Something's Fishy!

That's as much 'creative' writing I am able to squeeze in these days...[the title of the post I mean]
Sheesh! I really do love writing. Which does remind me of how my friend still loves telling other friends/colleagues the incredibly fascinating tale of
"how-vinutha-used-to-write-the-english-exam-paper -for-a-full-3 hours [and oh she took extra sheets too!!!]"

Allow me to justify here! Who could resist the "Explain in no more than 10[or was it 20? or was there a limit even??] your perspective on Subashini's life in the story "Subashini"?" or "Write a brief summary on King Lear and was he justified in his treatment of his 3 daughters?" Not me..i loved them!!!

And I must say, getting top scores in language subjects always made me happy! How exactly the teacher even deciphered my hand-writing..hmm...That's a topic I wont elaborate on [at least for now!]

A little retrospect on the subject matter at hand, and hey..I came up with the following 3 laws [which holds true for my alarmingly diminishing write-ups on the blog] and oh!! Remember..you heard them here first!!! ;-) ]:
1. When you feel like writing..just do. If that moment passes..well..you are pretty much left with a blank notepad/word doc and well that's pretty blank ain't it!

2. The more you postpone writing about that silly incident you saw today, that awesome trek you had, that hilarious movie you saw, the unexpected turns in life, the moments of sadness..ok...ok..i stop...but you get the point! Now, where was I?? oh yes... the more time you postpone it, the more averse you become to capture it in words.
[This law may very well be misunderstood to sound like a corollary to Law no 1. But no it isn't]

3. If you start posting pictures, you always have something to post. So you end up writing less.
Justification to Law no 3: Apparently, a picture is worth a thousand words!!!

Hmm..strayed away hopelessly from the title didn't I?
So a combination of all the above-stated laws results in this picture account of a recent trip to Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco!!! [ now you get the title?!??!??]

Self-explanatory

We took a ferry ride, which has this very informative audio tour. Seriously.

Some creative name for a red and white fleet isn't it?

This was how the weather was. Cloudy and drizzling at times too.

:-) Loved the composition of this one!

Peeping Tom??

My friend's very cute and well-behaved niece.

The ferry-ride comprises of a tour of few places of SFO and the golden gate bridge had to be one of them.

This is THE ROCK! ALCATRAZ. The audio tour at this point had some sinister music with a detailed account of a particular breakout from this prison. The 3 who escaped were never found!

And to end this, as usual, some random shots.



You can find lots of these birds everywhere. As much as I like them, it was quite annoying to see them flying all over the place.


p.s: If you are still wondering, What happened to Vinutha's usual writing style? Did she actually write this post? Let's just say she is hugely "inspired" by the immensely enjoyable accounts of a fellow-blogger she chanced upon today!
And like everything else, this will pass too!

Realisation!!!!!!!

I can cook!!!!!!!

and oh..the food I prepare is very much edible...and hmmmmm, kinda tasty too!!
[Bhuv would vouch for that! :-)] I am slightly amused too!!

Assorted!

View from above the clouds

Its a nice timepass to just stare outside the window in a plane..some parts reminded me of narada/demigods/gods descending to earth in movies :-)

Park in Santa-Clara

I call this the last ray of light!! ---- for the simple reason that it was taken during sunset!


Ghirardelli chocolate shop in SFO. The dark choc fudge sauce they give is just mind-blowing!
The shop has a display of the the machines used in the process of making fine chocolate from cocoa-beans. Here are a few of them..













And to end this assorted post, here are some macro shots of flowers! I can almost hear a few ppl saying "here we go again...we expected nothing less!!!"

Different strokes

And here i go again with a combination of mist and trees.. [with a lil post-processing ;-) ]
Btw these were near Jog falls only... :-) and with this I complete the Jog trilogy!!!

Black 'n white

its a mesh!

Shady

Hazy

finally..some brightness!!! :-)

More of Jog!

Some more pics of Jog.

A different perspective!

Calmness

Here flows Raja!

All White

Jog!

Am talking about the jog falls actually - raja, rani, roarer and rocket! :-) Some views of the falls, taken on Aug 15th here. Will post the other snaps and a report sometime later.

Yeh Hum Aagaye Hain Kahan

It was quite sometime I went out of Bangalore with my friends. Friendship Day [Sunday, Aug 5th 2007] was indeed a very good excuse!
The plan was to go to Mysore and loiter around. But as it is with every great plan of ours, it quite didn't work out that-a-way. With a few quick calls and messages to colleagues, we decided on going to Gopalaswami Betta, near Bandipur, approx 230 kms.

We started off at around 9.15. The weather turned out to be tailor-made for a long drive. Dark clouds near the horizon, cool winds, occasionally a drizzle or a downpour. It was lovely.

Enroute

Notice the rain (pouring in streams) way back towards the left in this pic?

We first went to Mysore, where sush had some work. I grabbed this opportunity and coaxed swa and sheetz to visit St.Philomena's Church. :-) Swa did find certain memorials very interesting, but I dare not say anything here! After a quick photo-shoot, we went to re-join 'the gang' and set off to G.BeTTa.

Some diff views of the church this time!

We had to pass NanjanGuD on way, so we made a stop there. There were a lot of people around, and so had to wait for sometime to get a darshan. It was already around 3.00, so quickly packed lunch from the Kamat nearby and set off to the BeTTa.

The temple

The road till GunDlapeT, around 30 kms. [the directions to which, we confirmed and re-confirmed from the localities] was just too good, and from there on, it became a lil jittery. But good nevertheless. Can’t complain when you have such a good weather for company, can ya?

