This year, I have decided to not keep any target in mind and just enjoy my running. I am not sure how it is going to go; I guess, we will just have to wait and watch.
The first day and “week” of the year wasn’t that eventful from the running point of view. I wish I could have gone out for a run on the first day of the year, like last year, when I ran through the Chicago Downtown street on the 1st of January.
It feels funny to reflect on the run more than a year ago, but, it is enough to give me goosebumps just to think about it.
Overall running in 2021 The year started great but then everything went down south after a few months. There were many things going on in my personal life, which, unfortunately, caused me to stop running altogether. I just didn’t feel like going out for a run, which caused me to fail my 2021 running target in a grand fashion.
Having said that, I do feel lucky that I got to run at least 500 miles for the year, which is no simple feat. Just a couple years ago, running 100 miles seemed quite impossible, so I will take 500 miles any other day.
What’s in store for 2022? Well, I couldn’t achieve my running goal for the year 2021, so, I am not going to set any goal for 2022 and just run to see how many miles I can run. Let me keep an open mind about this for once just to see how it goes.
It sure is difficult, but if I try harder, I believe, I will definitely get there!
The reason for this trip was to celebrate Mr. Aryan’s birthday as we wanted to fulfill his birthday wish of celebrating his birthday at the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis.
The group decided to book an entire AirBnb house with multiple bedrooms for the group of 10+ people. I have found booking an entire place on AirBnb is much better than booking individual rooms at hotels. We get to stay together, wander in and out of each other’s rooms, cook unlimited food and get to enjoy good company together both during the day and during the wind down time of the night.
The highlight of the trip was our visit to the museum, which not only the children but also the adults enjoyed. The whole day seemed to pass along in such a quick succession that we thoroughly enjoyed almost every corner of the museum. We had to be around the kids to make sure they were not getting in trouble.
The most fun part of the trip was the friendly small cushions fight between the children and the parents, which everyone loved. It was such a cool way to get rid of the afternoon laziness. Everyone felt quite fresh after that.
After that we explored the different displays and interactive experiences with the dinosaurs and to end the day on a high, we met the Santa too. It was almost Christmas time, and we didn’t want to miss out on this opportunity, so we stood in line for more than an hour and met the Santa for the first time.
It was definitely a day to remember and felt good that the year 2018 was full of travel, fun, and spending quality time with the wonderful people. Cheers to more memories!
The reason I picked up to read this book was solely because Milind Soman is a runner; fine, you caught me, also because his name is Milind.
Buying this book, I expected it to contain more of a running and fitness stuff than the Bollywood and model lifestyle that he has gone through in his life.
Frankly, reading about his running and how he ran his first marathon in Mumbai was more interesting than his entire life about Bollywood and modeling collectively. I would have to say it is just not my style.
I loved how he clearly remembered every mile of the race, and I started comparing him to myself somewhat nonchalantly. I was blown away by his endurance of running ultra distance for such a long time and at that age. I would be lucky to be like his 10% at that age. My dream is to be a lifelong runner and I try to fulfill it one way or another.
This was the first time , we were spending the month of December, celebrating the birthday of our favorite, Mr. Aryan. Last year, I was in India during December, so, we couldn’t celebrate it together, but, it was different this year. We made sure we celebrate Aryan’s birthday with everyone together.
We had Monika and family, yours truly and my roommate at the time, Anu, then Ravi, Bhaskar, Rohan, and Harshal.
We asked Aryan what we wanted as his birthday cake and I guess he was watching a lot of Bayblades at the time, so, he requested to have the cake decorated per that theme. This was the first time, I was looking at a cake which was decorated with fondant. It certainly looked really well, but, Monika told me not to eat it as she knew I would like the taste and nobody eats fondant also.
We cut the cake and as you can see in the picture, I was sipping some wine throughout the evening. It was a dessert wine, Moscato, which helped me to gulp a couple of glasses before I could feel anything. As always, Anupam ji had cooked some beautiful dishes for everyone. We had a lovely time at the dinner.
After dinner, we made sure to head down to the basement and dance to the tune of some Punjabi Music, which was a lot of fun. I still had a glass of wine in my hand while doing that too. Before we knew it, the evening was upon us and we bade goodbyes, with the promise that we will head to the next destination together to celebrate Aryan’s birthday one more time and grant his wish of visiting the Indianapolis Children’s Museum.
