After Bloomington’s trip, I took some break and didn’t go out much. I spent most of my in-between days hanging out around my community and work place.
When things got too bored, our group decided to head to the Plymouth Downtown for a casual spontaneous lunch. The Plymouth Downtown had been a regular visiting spot for us ever since we went there the first time to check out some ice festival activities.
For this visit, we chose to just walk around the downtown area randomly, stopping numerous times for clicking some pictures and selfies, before our “gut” telling us to stop at the buzzing Mexican restaurant “BARRIO COCINA Y TEQUILERIA“. This was the first time I was checking this restaurant out and with the close friends recommending it, I didn’t have any doubt about it. At first, I wasn’t comfortable going to the restaurant as I wasn’t dressed well, but then I just let go and told myself to enjoy the moment. I must say the ambience, food, and drinks turned out to be better than I expected. I especially loved how they had separated the upstairs sitting area from the downstairs bar area and that turned out to be a “cool” thing for me. We spent some good time there, before starting our roaming journey again.
The next thing that we did was to just sit and stare at people and have a good time. The lovely afternoon was capped with an ice cream from the local ice cream store, which was also a good spot to spend time after dinner (on some occasions). Anyway, having that tasty and delicious piece of ice cream was a perfect way to end the late afternoon/early evening. We bade each other goodbyes and got home.
It was a lovely way to spend a lazy and beautiful Saturday.
Week 28 was an absolute disaster. Week 29, I don’t know, let’s see!
Day 192 – 07/11/2021 – 1600/174 Ah! Welcome to the first run of the week.
As usual, I got this run around the DOGE loop. I completed 3 rounds of it, subtracting 4 miles from my yearly running goal. It was a morning run, so I felt easier running around and didn’t have to worry about the Sun. It was raining, so even though I don’t usually go out for a run when it rains, I made a point of running in the rain, just to see how it feels. It felt great and I would love to do it more often.
This run brought the distance to cover in 2021 to 1600 miles.
Day 194 – 07/13/2021 – 1596/172 The second run of the week and it was the repetition of the first one.
I got up at around 7AM and got myself ready to go out for the run. It was around 7.30AM when I started running and wanted to make sure I get home by 8.30 for the breakfast. I completed 4 miles around the DOGE loop and it felt great (just like yesterday).
This run brought the distance to cover in 2021 to 1596 miles.
Day 196 – 07/15/2021 – 1592/170 The third run of the week.
The only difference between this run and the previous two runs of the week was I went out in the afternoon for this run. The Sun was doing its job quite fine as I had to run in 85F temperature. I knew it would be a tough task to run in such a hot weather, so I told myself to keep the pace very slow so that I could see myself completing 4 miles of running. I must tell you that it was difficult to complete the 4 miles, but was so glad when I did it. There were a couple people out, jogging and walking, and were encouraging me whenever I crossed them, which helped to appease the pain of running in the hot temperature.
This run brought the distance to cover in 2021 to 1592 miles.
Day 197 – 07/16/2021 – 1590/169 The fourth run of the week and I made sure I go out in the morning for this run.
I got up quite late today, so decided to complete only 2 rounds of the DOGE loop. I wanted to take things easy and slow today and be back home before 8.30 for the breakfast, which worked perfectly for me. The 2 rounds didn’t see long today, as I am habitual of completing 3 rounds in the neighborhood. The familiar faces greeted me on my way and got to know a couple of neighbors who were Ford retiree. It felt great to be a part of such a nice and welcoming community.
This run brought the distance to cover in 2021 to 1590 miles.
Before you go, please check out the week number 29 highlights. I finished 14.5 miles this week, bringing the distance to cover in 2021 to 1589.6 miles, that’s 9.46 miles every single day for the remainder of the year!
The inspiration for reading this book came from Morning Brew newsletter. I am a fan of Morning Brew newsletter. I usually don’t like to read long emails, but this newsletter has been an exception and I always look for something which would help me improve. In one of the emails, they mentioned reading this book and being an ardent Jeff Bezos fan, I wanted to give it a shot and I must tell you that this book didn’t disappoint.
The important reason that I went for this book was that it depicted all the recent things about developments at Amazon. Even though I have been following the company for quite some time, I was more interested in knowing some of the behind-the-scene facts which common people are mostly unaware of.
