Situation..Situation.!!

Before the CNN crew tracks this blog...let me tell you there is NOTHING going on here! For people who are familiar with CNN, I am talking about ' The Situation Room'.

Since when has news become a show than the real thing? Why is it that we need advertisement for a news show? I say this because I hear reporters on that show say things like - 'CNN - your Hurricane headquarters'. I kind of get the feeling that people here are waiting for things to happen! Though nothing against CNN itself, they do seem to be the 'World Leader in News'. Firstly, do we need anything like a news channel? Aren't we all just satisfied with the evening news for an hour, which summarizes everything that happens around the world? Why do we have to know EVERYTHING that happens around the world every single minute?

This, in my opinion has just led to an information overflow and partly responsible for people being scared and over precautious about things that they normally wouldn't have, only because they heard about a rare incident happen to someone somewhere in the world!

I know, I might differ from people who think information is key and it is the 'Information Age' which has driven this world into globalization. And that is why you have the Internet! For people who really need all the news, there is CNN.com, which has enough and more news than anyone would possibly desire! Why have a TV show with anchors trying to impress people so they can make a career out of it? Isn't this what happened with Anderson Cooper? He literally had a TV show, filming himself and his thoughts during the Katrina crisis and now he has a book, exactly during hurricane season this year! As much as I beleived he did a good job about being there and covering the story, wait a minute.... he has just made business out of it!

We do need journalists and I respect what they are doing when it comes to covering stories at places you and I wouldn't want to be. But are they doing it because they want the publicity, or because they really like what they are doing? A musician myself, I would think journalism is more like music, more like an art....something for which you need a passion to do. But there is a fine line that journalists have to tread when it comes to covering stories, because they deal with stories about real people and it is very hard to see them do business with it! I miss Peter Jenings for this. He was a journalist too, a news anchor, but there were no frills around him - no Situation Room, or PeterJennings Live, or PJ tonight! Yet, he remains one of the respected journalists in the country.

Like one of them aptly said on the radio about the hurricane season, reporters are just waiting for one storm to leave the coast of Africa, and you can see reporters rushing into Florida already talking about a hurricane brewing in the Atlantic! That's how much they are waiting for 'things to happen'!

Tartlets!

Here is a recipe that I tried last week. It came out real well. I hadn't even heard 'Tartlets' until I saw Giada from the Food Network do it on her show.

Here's the link for the recipe
http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/recipe/0,,FOOD_9936_30222,00.html

Trust me, it is really simple and easy to do. I made 2 batches of the phyllo cups, one with just enough butter, and the other one with a little less butter(just so I don't feel as much guilty while eating it!), and found quite a difference. Lesser the butter, the layers don't stick to each other that well, and the phyllo cups tend to flake. A great party dessert! Quick n' easy!

'Mission' accomplished!

Last Sunday was like a dream come true! I have been wanting to hike up Mission Peak in Fremont, ever since I moved to California and I finally did it last weekend. I know of a lot of friends who do this regularly, but I always used to think of this as an ultimate body fitness challenge! The first time I did this about a year back, I hardly could make it beyond the 1/3 mark, but I should say it wasn't what I expected. As much as I had heard about this one, didnt really imagine this to be like a mountain climb!

The second time I knew exactly what I was getting into. I kept telling myself, that this time I'll probably return at the half way mark, but I think that's what kept me going. It was more challenging getting down and you had to watch every step as the body tends to run at that incline, while you are trying to hard to control yourself from going that fast.

I always beleived strenuous hikes are more of a mental challenge, rather than physical. Any normal person should be able to do it as long as you have the perseverance and most of all enjoy what you're doing. I guess it is true for most things in life!

There are not really any excellent views on your way up, and you are only thinking of reaching up the top! On your way down, if it not a foggy day, you can see excellent views of the Bay area, Dumbarton Bridge, SanMateo Bridge, SFO skyline and clearly the valley. It took us about 2 hrs. to go up and an hr and 15mts to come down.

I already feel like doing it another time!

Rockies!

Just back after a trip to the Rocky Mountain National Park! Was it beautiful or what! We had an incredible time 'up' there. We landed on a Saturday evening in Denver and drove to Estes Park the next morning. This is a small town on the East side of RoMo park. This town itself is at an elevation of about 7,000 ft, with views of the Rockies any side you look.

The first day we did a hike to Chasm falls. The hike is about 2 miles round trip, with a gain in elevation upto 500ft. The falls at the end of the hike is worth every bit of calorie you spend to get up there. We had lunch at the Endovalley picnic area and headed back to simple trails for the rest of the day. This was the really nice part of this park. There are hikes for people of all kinds. You could choose from a easy trail with absolutely no elevation around lakes, to others that climb up in elevation so fast, even before you know you are up 1000ft from where you started! Whatever may be your choice you are never disappointed. We experienced some really breathtaking views of the Rockies!

