorite channel and then started talking about shoes, hairstyles, her girlfriends etc. Things picked up surprisingly well. They were going well enough that at one point of time I decided to start teasing her about boys.
So I went “how about
She: “Yeah, what about him”?
Me: “I thought you thought he looked cute”
She: “He did”
Me: “And….. What happened?”
She: “Puberty happened. That messed up everything”
Me: AWKWARD SILENCE for a long time.

She went back to her earbuds-in-her-ears πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚

Sometimes, I think she does this purposely to shut me up. If that is true, she is spending waaaay too much time with her mother πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚

13 September 2013

Chessboard puzzle

Send a personal message on FB- not comments if you are sending an answer. All smart Alec comments can come in the comments section though πŸ™‚

Imagine a chessboard – with your usual 8 by 8 = 64 squares. Say the squares are one inch by one inch each. Now imagine rectangular blocks that are one inch by two inches each. So, any rectangular block can cover 2 adjacent squares on the chessboard.
You have to fill up the chessboard with the rectangular blocks without any rectangle spilling outside the board. They are allowed to overlap on each other though.

What is the minimum number of rectangular blocks required to fill up the whole chessboard? That is 32 of course.

Okay, now imagine that I tore off one of the corner squares on that chessboard. And I went ahead and tore off the corner square that is diagonally on the other end of the board. So, now I have a chessboard with two farthest corner squares missing.

Now, tell me how many minimum rectangular blocks are required to cover the whole board (that has only 62 squares now). You are allowed to overlap but cannot spill outside the board.

Even trickier – what is the minimum number of blocks required if you CANNOT overlap or spill outside either?

13 September 2013

Sleepless in Raleigh

Woke up at 4 am to catch a 6 am flight from Raleigh to Atlanta. Made it comfortably to the airport. Breezed thru TSA Pre. Sat in the plane. Got my coffee. All the passengers were boarded. And suddenly I got a notification from Delta on my iPhone that the flight has been delayed by 30 minutes.
The pilot came on to the PA and greeted us. I am like – does he even know that we are delayed? (I assumed ground control crew or weather issue).
Then he came on again and explained that a piece of equipment is not working. It is a third level backup though. But without it he is not allowed to fly in the dark or thru clouds!!!
So the mechanics are coming to see how quickly it can be fixed.
Except the mechanics are coming from Atlanta!!!!
And he canceled the flight!!!
As I was disembarking, Delta sent me another helpful message – the flight has been delayed by another 15 minutes!! Go figure.
Too sleepy to drive back to Atlanta, decided to take the next flight couple of hours later. Waiting in Skyclub now, tired and sleepy wondering what the the next adventure in the upcoming flight will be.

12 September 2013

Puzzle – GPS

Headed to Raleigh. My flight back is tomorrow at a very early hour. So, I am going to send the puzzle today…
Remember the rules – message me on Facebook with your answer. Do not write on the comments section so as to give others a chance to solve it without peeking into possibly right answers.
This happened to me on Tuesday night. I was coming back from a customer dinner at night headed home. I never use the car GPS since I know I know my way around in Atlanta. However, midway thru my drive back, I noticed something interesting on the GPS.
The display on “Distance left to Destination” would count down as you would expect every mile but ever so often, it would jump up to a higher number. So it would read 16… then go down to 15 … then go down to 14 … and then jump to 20!!! It would again start counting down for a few miles and then jump up again!!!
Can you explain what was happening?
Here is a hint: Every time it would jump back up to a higher number, it would jump to a number higher than the previous high number.

12 September 2013

Intersection point. Revisited!

The nagging sense of a missed opportunity to smile at a kid was powerful enough that I went back to the same running route this morning. Figured I might be able to see the kid on his way to school – if that is where he was heading the previous day.
On my way forward, I did not see him.
On my way back, I went past the school again and still did not see him.
Just as I was going to turn into the road back to Starbucks, I spotted him at a distance – with his mom. This time I was determined.
Changed my route, ran towards them and then slowed down. Smiling ear to ear, I took my cap off and told the kid that the previous day he had waved at me. I felt very special and that nobody usually does that. (Completely skipped the smiling part πŸ™‚ ). He gave that same awesome smile and looked up to his mom.
His mom and I exchanged pleasantries (he is a kindergartner and goes to the school that I ran past). Then we fist bumped each other (I mean the kid and I – not his mom and I :-)) and proceeded on our own “lines”.
Now that is an intersection point I can live with!!!

10 September 2013

Smiling back…

One of those signature moments that makes every day such a beautiful day. Early morning during my 5 mile run on Alpharetta sidewalks, climbing up a small hill, I saw a very young kid – the boy could not have been more than four years old – holding his mom’s hand and walking along. Most likely to the Kids and Kids half a mile down the road.
As I approached them, I was trying to be mindful not to startle them from behind. The kid (who by the way, had his head clean shaven like me) heard me, looked back and his eyes were fixated on my bright neon orange shoes πŸ™‚ And just as I passed him, he looked up to me and gave me one of those beatific smile only blissful kids unmindful of their parents’ “Stranger Danger” advise can give. And then wrested his hand out of his mom’s clutch and waved at me.
That was a very powerful moment.
By this time, I was just passing him. I raised my hand and waved back. He could not see me – but I smiled back to him too.
For the rest of the run, I mentally kicked myself for not turning back and showing the kid that I was smiling too. I guess I did not want to be weird to the lady. Or maybe I was too much into the running and missed the enormity of the moment. Regardless, the kid deserved better from an adult.
And that was my lesson for the day – in runs, as in life, we start from different points and end at different points. The line between those points – or the speed at which we traverse the line – does not define us. What defines us are the intersection points with others’ lines. For, it is in those intersection points that life offers us the opportunities to acknowledge each other’s journey, celebrate each other’s presence and make a difference to each other’s lines.
And that journey is what it is all about.
That is why we live. That is why we run.