The best thing about this book Honestly, it is very hard to pick one best thing about this book. This book is filled with countless examples of exemplary leadership techniques that Jeff uses everyday at Amazon. I am having a hard time to mention one thing that I thought was simply outstanding, but for the sake of it, I will mention his decision of *not* mentioning the revenue of Amazon Web Services (AWS) on their quarterly earnings report and simply mentioning it as “Other” with a record profit.
When I read about it for the first time, I really wanted to make sure that I was reading it correctly, because I had never heard anyone doing it like that before this. I think it was a really smart move to not show how profitable and lucrative cloud business can be to Amazon’s competitors, namely Google and Apple. By not mentioning AWS revenue by its name on the quarterly report, Jeff made sure nobody knows about AWS and its revenue, which only goes on proving that you just don’t have to be smart, but act too. Amazon had to finally show the “Other” revenue as AWS profit when it eclipsed more than 50% of the total profit made by Amazon. It was just a little too late for Amazon’s competitors.
Why you should read this book It is not only about the business lessons that you get from this book, but a lot of life decisions too. For me, the business lessons have had more impact than the life lessons from this book. I was fascinated by the countless instances that the author has mentioned in the room about the various board meetings and how Jeff and his S (senior management) team came up with products. The biggest product that they came up with was Amazon Echo and devices. The author showed the picture of the whiteboard Jeff drew to showcase what he envisioned an Echo device to be. It didn’t only show how creative Jeff can be and how easy he makes his team to understand his vision without any beaurocracy. Apart from discussing the initial vision, the book also tells us how easily he delegates to his team and how much trust he puts in them. There are very few cases where Jeff micromanages about something.
It is always Day 1 This is the biggest learning I experienced during the entire book. Almost on every page of the book, the author mentioned various stories which related to Jeff’s Day 1 philosophy. The example of the world’s first Amazon Go store, Amazon’s expansion in the Movie business with Amazon Studios and Amazon video, Amazon’s expansion in the international markets such as China, India, and South America. The zeal with which Jeff carried out each individual project and tied them back to AWS and basic Amazon principles is simply amazing and makes you understand how he really thinks and why he deserves the title of “World’s richest person”.
Before closing, I would say that if you tiny bit interested in knowing how Jeff works and thinks, you must give this book a chance and read a few pages, because once you start, you get hooked to it.
After the Seattle trip, it was time to head to the nearby city of Bloomington in the state of Indiana.
The reason for this trip was that one of my bestfriends from UConn, Nidhi, her younger brother was moving to the US as he got an admit from the University of Indiana, Bloomington. I was really impressed when I got to know about it as it was one of the universities that I applied to but was never accepted.
Nidhi told me about her visit to the city of Bloomington and I immediately volunteered to help her and her brother out with the moving and initial shopping stuff. It was a 6 hour journey from my place and I was too lazy to drive that long, so I decided (for some strange reason) to hop onto a flight and do a car rental for three days. We needed a car to get from one place to another and do some grocery shopping and I was the only one with a valid US driver’s license.
Anyway, the trip didn’t start normally. My roommate Ravi dropped me off at the airport and I was on my way to board the flight, but they had overbooked the flight, so I volunteered myself to get the next flight in exchange of the gift card. After waiting for almost 15 minutes, they told me that they had a spot for me on the plane and I had to be okay with that. The flight took almost 90 minutes to land at Indianapolis, from where I got the rental car and started driving to Nidhi’s Airbnb.
Nidhi’s Airbnb was in suburbs of the Indianapolis and when I arrived, they were all ready and packed to leave for Bloomington. The moment I saw Nidhi and Nitesh (her younger brother), all the lovely memories from Hartford came rushing down to me. I remembered all the cool things that we did during the UConn days and how much fun we had. It was lovely to see her after a year’s time.
After I picked both Nidhi and Nitesh up from their Airbnb, it was time to head to Bloomington’s Airbnb. It took us (what felt like) a couple hours to reach our Bloomington Airbnb and the first thing we did was to get fresh. I laid down a little bit as I needed some rest as we had a busy afternoon and evening before us.
We spent most of the rest of the day exploring the campus and looking at all the cool places. This was the first time I was looking at how campus life looks like in the US as I studied in a “satellite” campus during my time at UConn.