The second day we wanted to take the road called the 'Old Ridge Trail' that is the highest paved road in the US that goes upto 12,100ft. It is a 48 miles two-way road which run across the E-W, W-E sides of the park. This road is open only during the summer months and luckily for us, the road was opened about 2 days before Memorial day this year. All along this road are some fine vista points which offer some of the best shots for photography!

As the road climbed up we could clearly see the tree line. At about 11,500 ft. trees stop growing because of the extreme climate and you could clearly notice the tree line! At one point we were looking down on the trees, and looking at the mountains eye to eye. The day before, it had snowed in the mountains and the snow had been cleared off the road but the sides of the roads were still filled them and it added to the experience! We stopped by at several places to get a different perspective of how things are when you look from 'up' there!



We saw glaciers along our way and the headwaters of the river 'La Poudre'. The river Thompson starts in the rockies and so does the grand Colorado! I wish I could retake geography lessons that I took back in school, now that I have a better visual idea! I have read about Alpine(also Tundra region) - but now I know exactly. The only other places that you could experience this is Alaska and Siberia! Isn't that chilling ;) The Subalpine area of the park was the green belt and that's mainly the meadows and the forests. One of the popular points of intest was the Continental Divide - the rivers that originate to the east of this flow into the Atlantic and those to the west flow into the Pacific, the natural physical barriers running N-S! It was a great feeling to be standing ON the Continental Divide, and oh ya....we took pictures of it!

The third day we did 2 hikes. We started at the Bear Lake trailhead on the West side of the park. This one has a lot of trailheads starting from there. We took the one to Dream Lake, but we had to stop soon after Nymph Lake b'cos the trail after a point was totally filled in ice, and we weren't prepared for it. Nymph Lake at a height of about 10,500 was picture perfect, exacty like the ones you would imagine when you think of lakes in a lush green forest. Surrounded by tall trees , the snow from the mountains feed the lake and the water is clear with water lilies and barks of trees floating on it. The perfect place to unwind!

Since we couldn't go up to Dream Lake and we had most of the day still left, we took the hike to Mills Lake. This was a 3 mile one way, with an elevation gain of upto 750ft. At 10000 ft, the air is thinner, the clouds seem to move much faster and the sound of aeroplanes is so much louder! It is a totally different world out there! It took us about 3hrs for this hike. En route to Mills Lake is Alberta Falls. This is a nice place to sit on the rocks, relax, and watch the falls. It gets tougher after this upto Mills Lake. We reached Bear Lake(close to the trailhead from where we started), which is yet another beautiful lake.

We drove back to Denver that evening. Hung around Denver downtown, in and around Larimer and Writer Square, treated ourselves after all the 'hard work' to dinner at a modern Mexican restaurant, Tamayo! If you happen to be there, check this one out. Though they didn't have too many veg. options, their menu didn't seem anything like the Mexican restaurants that I have been before...its not the regular Enchilada, Quesadilla, Fajita, kinda Mexican restaurant...so different, that I don't even remember the name of the dish that I had! We took the next day early morning flight to SFO. This trip felt like a quick trip to the Tundra and back...like M calls it...'a shot of Tundra'!

And yes, we saw some wildlife too...bighorn sheep and elk. We also spotted a coyote with its cubs on binoculars that were set up by rangers at the meadows.



Tip: If you are looking at flying to Colorado try Frontier - We got a really good deal on our tickets. 200/person - round trip! Check it out!

Cruising on my Navigator!

This is the most exciting thing that happened to me in the last week. I bought a Trek 'Navigator 100' bicycle. This whole buying process was so painful, and I did not think buying a cycle was this hard! As is the practice of the educated, I did the research, and found out that there is not really a bike that I can read on the Internet and go buy....it's all about the comfort and feel it when you ride it...... and that's why most shops let you take a test ride(mind it its not a car, not even a motorbike, a cycle....but that's the way it works here!).

So, it took me 3 days and 3 shops before I bought my Navigator. It is a comfort bike, which is most suited for the road, but can also do a li'l bit of trail riding. It fits my requirements perfect.
Living in California, I think its a good deal. I get to do so many things in one.....take in the weather, get some job done while also getting some exercise and ya....save some gas and be good to the environment!

My longest trip on the Navigator has been a 14mile loop on the Los Gatos Creek Trail. We did the strectch from Campbell to Los Gatos. This entire strectch was fully paved, the most suited for the kinda tires I have. This trail runs through 3 parks and goes all the way upto Santacruz. It tooks us about 2 hours round trip.

Waiting to cruise more this summer!

Some of my experiences while in India

It has been about 3 weeks here back in the US and here are some of my experiences in the last 6 months. I quite naturally looked at many things in India with a Western eye only because most of my independent thinking has been influenced by my exposure to the world out of India.

To start of...here's the story of my trip to London from Bangalore...

It was February and I was looking forward to my trip to London to meet my husband who was flying from the US and was really excited about meeting him midway and the entire vacation itself. Since my flight was landing earlier than his, the initial plan was I meet him in London at our hotel room! So my flight was from Bangalore to London via Delhi.

