Feels like a son !

May 23, 2009

Picked up Ma Pa from today… their maiden flight from India to Chicago !!!

Milwaukee suddenly looks like home !!!

My second biiiiiig gift after the success of 30on30 🙂 Life is great !

The day two in Chickago !!!

August 7, 2008

The first day in Chicago was the planned day… Kshitiz had actually made an itinerary and sent it to me a few days back and we more or less were on track!!!

One of the skydivers from day 1

If you have not read about the highs and highers of day 1, I suggest you read it here.

A relaxed moment in Henkly on Day 1

Second day was supposed to an easy day… did not have a plan but a number of things that we wanted to do, walk the magnificent mile, go to the Hancock tower, walk around the Sears tower and so on and so forth… we had random thoughts about a river cruise too…

The Chicago Downtown from Museum Capmus

Caught a wedding photographer in action too… and I have the L series as well 🙂 Ye Ye !!

Woke up late and left only around 1100 hrs after a lazy start… we went straight to the museum campus as Kapil (Kshitiz’s roommate) suggested and emphasis ed on the nice walkable area and the view of the downtown from there… It sure was worth the long bus ride and after spending an hour or so there, we took a free trolley (a small bus to facilitate the tourists) to a destination we had not decided yet… went through the maps and the route of the trolley and decided to get down at the Union Station and walk back to the Millennium park from there…

The driver and facilitator on the Chicago Trolley…

The Chicago Trolley…

From inside the bean…

Me and my space 🙂

Did as planned and walked the various streets and roads to reach the millennium park, from there went to the Bean again to take a few pictures, walked back the Magnificent mile to reach the bus stand and then back home…

The high rise buildings in Chicago…

The Sears Tower

A double decker tourist bus and locals waving to the tourists 🙂 Also seen is a series of newspaper boxes

I have always wanted to click these fire exits… finally I managed to…

Also bought a travel pillow as my neck and shoulders were sour from the long bus ride and carrying the bag the first day…

Stole sometime and went to the beach as well… the water from the lake Michigan did help take care of the fatigue a lot… Man I jealous of Kshitiz for having the apartment next to the beach… I feel it’s a great place to be at if you just want to be with yourself… and a perfect place to enjoy with friends as well…

The day finished with a fantastic dinner at an Indian restaurant with Kshitiz, Kapil and his friends!!! I have to say that it’s been a while I had such amazing Kadi anywhere!!!

Slept pretty nicely in the bus back to Minneapolis, though was about 2.5 hours late and joined the office like I have done after a number of weekend getaways!!!

All in all a perfect break from the usual boring life that I am living in the US as of now… It was great meeting Kshitiz too!!! Thanks bro for everything, and the omelette and the Aalu ki Sabzi 🙂 We still did not talk about the project… we will do that soon enough though!!!

My host Kshitiz Anand at his wittiest best…

And now, time for a few more pictures!!! Enjoy 🙂

One thing that you can get for free on the streets 🙂

Ok, one more thing that you can get for free 🙂

Kshitiz’s piggy bank… I wonder why he keeps the coins outside… I think its full.. Rich man eh !

Art on the streets…

Art on the streets… (The Cloud Gate or the Bean)

A play area for kids in the Millennium Park…

Age No Bar 🙂

Like I said, Age no Bar 🙂

Kids falling, getting up, enjoying, lying… just being kids… loved it…

And one of them was ready for some Bhangra as well… I guess Bhangra comes naturally to anyone who is happy 🙂

Some Bird watching opportunities were there too…

And some more…

And more…

And she was one of the prettiest dames we saw that day… Kshitiz agrees to this… though his camera has many more in it 🙂

I saw more skin and curves in these two days than the last one month combined… or maybe 100 times the the last one month combined…

Some art form that represents the Galaxy at the Museum Campus…

Hope you enjoyed the day like I did…

Have a good one 🙂

2nd August, the day of Firsts !!!

August 5, 2008

/ Prashant

I don’t really know how to start writing about this weekend, this is the third time I have started and I hope I am not deleting it again…

So Far So Good…

I was desperately looking forward to getting out of Minneapolis, its too dull and dry for me… Even though the weather is great for evening walks, I am not a guy who likes too much peace in his life, and here in my apartment I can actually sit and look at the sky for hours, with no activity happening… So the Chicago trip was something that I was really really looking forward to… Had planned it within the second week of arrival to US…

Friday evening, instead of coming back home, I went to the Minneapolis Downtown to a colleague’s place… I had to take my bus from there, and it only made sense to go to downtown, see some people around, and then take my bus to Chicago, which by the way means, a smelly onion (I wonder why).. Walked around the downtown with colleagues from work and finally took the bus at 2230 hrs on Friday night…

My healthy dinner on Friday…

I have this interesting habit of meeting online friends far away from where I stay, so that I can easily avoid meeting them the second time, just in case 😉 NO NO I am kidding… Infact both such friends, who I have met after going a long distance have been great to meet again and again… Deepu (who I met in Chennai) and Ankur (who I met in Murthal on our way to Bhakra Nangal) and this time I was meeting Kshitiz, who I really admire as a photographer and now as a person too… We figured out our itinerary and the plan of action for the weekend…

The Minneapolis Sunset from the Downtown…

I reached Chicago ( I kinda like the sound of this name) at 0630 hrs as scheduled, went to Kshitiz’s place before we left for the activity of the day… We took a bus to the Train station and then a train to O’Hare Airport…