The next day was quite busy. We started our day with the breakfast at the owner’s restaurant. I didn’t have many expectations from the breakfast as I had been to other places and Airbnbs who were good at hosting but didn’t pay much attention to the food part of the stay. I couldn’t believe when I took the first bite of the breakfast. Man, I was blown away with the taste and the way they had put dishes out for the three of us. I still can’t get over the fact that how tasty and beautiful the sausages were. They looked enticing and were certainly more delicious. I would rank them as one of the best sausages I have ever had.
After such a lovely breakfast, we headed to look at a couple apartments for Nitesh. Nitesh and Nidhi had already talked to a couple seniors at UIB, so the only thing I did was I drove both of them around. We liked the first apartment that we looked at and loved Nitesh’s future roommates as well. I could see the older sister side of Nidhi, which I had never seen before, when she asked all those questions to Nitesh’s future roommates. After this apartment hunt, it was time to shop a few things for Nitesh, which didn’t take long, as everything that we needed was close by. I remember visiting Chase bank as well for him to open a checking account, and that reminded me my time at Hartford when I opened my Wells Fargo account.
All this busy afternoon got us hungry quite quickly and we chose a Lebanese restaurant to satiate our foody guts. It was very hard for me to find a parking at the restaurant but somehow I managed. The ambience was quite dark and thought they had put too many things in a small place, but the food was surprisingly good. It was a good way to spend the morning and afternoon with the lovely people.
After the lunch, we headed to our Airbnb apartment to get some rest before our evening outing and a scheduled dinner with Nitesh’s to-be-roommates. I told Nidhi that I would explore the city on foot as I wanted to buy some souvenirs for kids (Aryan & Arnav). When I was buying T-shirts, I saw a couple fraternity guys picking up some sorority girls. Before this day, I had never seen frat guys and sorority girls, so when I saw them for the first time, I was blown away by looking at them and appreciating how beautiful they were. It was a sight I won’t forget and it made me question how many things I had missed until that point in my life.
Anyway, we spent the rest of the evening exploring a nearby lake and doing a small hike, before heading to a Thai place in the college campus. The next day, I was supposed to catch a flight back home and report to work. Even though I spend only a couple days with Nidhi and Nitesh, I thought it was a good way to spend some time with Nidhi as we hadn’t made any extensive plans to meet each other. This was the last time we ever met, so I am looking forward to meeting her again and rejoice all the lovely moments we spent together.
Week 27 was somewhat good. Let’s see what this week has in store for us.
Day 191 – 07/10/2021 – 1604/175 Unfortunately, I could go out for run only once during the entire week. You guessed it right, I ran 3 rounds of the DOGE loop to cover 4 miles. I am not proud of this fact, but I am doing my best under the circumstances. I hope I will be able to run more in the coming weeks, as the chances of getting to 2,021 miles for the year are diminishing faster than the crypto market.
This run brought the distance to cover in 2021 to 1604 miles. Still, a long way to go.
Before you go, please check out the week number 28 highlights. I finished 4 miles this week, bringing the distance to cover in 2021 to 1604.1 miles, that’s 9.16 miles every single day for the remainder of the year!
Week 26 was a bummer, and I am not sure how this week is going to turn out. I guess, we will find out.
Day 179 – 06/28/2021 – 1622/187 The first run of the day and it came on a Monday afternoon, just after I got some free time. The weather seemed a little hot for a good afternoon run and I couldn’t help myself completing 3 rounds of the DOGE loop, to complete the distance of 4 miles. I took almost 8 minutes more than my usual time to complete these 4 miles.
This run brought the distance to cover in 2021 to 1622 miles.
Day 180 – 06/29/2021 – 1618/186 The Tuesday morning run turned out to be better than I expected. I got up around 6AM and instead of laying in the bed, I got up and ready and spent some time reading, before heading out for a run. The DOGE loop has been the only route for me now and I seem to enjoy it, having run more than 50 times on this loop. The 3 rounds of the DOGE loop were 4 minutes quicker than yesterday’s time, so I was happy at that realization.
This run brought the distance to cover in 2021 to 1618 miles.
Day 181 – 06/30/2021 – 1616/185 Today’s runs were quite different than the rest of the days. I decided to take a break after the first round of the DOGE loop, only because of the high temperatures even during the morning time. Plus, I felt a little tired even after sleeping nicely throughout the night. Anyway, after the first round, I took a good 10 minutes rest before going for another round. Unfortunately, I couldn’t finish the second round completely and stopped myself at a mile mark. I wasn’t too proud of myself, but I would take a single mile over nothing.