Week 52 came and went and except having fun and eating food, I did nothing.
Wow, we are finally here. When I started running for the year 2021, I had a daunting target of running 2021 miles for the year. I am sad to say that I couldn’t achieve even half of the target that I set for myself. While it might look like that I should feel sad about not achieving my running target for the year, I am happy that I could complete at least 500 miles, which is a big deal in itself. Anyway, I will talk more about my yearly review in the next post.
During this week, my yougest sister, Dikshu Tai, and I explored more places in Michigan, which included visiting the nearby SV Temple, savoring the Christmas decorations in Detroit Downtown, meeting my boss and having dinner with him and his family after a couple years, and watching a Bollywood movie “83“. It was fun to celebrate the Christmas and New Years like this, especially when I had a week off of work as North American Ford factories remain shut during the holiday season.
As far as running goes, I couldn’t run a single time and the total miles covered for the year remain 556.6 miles. Let’s see if this story changes before the end of the year!
Ever since I got to know about Ruth Bader Ginsburg a.k.a. RBG, I was and is always curious to know more about this incredible Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States of America. This book actually covers almost everything there is to know about RBG – her family, her growing years, her initial days as a lawyer and her journey to the highest court of the land.
Why someone should read this book? Whether you are a supporter of Women’s rights or not, I think, everyone will benefit by reading about the incredible life of RBG. I know I have benefited a lot after reading this book. Before I read this book, I didn’t know that RBG also had humble beginnings. Having grown up in Brooklyn, NY, RBG and her family didn’t have the luxarious lifestyle, but with hard work and her interest in the law helped her graduate from some of the most prestegious universities in the US. If you look at her academic credentials, you will feel that she truly deserved a seat at the highest court of the land. For me, personally, I always love reading about great people. It helps me realize that the great people also have humble beginnings. It is their hard work and persistence that make them great people.
Strong Support System – Her Husband, Martin This is the 25th book I am reading and out of these 25 books, at least 10 of them have been biographies/memoirs and I have observed one common theme across all these stories and that has been a constant support system for the protagonist of the story. In the last book, I talked about Indra Nooyi’s husband being her the biggest supporter throughout her personal and professional life. This book is no different. Throughout this book until Martin, RBG’s husband, was alive, he was a constant supporter of her. We are talking about the 60s, 70s, 80s when it was no conventional for women to work; During this time, it was Martin who supported RBG and her work. He used to praise RBG during his office parties, which used to rub wrongly with his colleagues but he was least bothered about it. It is safe to say without Marty’s support, RBG wouldn’t have achieved so many things that she did in her life.
The Supreme Court and RBG’s approach RBG led a life being true to herself and standing up to what she felt right and correct under the law. She was a big supporter of women and their rights and she couldn’t stand people who were two-faced and didn’t do their job correctly and those who repeatedly suppressed women and their voices. RBG never hesitated from speaking her mind when a decision was made by the SCOTUS in a conservative approach. She spoke freely irrespective of the decision of the court. RBG was famous for her dissenting opinions, they were not only carefully written, but were so detailed and written with so much compassion and within the law of the court, that it was hard not to pay attention to them. She was fearless while criticizing her fellow judges and never backed down from putting her point before the public and the rest of the judges at SCOTUS. She led a life of the principles and her approach to life has been etched in to the memories of her fans and supporters for times to come.
Week 51 was like the weeks prior – no running and only lazying around. Just five more days to go until the end of the year, and I am still without a run for the last couple months.
In my personal life, my youngest sister Dikshu Tai kept me busy. She is done with her first semester at Central Michigan University and couldn’t be more thrilled to spend some time just lazying around before heading to India for our 2nd sister’s wedding. We went to a nearby Indian snacks place – Neehee’s and after that headed to my workplace – Wagner Place West at Dearborn Downtown. It was fun to visit my workplace after almost a couple years, which brought back so many memories. I was stunned to see how much the area had developed over the last couple years, despite of Covid.
As far as running goes, I couldn’t run a single time and the total miles covered for the year remain 556.6 miles. Let’s see if this story changes before the end of the year!
Hello! Hello! Welcome to the last month of 2018 and it couldn’t have started in a better way.