At the Bangalore airport they told me my luggage was through check-in, which the way I understood was that I worry about my luggage only when I get to my destination – but no you’re wrong! It means you would have to collect your luggage in Delhi…. get to the International Airport in a bus which travels approximately 30mts, pass Customs and recheck in at Delhi again! Since I got this straight in Bangalore itself, I had 2.5 hrs to let this sink in and prepare myself for this. So once I was in Delhi, I went straight to the baggage claim, picked up my luggage, and wrote down my name on a book waiting for one of the guards to yell out my name loud. After waiting for about 20mts, the bus finally arrived, and I boarded it. It took the bus (app. 20mts for the 5kms between the airports) and here I am at the entrance of the International airport.

Now at the Delhi airport I looked around for a trolley for my suitcases when I see the crowd around me getting all excited suddenly. While I browse around to see what's going on I realize this….If you need a trolley at the Delhi airport you have to first position yourself very close to the place from where they bring these trolleys and when you see that guy at a distance, you have to get on your feet and literally “snatch” a trolley for yourself, which is what I did too!

So, now I had about 4 hrs for my flight to London and I had to clear immigration, customs before I get to my gate. I decided to get past these quick so I can get to the gate soon and may be even get a couple of hours of sleep before I board the flight. I finished all the formalities and was waiting to get to the gate, and I notice this huge crowd of people of nearly 500 standing in line. Unmindful of them, I looked at the monitors, figured my Gate No. and was trying to get a sneak peek of my gate, which is when I realize the 500 odd people were actually waiting to get inside the gates as well! I was extremely frustrated and it was 12:30 in the morning ! The rest of the people in the line shared the same frustration, but what can you do? Only rumble and mumble about it!!

To digress a li'l.....I find this interesting every time I am at a public service office where things are almost all the time inefficient, and you are getting frustrated by the way things happen. But you notice when you get to the counter, that you seem like an idiot, posing all practical and stern and rude because you are unhappy about the way things are going on, but the clerk (who almost always likes to give you the look that your life is in his hands) in his/her own casual way totally unmindful of the line that he/she sees in front of her, is busy chatting with his/her colleague about something utterly important other than work that he has being paid to do!

Anyway....getting back to the airport scene, I successfully get through the gate and into the flight. The flight was just about ready to take off, when the pilot announces that the fog is starting to settle and the flight will not take off until the fog clears about 500 mts(I think), which is recommended. Though fog in February is a li'l unusual, it is very prevalent in Delhi and we all read about it every winter season. So, I wait there thinking it’ll only be a couple of hours – after all being in India you’ve to be optimistic – talking to my husband every now and then giving him updates. We were served dinner and most of us went to sleep. I woke up around 6am in the morning, hoping to be half way towards London, but the flight hadn’t taken off and there I was still in Delhi. The fog had got worse and none of the flights had left. My scare now was the fiasco that would happen at the airport if passengers from all these flights were put in hotels and rescheduled on a later flight – and of course the fact that you wouldn’t want to be thinking about all this when you are going on a vacation!

Anyway, we were told that the condition would be reassessed by around 11:00 am and a decision would then be made on whether the flight would be rescheduled or not. Fortunately near about 9:30, the fog cleared and we were at last going to be in air! Those were the longest 8hrs I have ever experienced! The Jet Airways cabin crew definitely needs a mention here. Hat's off to their wonderful service, and for really feeling apologetic for the way things had worked out, for no reason of theirs. The only shining star at the end of all this chaos..... I got to meet my husband at the airport itself, who had no idea what had happened to my flight, because from the last update I had given him just before his flight took off was that my flight could be cancelled, so be prepared for it!

All’s well that end’s well….but now, the reason behind all this confusion – lack of expertise among Indian pilots to take off and land when it is dense fog. This requires using some very expensive apparatus, which apparently the Airport Authority of India has bought but has left rusting because of lack of interest in airline carriers to train pilots becasue it involved huge amounts of money. It agree that it is impractical to spend money to the tune of 12 lakhs to train all pilots hired, but I believe that the Indian Govt. should relax rules so as to encourage pilots to qualify for the ILS(instrument landing system) training. With India on the globalization road, and with immense number of people travelling nowadays, I think the Govt. needs to take a second look. It makes sense if this was a problem even 6-7 yrs. back, and I would have resigned to accepting that that's the way things happen in India. But we need to change fast and move with the times especially when the whole world is eyeing India as their next biggest investment opportunity.

The IT industry has done a lot of good to the Indian middle class, and if this boom goes on for a while, who knows it might even help expand the middle class cannabalizing on the poor, which is a good sign for a developing country. The Govt. is doing the right things in policies in attracting foreign investments, but I am not sure they understand they need to do a lot more to retain them, or may I should say, atleast not in action.

Get into my space!

For all of you out there...While I am still figuring out what I want to do with this space....you all have fun OK!

See you later!