For this week, my focus was both CrossFit and making sure I sell my Corolla ASAP, as it is just sitting in my garage and costing me money. CrossFit is helping me bulk and improve my stamina, but, I have observed that I don’t really like movements involving my legs or thighs like Jump-over-box, squats, etc. Lack of running might be doing that to me, I don’t know.
To sum up this week, I ran 0 miles, so the number of miles covered don’t change since the last week, which is 556.6 miles. Let’s see if this changes before the end of the year.
After celebrating Thanksgiving in Michigan, it was time to continue the festivities away from home. Monika came up with the idea of visiting Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg in Tennessee as they were voted the top spots to visit in USA during the Thanksgiving break. The group agreed readily and we took care of the logistics – hotel, food, and other road trip related items.
It was my first time visiting the state of Tennessee, so I was happy with the fact that I would get to tick one more state from my bucket list. The second reason for my elevated excitement was the Great Smokey Mountains National Park, the next item on my bucket list of National Parks. And the third and last reason was the road trip itself. I have been enjoying my time at the US for the last three years and I have realized that road trips make me the happiest on the great american roads and I don’t seem to get enough of it.
With all these three reasons, we embarked upon our 10+ hours road trip to Pigeon Forge. Now, as I mentioned, it was my first time visiting Pigeon Forge. When I heard about this place for the first time, the name sounded weird to me. I chose not to do any research about the place and prepared myself to be blown away by any surprises that it had for us. Fortunately, all these surprises turned out to be good surprises and the first glimpse of this place came when we were driving to our hotel through the streets of Downtown Pigeon Forge. Man, it felt like it was a scene from a movie, with never ending scenery from different places and movies, some of which I had seen and some not so much, but I must say, everything was eye catching.
Upon reaching our hotel, we all freshen up quickly so that we had enough time to go out and explore some nearby places. Now that I think about it, it just feels unreal that after driving for 10+ hours, we all had energy to go out and have some fun. The kids made sure they got to play some arcade games and got to try some cool rides. The adults chose to skip the rides and arcade games and decided to party once back in hotel. It was a memorable night with a couple games of Uno and Sequence with many vodka shots in between.
Week 43 was same as previous 3-4 weeks. The weeks are passing by and I am just waiting for the end of year holidays, also I am enjoying my not so new truck – 2005 Ford F-150 King Ranch. It is a beast and has been a dream truck for me for such a long time!
Apart from this, I don’t have any update for you.
To sum up this week, I ran 0 miles, so the number of miles covered don’t change since the last week, which is 556.6 miles. Let’s see if this changes before the end of the year.
Week 42 was the week without a single run. The Michigan weather is approaching winter temperatures sooner than I thought, helping me stay inside working from home and stepping out only for my CrossFit sessions and grocery shopping.
Apart from this, I don’t have any updates for you as far as my running is concerned.
To sum up this week, I ran 0 miles, so the number of miles covered don’t change since the last week, which is 556.6 miles. Let’s see if this changes before the end of the year.
After visiting Mammoth Caves National Park, it was time to stay home and enjoy some lovely Thanksgiving dinner at Monika’s. This was the first time I was going to have a Thanksgiving dinner in the USA with family like friends. Before this, I had just watched YouTube videos about Thanksgiving, but, I was about to experience one.
The party included yours truly, Monika and her family (Anupam, Aryan, and Arnav). Manju and her husband, Bhaskar. Anu and Vasu who were staying closer to our work location at Ford, Dearborn. The group decided to contribute by cooking each one dish so that we had enough to go around the table. I volunteered to make my go-to appetizer potato and onion fritters (Aaloo and Kanda Bhajiya). I picked up both Manju and Bhaskar from their place and Anu and Vasu were driving together from Dearborn.
The evening started off with the usual drinks. During this time in my life, I was a alcohol connoisseur. This was a Thanksgiving party, so it was going to be incomplete without the booze, am I right? People started chatting and gossipping and I was enjoying my booze.
Once all the formal greetings were done, I headed to the kitchen to get started on my fritters. The rest of the group treated themselves by clicking numerous photos from all possible angles and at all possible places at Monika’s. The photos around the Christmas tree turned out to be the best among all. I loved spending time with everyone, chatting and catching up on different things, even though we see each other at work all the time. It was refreshing to spend time outside work.
Before we knew it, it was time for dinner as most of us were getting hungrier by the minute. We made sure kids are fed before adults. Seeing all the amazing and delicious food on the table satiated my visual pallet, helping me devour everything that I could.
It was an evening well spent with lovely people and delicious food. Cheers to many more Thanksgiving dinners to come!
Week 41 was the first week I stopped running completely, I don’t see this changing anytime soon. CrossFit and work have kept me busy throughout the week. The Michigan weather is getting chillier now, making me snuggle inside the house the whole day. The sun is setting sooner now, giving us only a few precious hours of the sunlight, which usually happens during this time of the year.