It has been more than a year for me at Ford and I had never visited a Ford Factory in my life, so, when my manager Max came up with an idea of visiting the Ford Rouge Factory as a team outing, I was overjoyed. I didn’t know I wanted to visit the factory so bad until I knew that we were visiting it. I felt immense respect and was proud that I was visiting this almost 100 years old factory, which stood its ground through many wars and recessions and the great depression.
Before this trip, I had never been a part of the field trip to a factory, so I didn’t know what to expect, but I was really excited to see what I have been a small part of for the last more than a year.
As decided, we drove to the Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation. It was a short drive from work at Dearborn. After that, we were handed our passes by our boss, Max. A bus would take us to the factory, where we would be a part of the tour, overlooking all the factory workers assembling the best selling vehicle in America for more than 40 year – Ford F-150. Ooooh, I just got goosebumps while typing that.
I still remember, I was sitting with Monika during this bus ride and was clicking pictures of the bus, team members, and selfies. When I was clicking one of the selfies, out of nowhere, Max photobombed us. It turned out to be a great picture and I am glad you can see it too. It just goes to show you how comfortable Max was with us and the entire team even though he was my boss’ boss.
It took us around 20 minutes. Once we got there, we were escorted inside as a group. A kind employee informed us how the tour would go. She helped us explain that we would go to the first screen, where we would be shown the brief history of the Ford Rouge Factory, the very factory that we are touring. The second screen would be an interactive and 3-D like presentation which would showcase us how an F-150 is actually assembled. After that we can choose to skip level 3 and 4, before heading to the actual Factory area, where we will see factory workers actually assembling the truck from the parts that came across the US.
The first presentation was really good which introduced me to the history of the Ford Rouge Factory. After watching that presentation, I felt extremely proud that I am part of such a legacy and I got to work for the betterment of so many people.
But, what blew me away was the second presentation, which actually showed me how an F-150 is assembled. I loved how the presentation talked about different processes like Stamping, Painting, etc. before the actual Production starts. Before this day, I never knew that building a truck goes through so many processes, therefore, I was glad that I got to be a part of this tour. The way they showed us the F-150 coming out of the hole and the screen and that physical model of the F-150 merged together, I was completely blown away.
After both the presentations, we went to the level where they had view of the Detroit, Canada and other parts of Michigan. I found the views to be nice and cozy and especially loved the rooftop garden at the factory.
The last part of the tour was the actual assembly tour where the factory workers were assembling the truck that the customers had already paid for. The most surprising and fascinating thing I noticed was that no two trucks were similar to each other. The colors were not similar, the configurations were not similar, one truck had moonroof and the other didn’t. That realization actually made me think about how careful the factory workers had to be to make sure they are assembling the correct truck. That was really an awesome thing to be blown away by. I couldn’t appreciate more the hard work everyone at Ford put together to make sure that customers get their trucks on time. The fact that every 42 seconds an F-150 rolled down the assembly line, which goes on to show how popular this vehicle has been for America for more than 40 years.
Before we know it, the tour was sadly over and we were heading back to the waiting area, where some of the cool Ford vehicles were kept. It gave me a perfect opportunity to click so many pictures. I spent most of my time looking at the Ford F-150 Raptor just because how grand, cool, and slick it was looking. I loved just looking at it, it was a piece of art.
The tour was really cool, and I would highly recommend everyone to go through it.
Week 50 was lazy for me both personal and running life. With only one more week to go for the year, I don’t expect to run until the end of the year and I don’t have any concrete plans to continue running in 2022 too.
In my personal life, it was quite a busy week actually. The biggest thing that I did was bidding goodbye to my first purchased/owned sedan in the US – 2018 Toyota Corolla. The used car market had been on fire since the last few months, presenting me a perfect opportunity to make some money on the car that I used for 3 years and sold it in a profit. It turned out to be a better deal than I expected. The second special thing that I did was to celebrate Mr. Aryan’s birthday. He turned 10 this year and I couldn’t believe how fast both Aryan and Arnav are growing up. I wish them all the success and happiness in the world!
As far as running goes, I couldn’t run a single time and the total miles covered for the year remain 556.6 miles. Let’s see if this story changes before the end of the year!
stochasticity 