On the way

We passed the famous sunflower gardens on the way, but the cattle/sheep herders started asking money to all who cared to stop and get through the barbed fence. After admiring them and quick snaps, we set off towards the betta, without further distractions. It was almost 4.30 you see, and the entry was to be closed at around 5.00/5.30.

Suryakanti

The view of the mist-covered hillock, the rain, the wind was just too good to be true. It was...well...perfect!

Views

Finally reached the temple on the top at around 5.00. It was pitch-dark inside the temple, so we went almost towards the sanctum sanctorum! [always wanted to tell that :-) ]. The god, Krishna with the flute, was I think covered in turmeric [alankara], and looked radiant! The visibility outside was just a few meters and so we couldn't venture downwards along a path [which I later got to know was the way to a lake where elephants come every morning!].

In front of the mist-covered temple

Misty

The weather, the constant wind had a very dream-like quality, well, almost. What spoiled it was certain group of people, who were drinking and behaving very un-dignified, to say the least!

:-( They totally spoilt the sanctity of the place.

We quickly left the place, had lunch [at 5.30, yes!] and then set off towards Bangalore. After some time, Swa's Ipod battery wore out, so Nar stated singing Kishore kumar songs at first, and then other songs, with Sheetz providing the necessary chorus ;-). She did go wrong at places [which we dutifully corrected!] We reached Bangalore at around 9.45 and I was home by 10.30.

All in all, a wonderful day, it was!

He is now a year old.....

Yep! My nephew turned a year old on Aug10th! Time sure seems to be in a hurry! :-)

He has started walking now and wants to exercise his new-found skill every single minute he is awake. He has grown remarkably tall, which only means a quick re-vamp of the house - blocking drawers/shoe racks he can reach and pull out, moving vessels and other things to upper racks. Keeping his grandparents very active, to say the least!

Still speaks gibberish and tries imitating his chikkamma's naa-na-na-naa-na! :-) Loves going out of the house and calling every person who passes by. If the passer-by does not acknowledge him, well..he sure knows how to make them! A true leo cub in the making. :-) Time is not only fleeting, it also promises fun...loads of fun!
Here is a sweet, simple poem I came across, dedicated to Simba!

It's your first birthday, baby,
One candle on your cake;
Proud parents stare in wonder
At each new move you make.

We join in celebration,
As this special date arrives,
For baby has brought pleasure
Into all our lives.

We look forward now to seeing
How you progress and grow,
From the cute and tiny infant
You were one year ago.

So dig into your icing;
Enjoy your presents, too.
The reason for this day
Is a special person--you!

[Baby's First Birthday - By Joanna Fuchs]

All in a day's work

I am not able to express entirely what’s there on my mind for sometime now. But yesterday I could indeed put a few into words and realized a few. And here they are…

- It's not everyday you get emotionally attached to people you work with. But sometimes it does happen. And when different/separate paths loom ahead, the detachment is what is really painful.

- You just cannot bring yourself to speak when there's that feeling of a knot in your throat, and tears threatening to emerge the moment you even think of opening your mouth.

- You can indeed cry your heart out and laugh your guts out – all within a matter of a few hours!!!

In other things,

Aap Ka Suroor [The Moviee-The Real Luv Story] is hilarious. You just can’t stop laughing at the absurdity. The only thing which I was not amused with – Usage of the Gayatri mantra. Nevertheless, go to the movie with a cheerful and fun-loving gang and be entertained!

Love at first sight

Well..that's the theme of this year's IIFA awards at Yorkshire. It's to describe Yorkshire I suppose. The telecast of which is being aired now on Star Plus.

Hmm..the huge ensemble of actors - yesteryear's and today's, sure make it look interesting. Look's like all the Industry's who's who are in. Rani's absence is profound [considering, she just won the best leading actor-female award, which Karan Johar accepted on her behalf, asserting the fact that he was NOT Rani..Like we doubted that!!!!]. Hrithik won the best Leading Role- Male and the Most Glamorous 2007 or something like that...for Krrish and Dhoom2 respectively. Yippeeee!!!

Aishwarya looked very pretty and happy :-) and she also won the Glamor award for Dhoom2 too. SRK did not turn up too. I surely missed Saif's and SRK's antics as hosts [though irritable sometimes] Instead had to do with a very bland Lara Dutta and enduring Boman Irani as Spiderman [or Superman??], James Bond, Raj Kapoor [singing Jeena yahan and dressed like Raj Kapoor in this song] and believe it or not, wearing the Scottish Skirt [donno the exact name] and trying to dance like one!! Sheesh....

Other than Abhishek's performance [with Amitabh joining in later] and Shilpa Shetty's grooves, I think the others - Saif, Bips, Akshay Kumar were ok-ok. And did I see Aftab and Emraan performing..puh-leez!! who selected them???

It also looked like the actors were busy promoting their new movies:
- Jhoon Barabar Jhoom
Abhishek's performance
- Apne
Dharmendra got an award, something close to life-time achievement I guess, and invited not only Sunny and Bobby [who was crying..yeah...or rather being emotional about his dad being the best!], but also the director Anil Sharma. Oh..the award to Veeru was presented by our very own Original Jai. Clippings of Koffee , feat. Jaya Bachchan [telling she'd loved to have played Basanti instead, coz she thought Dharmendra looked like a Greek-god] was also shown; followed by a lot of Dharmendra's snaps. It was a nice touch! :-)
- A Partner
Sallu bhai dancing to the tunes of Salaam-e-ishq and Govinda joining a lil later [ for songs of Partner I suppose]

The trailer of the film on global warming -Global Cool was shown, which featured Amitabh with Tony Blair, among others!

RDB and Lage Raho took most of the awards, which wasn't unexpected.
And I must confess, Ash and Abhi looked good together.