Breakfast at Kshitiz’s, by dear chef Kshitiz…

I really like these kind of curtains…

After a little struggle with the car rental shuttle pickup, we finally reached Thrifty Car Rental’s office where a nice white Dodge Calibre was waiting for us… While I was kinda nervous about driving with all the mirrored roads and everything… But never mind, it cannot be too tough, just some focus right? !!!! but hey, I don’t even know how to take the car away from the parking mode to a normal drive mode… most of the cars I have seen have a small lever just next to the gear lever to do that, but this one was different… so we got out, got some inputs on how to drive that kinetic Honda of a car and moved from there… surprisingly it was easier than I thought, and I am happy to have driven those 100+ miles… this was an interesting experience, with we missing a turn and then finding our way back to the correct road quickly too…

Chicago is about very high and higher buildings…

We reached our destination in a li’il more than an hour, and the day being a nice bright, sunny day was perfect for our aeroplane ride… yes, we had planned to take a flight ride in the country side for a change… I felt it was the best way to see things from a different level !!!

We just kept waiting for our turn almost the entire day, being a nice day there were far too many people which were going up on the flights…

And I kept waiting….

A jumper packing her Parachute…

Another one of the jumpers with the camera video and digital (Canon Xti with a Sigma Fisheye)

anyway after a looooooooooong wait our turn came too, and we boarded the flight for a completely different view of the world !!!

The Vehicle of the day…

So there was I, leaving on a not so jet plane to reach 14500 ft, and then do something that I will probably rate as the craziest thing that I can EVER do in my life time… which basically translates into Skydiving from 14500 ft, you body falling towards the ground at speeds in excess of 100 miles per hour, the parachute ride for a few minutes before you finally hit the ground !!!

Aliens were falling off… and this was one of them….

Made people look for more…

There were many options that people could choose from…

She was my alien 🙂

I was going to jump out of the damn aircraft and rush towards the ground at 120 miles per hour !!! sounds scrary? Well… You have to be there to really know what the fkk it means to JUMP… there was not much going on in my mind when it was happening, except that what the fkk is happening !!!

More pretty Aliens…

We drove back to Chicago, and spent the rest of the evening walking around the Cloud Gate, the Navy Pier etc etc etc… actuallly I don’t want to write more and want to think about the jump again…

The Dodge Calibre I was driving…

enjoy the pictures of the walk and fireworks below…

The Cloud Gate, popular as Bean…

The Chicago downtown skyline… just before the fireworks…

I was tempted to start walking back home 🙂

Goodman di laltain…

Oh, and before I go, here is a visual account of what I did !!!

Ready to get on…

Dave(Photographer), me and Fin(Instructor)…

And I flew !!!!

Without wings…

For a while….

Ok, a li’il more….

And a smaller chute opened to keep us balanced while we fall at speeds of 120mph+ towards the ground

Kept Falling…

For a while more…

And landed after 5 minutes, but after the parachute opened, and we flew around in the sky…

And I am still high !!!!

This is Kshitiz’s video… the second around minute and a half in this video have me jumping out of the plane !!!

Amreeka Discovered Again…

July 6, 2008

/ Prashant

The land of the Eagle….
The land of shorts with formal full sleeves shirts…
The land of polo neck t-shirts with formal shorts and shoes…
The land of sports shoes…
The land of large man and women…
The land of loooooong cars, huge SUVs ( now I really know why they are called trucks) and larger than life trucks ( what are they called here?)

The land where being on the road feels like being in the mirror…
The land where the flag can be worn anywhere in any form…

Flags at the O’Hare Airport, Chicago ( seen in the background is our Tiranga too)

The land where flights and flight attendants and amazingly casual about things…
The land where there can be a thin line between being rude and being to the point…

Welcome to the land of Amreeka !!!

The flight was long by any standards… took a total of 15 hours from take off to landing… pathetic collection of movies, and not even average food with ultra casual attendants most of them over 40 yrs of age… so was American Airlines !!!

anyway… when I reached the Chicago O’Hare Airport I could not get any information about my connecting flight except that I should go to terminal 3. I did, checked in again and realised that non of the display boards had my flight number out of the about 60 flights they were displaying… Felt a li’il strange and manage to find an agent ( here the people who are associated with the flight, but are not Crew members are called agents) and after a couple of understanding and misunderstandings I was told that the flight was cancelled and I was moved to the next available flight… It added about 2.5 hours of waiting at Chicago with nothing much to do… If it was not for a few lovely words and I had read and heard when I left Delhi, I did not have anything much to think about either!

Anyway, I reached alright… hungry, tired and with a backache 🙂 as expected from the long flight !!!

The balcony at my Inn…

I had talked to a guy here a couple of days back and he was kind enough to come over and take me to a super market to get some bread etc and then show me around a few restaurants and my office which thankfully is just about 5-6 minutes away…

I am happy that subway tastes the same in India and London and now Minneapolis too… Just stuffed myself with a footlong and two laaarge glasses of Nestle Iced Tea…

Back at the hotel room now and trying to pass sometime so that I sleep only when its evening here… That would help me wake up properly tomorrow morning! Maybe !!!!

Lamps in my Inn Room…

I will crash now, Just can’t keep my eyes open anymore…