Apart from this, I don’t have any update for you.
To sum up this week, I ran 0 miles, so the number of miles covered don’t change since the last week, which is 556.6 miles. Let’s see if this changes before the end of the year.
Welcome Welcome to one more trip that I took in 2018. This time, we visited one of the National Parks in the United States – Mammoth Caves National Park.
This trip was memorable for so many reasons. The first reason being the location itself, which boasts of being the longest known cave system in the world. Monika had suggested visiting this place and I didn’t have any doubts that this was going to be a one epic trip. The second reason was we were visiting a National Park. I am in love with the National Parks here in the US, so, I was excited when I knew that we were going to visit one, giving me an opportunity to cross off one more item from my bucket list. The third and most important one was the company. I was surrounded by all the people that I love here in the US, so the excitement was palpable to spend time with them and create more memories.
The trip started off with us driving from Michigan to Kentucky. Let me tell you the drive itself was 10 hours long with breaks in between. We started early in the morning to make sure we reach our Airbnb before the dark, which didn’t happen. I remember driving the last leg of the trip and was really careful while driving through the dirt road leading to our Airbnb. I think that was the first time I was driving on a narrow dirt road in the dark with my friends, which added to my nervousness. Anyway, we safely reached our Airbnb and had wonderful dinner and late night gossips before calling it a night.
The next entire day was filled with the exploration of the caves. We had booked a tour to take us through different part of the caves and help us explore how people in the past must have felt while exploring these caves in the olden days.
The exploration started off with us standing in a long line to get in the cave. This waiting time was also fun because we had so many things to do and say to each other. Believe it or not, waiting in line and pulling each others legs and gossipping about who knows what was the best possible time I spent before actually entering inside the caves.
Our wait was short lived, when the line moved quicker that I thought. Before I knew it, we were escorted at the entrance and our tour officially began.
The first memory of the tour was our guide giving us all the cool historical feature of the caves, which I chose to forget, but what blew me away was when he shut down his torch to show us how it felt like being in the cave without any lights. It was scary to tell you, and I remember fellow tourists including yours truly making weird sounds just to freak others out. We made sure we held Aryan & Arnav close to us so that they don’t wander off in the dark.
After that little scare, it was time to hike through the caves. I was impressed by how well they had kept the caves. It was shocking to find out how clean it was and the management had made sure to preserve the genuinity of the caves, at the same time, create some artificial attractions that were worthy of pictures.
The first attraction that I loved the most was “FAT MAN’S MISERY“. It is exactly how it sounds like. This patch of the cave is roughly 4 feet tall with just few inches of gap between two rock walls. At first, I was reluctant whether I would pass through it or not but when I saw other people getting across without much difficulty, it gave me confidence. Apart from tilting my neck a little and limping my way across this patch, everything else was picturesque. I remember kids making fun of me as I was having difficulty going through it. I loved it! 🙂
The second awesome thing that I remember was the “FROZEN NIAGARA” portion of the tour. I had never seen Niagara Falls in person, so this was a surprise for me. I must say, it was really impressive to witness such an awesome site inside of a cave. Before heading to this tour, I just had a small idea what the caves were about, but, I am not kidding this “Frozen Niagara” tour blew me away. The scenes in the cave and the way the water was dripping from the Stalactites and the way they were helping form the Stalagmites. It was worth watching and experiencing. I would definitely recommending this whenever you plan to visit this national park.
After the tour, it was time to explore a few more attractions in the National Park, which couldn’t leave up to the expectations of the actual cave. We spent some time in the tour bus, before calling it a day and head to our Airbnb.
It was a refreshing trip and would love to visit once more if I get a chance.
It’s very hard to review a book like this, which is written so well and is packed with so much content that is was very hard to put this book down even for a few minutes. This book has buttressed the fact that Mr. Isaacson is my most favorite author of all time. I am fascinated by all books about time, space, origin of life, and memoirs about great people and this book was a culmination of all those things and the fact that it was written by my favorite author was a cherry on top.
This book blew me away so many times that I had to actually re-read some of the paragraphs throughout this book, which made me realize how important the work by some of the most renowned scientists in the world was to help humanity come out of Covid-19 pandemic. Sometimes, we take things around us for granted, and this book was a poignant reminder of that reality, which is sad, but is the truth. This book talks in details about all the work behind the Covid-19 testing kits, people behind developing it, and how the researchers collaborate with each other and sometimes put things in their favor to get their work published before anyone else, keeping Doudna at the center of everything. Let’s begin then.
Doudna’s beginnings I am a big believer of the phrase “every big thing starts with one small thing“. Doudna’s beginnings were similar. Before she knew that she had a thing for RNA and DNA research, she read a book called “The Double Helix“. The book tells in details how much reading this book inspired Doudna to jump in the field of molecular biology. Having a dad as a professor helped a lot since her dad used to bring many books home, which she used to browse through but it was The Double Helix which turned out to be a pivotal book for her and after that, Doudna never looked back. I could relate to this point from the author since I jumped into the computer field ever since my parents enrolled me in a computer class, which helped me develop the curiousity towards technology and I have never looked back after that.