Today’s runs brought the distance to cover in 2021 to 1616 miles.
& this brings us to the end of June 2021. During this month, I completed 77.8 miles, which is better than the last month, but not something that would help me achieve my yearly goal.
Looking ahead for the second part of the year, I can just hope now that I will get closer to my target. Fingers crossed! 🙂
Day 182 – 07/01/2021 – 1611/184 Thursday morning run was longer than I expected. The 3 rounds of the DOGE loop total 4 miles and today I ran an extra mile to cover up for the lost distance that I couldn’t run yesterday. I think this week, I have been more consistent as compared to previous weeks. About this run, I felt great to let loose and run slower a little bit to cover more distance. I would love to run more like this in future and if I could increase my daily running average from 4 miles to 5 miles, I would be a very happy person.
This run brought the distance to cover in 2021 to 1611 miles.
Day 183 – 07/02/2021 – 1608/183 And this brings us to the last run of the week. It was a morning run (again) and was a great way to kick off Friday. According to the plan, I should have finished 4 miles of running, but limited myself to just 2.5 miles, completing 2 rounds of the DOGE loop. It was a good way to finish the week with a couple of miles under my belt.
This run brought the distance to cover in 2021 to 1608 miles.
Before you go, please check out the week number 27 highlights. I finished 17.9 miles this week, bringing the distance to cover in 2021 to 1608.1 miles, that’s 8.83 miles every single day for the remainder of the year!
Well, it was the first time I was visiting Washington state.
The reason for the visit was an for an interview at the Starbucks Headquarters, which, sadly, I didn’t crack, but that’s okay. Through this, I got to visit the beautiful city of Seattle and had a good time roaming around the Downtown Seattle area.
Thanks to Starbucks, my visit to this lovely city was sponsored by them. I had a rental vehicle from the airport to the city, which, I didn’t really need. The flight from Detroit to Seattle was a breeze. I had these small butterflies through my stomach during the entire journey, as I was too nervous to face a series of interviews. From the airport, it was a drive through the busy traffic and streets of Seattle. The drive from the airport to the hotel was filled with so many things to notice. The most amazing thing for me was seeing the Siren (The Starbucks Lady) at the top of the Starbucks headquarters. It was something that I hadn’t expected and thought it was so cool to show off as the headquarters of a coffee giant.
After experiencing the morning rush, it was time for me to get ready for the series of interviews. I got to my hotel, got freshen up and dressed for the big occasion. I had the file with me with all my documents and felt a little nervousness before heading out for the interview. I parked the car in the Amazon Fresh parking lot, which was right next to the Starbucks HQ.
I was instructed to head to the reception and asked to wait until someone comes and receives me. I waited anxiously for a few minutes and in the meantime I was paying attention to some of quotes that were printed on the walls of the HQ. From the look of it, it came across like a place with a buzzling energy and so many activities. My wait was cut short when the person who was supposed to interview me came and requested me to come along.
What followed after that was the meet and greet and series of interviews with the future teammates and bosses. I will not reveal how the interview process was and what questions were asked, but I would leave with one sentence – everyone with whom I interacted were very kind and respectful of the questions and comments and made me feel comfortable before we got down to the formal interview. I still remember everyone with their smiling faces.
I spent almost 5 hours in the Starbucks HQ, facing one interviewer at a time, with a grand total of 5 interviewers. I was tired and exhausted (mentally) at the end of the day and really needed some leisure time around the Downtown Seattle campus. I went back to my hotel, changed into my informal clothes and set forth for a long stroll around the Downtown campus.
Good that my hotel was at the heart of the Downtown, so I didn’t have to do a lot of walking. I came across so many cool things. I did almost all touristy things that anyone would do in a lovely city of Seattle, but the most surprising thing for me was the Starbucks at every block wherever I went. There were so many Starbucks cafes that I didn’t know we needed these many to have coffees. Anyway, I visited the world’s first Starbucks cafe, which was a good experience and paid a visit to the Seattle Great Wheel. I was in awe of the tall and grand buildings around me wherever I went.
