Back from Costa Rica and laziness

Finally, after uploading the pics on Orkut and Facebook. It's time to log my experience on my blog. Phew! I have been lazy for quite sometime to put something on my blog. It has been a long break!


My trip to Costa Rica was great, but the planning was a mess. I had to postpone it by 2 weeks because of unavailability of tickets. Finally, after booking the tickets, it was turn of hotels and other travel arrangements. Thankfully, my team in Costa Rica helped me a bit here. And also, good part is many things can be done online these days.

08/06/09 - I left the home at 1 AM to catch my flight to SanJose, Costa Rica at 8 AM in morning. I knew if I sleep I would never catch the flight. And I had a nice sleep in flight.

08/07/09 - After reaching at SanJose, one my team mates was there to drop me at the hotel. She took me to their office in SanJose to meet with the whole team. It was really nice to put faces on the voices I often heard on various conference calls. And SanJose was kind of like Delhi, growing urban place, lots of traffic, and lots of upcoming buildings for office etc. After that we reached to my hotel

The Intercontinental at SanJose was an awesome hotel and ofcourse they charge for it, about $120/night after discount. The bad part was that internet was not free and I treated it as blessing in disguise, atleast it would give me chance to stay away from the internet. After taking a shower and some rest, I hanged out in the biggest mall, which was in front of the hotel, of SanJose. Later in the night, I met with few of my team mates to go out on dinner and drinks. They took me to a nice place with loud music.

That's the view from my room.

Roads wise Costa Rica was not too different from India, recless driving, narrow streets, and not so well built roads. I was feeling at home!

After dinner they took me to some kind of place which was kind of full of clubs, but there were gross, with young boys and girls hanging and some weird kind of music. Anyways, it was an experience.

08/08/09 - Next day, we had to go to a volcano in SanJose, so I had to got up early. Damn it was early! 8AM, I don't even get up at 8AM on normal week day and I was suppose to get up at 8AM on vacation. Phew!!

My team mates, took me to the Poas Volcano. The way to volcano was nice around the moutains it was a scenic drive of about 40 mins.

Here are few of the views:

And we reached the place near volcano, which had nice shops and restaurant. The volcano was about half a mile walk from this place. The best part was that there was hiking trail near the volcano to reach a lake. So, how could I resist! We took the trail and it was one of strenuous trail I ever did. It was steep for quite some distance before it became flat. I kept clicking on what I could.

I got to eat some nice Costa Rican food on our way back from volcano. And after resting for the day at my room in hotel and hanging out a bit at the mall, we again met in evening for the dinner. This time they took me to another nice place, which was open air with nice crowd and good music. I just love it!
And I pleaded them not to take me to that gross place again

To be Continued....

4th July Fireworks

4 years back, on 4th July, I was taking a flight back to India and people told me I will miss the fireworks. 3 years later, I try to watch the fireworks from New Jersey shore and it's a terrible experience. 4 July 2009, I along with friends hit Brooklyn bridge in hope to watch the perfect fireworks. And we come to know that the venue has been changed and NJ shore is good place to be at.

Neverthless, roaming on streets of NYC with friends is an amazing experience. After figuring out a good location to watch fireworks, we head to West of Manhattan. The streets of NYC were crowded as if people have been asked to come out of their homes due to an emergency.

After walking for miles we found a nice spot where we could get a good view of fireworks, and after standing for about an hour the show began. I enjoyed it and it reminded me of our festival Diwali, which is all about fireworks. Though I must admit, the fireworks were not as great as what I saw in Disneyland, LA, but the crowd and NYC made this one an unforgettable experience.

I couldn't carry the bulky SLR to shoot fireworks, and I really missed shooting them.

Below is my favourite sunset.

5 years!!

Away from blogging for several weeks, I spent most of my Sundays at Barnes and Nobles, reading books and sipping Starbucks' iced tea.


As I complete 5 years at my first company and in Software industry, I gifted myself with a Canon 50mm f/1.8 lens; my new prime lens for shooting portraits/close-ups. However, my ankle, which got pulled while sleeping, kept me at home for almost a week and didn't allow me to experiment with the lens.

So, I mounted the camera on tripod and posed in front of it to check what can it do. Since, the focal range of this lens is narrow, it should be focussed precisely on the object, otherwise it gives a blur image somewhat similar to this one. Since I was shooting myself, I had to put camera on timer and with timer, the camera can't autofocus, it just clicks on what it has been focussed on.
This is the best I could get running several times between camera and chair. But it can certainly do much better, and I need to find a better subject to get juice out of it.

Taking a break from blogging........

Readaholic inside me

05/09: This Saturday I found something new about myself. Hiking was not an option due to the weather; I decided to visit a nearby Barnes and Nobles and spend sometime reading books. As much as I enjoyed staying away from computer screen, I enjoyed seeing beatiful people in the store.

I re-discovered the readaholic inside me, who loves to take notes on paper rather than typing it and loves to read paper books. I would have probably downloaded gigs of pdf books, thinking I would read them in my spare time, but that spare time never comes. It is dumped inside the folder just like another file on disk. And I purchased 2 books, 1 of which I have already finished reading [200 pages] !!!!!

Once again, here is sunset; I clicked this when I went on hiking.

Appalachian Trail

Second sunny weekend in row, I guess it will continue from here on. After spending whole winters inside home, I was so desparate to go out that took advantage of sunny Satruday, and went for hiking yet again. And spent time in woods with mother, mother nature.

After registring on Trails.com, which gives 15 day trial period and provides information about almost all the hiking trails in US, I decided to hike Appalachian trail. It came out to be whole day affair, 2 hours of drive one side and few hours of hiking. This was probably the most strainous trails I hiked so far after Mount Rainier in Seattle. And after reaching at top, I realized it was worth. Though the trail is quite long, I covered a bit of it. Thankfully, my Prius gives good mileage and I didn't had to think thrice [though I did thought about it twice] before going on 2 hrs long drive just for hiking.

Here is how NJ looks from one of the highest points in NJ.

FLAC + Zero DAC + AKG701 = pure music

In my desparation to hear pure music, which was incomplete without the DAC, I was hitting Refresh after every 5 mins on the Tracking website; I hope they have not handed my IP to FBI for increasing traffic on their site. :D The package that was shipped from China reached me in merely 3 days, and it was Friday, making the weeekend great.

After spending $200 on this DAC, which comes with amplifier also, I think it's worth. The music that it delivers along with my $250 headphones, is amazing. The sound is so clear, crisp and sharp that I realize what I was missing without an DAC. On some of the songs, I just feel that orchestra is in front of me. It did cost $450, but when that sound reaches to brain through ears, it is PRICELESS !!!!

After sitting home for last few weekends, I decided that I can't sit anymore and wait till I find someone to go alongwith. The weather was so inviting that I started finding few trails for hiking and decided to hike one nearby at "Ramapo Mountain State Forest". It was so fun to spend sometime in woods, though there were no waterfalls. And probably, that's the best time I had was in California, it has so many things to do, Napa Valley, Yosemite Valley, Lakes, Grand Canyon and not to forget Vegas. I miss California !!!

This is London Heathrow airport, once again reflection of light: