Thuvia

Many think Edgar Rice Burroughs gave the world 'Tarzan' and just stopped there. No...He has given something more....THUVIA. This is a fiction novel set in the Red Planet and one in the series of novels written about fictious events happening in the Red Planet. It gives good reading and is fast paced. I would liken it to the The Lord of The Rings in the context of character definition and bizzare happenings. Am not sure if you could chance upon hard copies of the novels but there is a site which offers the whole novel online.

http://burroughs.thefreelibrary.com/

Also, 'Warlord of Mars' is another interesting read.

Take the plunge...at Grand Canyon!

Grand Canyon is one of the few spots which does justice to its name. Grandeur is redefined here. The first words which escaped my mouth when I set sight on the canyon were 'Oh ..My God!'. Anyone who visits it will spend sometime musing over the power of Nature and will simply acknowledge the fact that humans, after all, are just a speck on Nature's plan. Canyons are gorges formed by rivers cutting through the terrain. Due to lack of time, I did not take the trails nor do camping there. Heard that they were the best part of the visit to Canyon. Hey ...hey...now I know that one gang (oh! how I love that gang) will go berserk when I mention the words 'camp', 'fire',etc. To them, I utter the now-famous-words-of-saro.....WE WILL GO!

New Year at Miami!

Hmmm..I know that talking of New Year at this time is really late. But hey...this was one New Year with my college friends at Miami. Now, that is something to remember about for a long time! College friends go a long way and we meet every year for our SANGAMAM in Chennai since 2001. It is total fun (read 'drinks, dance'). Best thing about our college gang is that our friendships were not limited to departments. Everytime, SANGAMAM was in a different location. The last time we had was on the night of Dec 25, 2004 in a seaside resort in Chennai. am not sure how many of you recognize that date. Ya..it was the day before the Tsunami stuck! To this day, I thank an unknown 'setu' who saved half of us (for sure!) by booking that same resort on the morning of Dec 26. Coming back to the topic, this time around, some of us in US planned a small get together in Miami for the New Year. The snap shows us partying at a South Beach restaurant on New Year. Hopefully, we will have a full fledged SANGAMAM in Chennai sometime this year.

Walking on the lake

Ya...you read the title right! I was literally walking over the ....half frozen lake! This is the mildest winter since 9/11 here in Upstate NY. Last weekend, I had pulled some friends and gone to the Canandigua lake. This lake forms one in the string of lakes called Finger Lakes. There are a lot of wineries and wine trails in this region.