Doudna’s research journey and her passion for RNAs I am a huge sucker for people working in academics and research area, so, when I saw this book in Costco, I knew I had to read it for a couple reasons. The first reason was it was written by my favorite author and second one was that it was about the Nobel award winner scientist and researcher – perfect combination of types of books I like to read. After reading the Double Helix, Doudna started her journey to become a DNA expert but as her career progressed, she knew, RNA is the one which she found more fascinating and challenging. Doudna is the sort of person who loves to solve problems which are still unknown to humanity, that’s the area she thrives the most and it was one of the many factors due to which she decided to jump into RNA research, which turned out to be a brilliant decision for the fate of humanity.
Researchers’ race to publish papers first This was an eye opening section of the book for me. I knew researchers and scientists are curious people, but, little did I know that they were extremely competitive and sometimes a little bit selfish. I knew people act for their own well being in a corporate world, but I didn’t expect this to be true for researchers also, which was a shocker for me. But, at the end, researchers are also human beings, so I presumed that that’s how all researchers behave, which from the book was evident enough that almost all researchers act that way. I mean, I haven’t gone through the process, so I can just guess that the competition to publish the research paper before everyone else makes them act that way and according to the author and his content in the book, if you don’t do that, it is very hard for you to push the paper to the credible publication and have the discovery on your name. I will take this as the biggest learning for me as I want to pursue a doctorate degree in the future.
& obvious: Covid-19 testing and vaccine And here comes the biggest reason for me to read this book. Ever since everyone on this planet was affected by the Covid-19 pandemic, I was curious about almost every aspect of the pandemic and when I knew that Doudna played a huge role regarding the development of Covid-19 testing and vaccine. Little did I know that the origin of testing facility and logistics related to Covid-19 vaccine and I was blown away when I knew it was Doudna’s facility which created the first testing kit in the United States. It was a great deal, but something that they had to do when the POTUS rejected the shipment of testing kits from the WHO, which wasn’t a smart move at all. During the many pages that the author explained the situations across the US fighting Covid-19 pandemic, I was in awe of all the scientists and researchers who were working round the clock from their homes across the globe, collaborating with each other and trying to fight the deadly virus. Never had I ever been so proud of our scientists and reserachers and it buttressed my belief in education. I couldn’t get enough of the stories from the book and really wanted the author to write some more about it.
Why should you read this book? This brings us to the last point of this post – why anyone should read this book. Well, the answer is simple – if you want to know how our fellow humans from across the globe fought against the deadly Covid-19 pandemic, then this book is a treat. The author has given tremendous details about everyone involved with Doudna during the research and development of the testing kits, vaccine, and what not. You will surely love this book. I am looking forward to more books on this topic now.
Week 40 was the first week I stopped running completely, I don’t see this changing anytime soon. CrossFit and work have kept me busy throughout the week. The Michigan weather is getting chillier now, making me snuggle inside the house the whole day. The sun is setting sooner now, giving us only a few precious hours of the sunlight, which usually happens during this time of the year.
Apart from this, I don’t have any update for you.
To sum up this week, I ran 0 miles, so the number of miles covered don’t change since the last week, which is 556.6 miles. Let’s see if this changes before the end of the year.
After celebrating Halloween with kids at Northville Downtown, it was time to celebrate one of the biggest Hindu festival “Diwali” with the folks in Michigan.
This year, we had more than one place to celebrate Diwali.
The day started off with me heading to work. On the way to work, my family and I had a FaceTime where they were showing me how they were celebrating Diwali at home. Back home, we celebrate Diwali on two different days, so today was the first day of the celebration, and the second day of celebration was five days away. I know it sounds weird, but, that’s how the Hindu festivals are.
The next stop for Diwali celebration was my work place. My team at work was celebrating Diwali and we were invited. I am not too big into celebrating Hindu festivals, but, since this was the work thing, I had to take part. I was blown away by the number of people that showed up during the event. The event was well organized by the dance numbers, people singing songs, and to top it off, a fashion show was held at the end of the event with all the lovely people walking down the ramp and a couple winners declared at the end. To sum it up in a single word, it was “magnificient”.
After work, it was time to hang out with friends from college at a nearby Hindu festival. The group has been diligently celebrating all the festivals together and this was no exception. Being the atheist of the group, I don’t mind going to temples and celebrating festivities, but I don’t like to do those myself. The reason I celebrate these festivities is to hang out with friends and enjoy some delicious food. The Hindu temple at Canton was the spot where we celebrated Diwali this year and it was a lovely evening, surrounded by so many people.
stochasticity 