After exploring the area for more than an hour, it was time for me to relax a little bit more at the hotel bar. I ordered food and some drinks with it and had a book with myself to spend the evening. I sat at the bar for more than a couple hours, before I started feeling a little dizzy. I romanticized about working and living in this beautiful city, before heading off to bed.
Week 25 had its ups and downs. Let’s see how this week treats us.
Day 171 – 06/20/2021 – 1626/195 Welcome to the first and only of this week. Unfortunately, as much as I wanted to go out for a run, I couldn’t because of the bad weather and the fact that I didn’t want to go out that much. The weather had been kind of tricky the whole week, making me miss running for so many days in a row. I am not a complainer, but being the first time home owner here in the US taught me so many things during the flooding here in Michigan and constant thunderstorms in the middle of the night. Anyway, the only run of this week came around the DOGE loop. Like all my runs, I did complete 3 rounds of the DOGE loop, resulting in completing 4 miles for the run, for the day, and for the week. I am not proud of this, but I took it as a better outcome than not going out for run at all. Hopefully, the coming weeks will be kind to me.
This run brought the distance to cover in 2021 to 1626 miles.
Before you go, please check out the week number 26 highlights. I finished 4 miles this week, bringing the distance to cover in 2021 to 1626 miles, that’s 8.6 miles every single day for the remainder of the year!
Week 24 was a good one, I am excited to see what I do during this week, as we approach the mid of the year.
Day 164 – 06/13/2021 – 1638/202 Half Marathon #1 of 2021 Today was a special day as I ran the first Half Marathon of the year. I chose NHS for this run as I knew the soft surface of the NHS would help me with the run and it would be kinder to me than the flat concrete surface.
The run started normally, with me giving myself a little pep talk before the run. After running 15 Half Marathons in 2020, I have realized the most important part of running long distances is the mental setup and strength. If we don’t plan before the run, it is very hard to finish the Half Marathon distance, that’s why that little pep talk was very important for me. I realized how difficult it was to run the HM distance when I completed 10K distance. I think it was around this time that I realized I still have more than 7 miles to go for my HM distance. To overcome that realization, I took a good 2-3 minutes break and talked myself into finishing what I started. To make sure I see myself through the HM distance, I decided to go out of the NHS track to change the scenery and have a fresh feeling of running on different surface. I must tell you, it worked like a charm, as the feeling of giving up vanished quickly and I could complete the HM distance in 2 hours 30 minutes. I must tell you it was one of the most difficult runs for me as I had to prepare myself mentally 2-3 times when I wanted to give up and just stop running. If I hadn’t prepped myself, I wouldn’t have finished this distance.
This run brought the distance to cover in 2021 to 1638 miles.
Day 166 – 06/15/2021 – 1634/200 I am not sure how I am going to top the first run of this week, so I am keeping my runs simple and “boring”. Today’s run was around the DOGE loop and as usual I completed 3 rounds of the DOGE loop, to cover 4 mile distance. Depending on how much time I take, I have developed a habit of guessing my pace depending on the time I take to run 4 miles. For 44 minutes 28 seconds, I guessed it would show me 11’05” pace, but got a better output at 11’00” pace. Happy with the effort, especially since the weather is getting hotter.
This run brought the distance to cover in 2021 to 1634 miles.
Day 170 – 06/19/2021 – 1630/196 And today brings us to the last run of the week. As I mentioned, I am keeping things simple and boring. Today’s run was a repetition of yesterday’s and the only difference between the two runs is the time I took to complete them. Today’s run was a minute faster than yesterday’s and clocked in 4 miles at 10’47” pace. Feeling good and looking forward to the last few days of June.
This run brought the distance to cover in 2021 to 1630 miles.
Before you go, please check out the week number 25 highlights. I finished 21.1 miles this week, bringing the distance to cover in 2021 to 1630 miles, that’s 8.31 miles every single day for the remainder of the year!
The idea of reading this book came after I was inspired by my friends Monika and Anupam, who are physicist and after hearing them talk about the origin of the universe and the lovely magical things that go on continuously in this universe. My approach to this book was educational and I really wanted to learn more about our home – the Earth and other planets and stars that are in our galaxy – “The milky way”. I didn’t know that I would learn so many things about our galaxy and other galaxies in this universe.
One thing I will never forget about this book This book blew my mind so many times, but the one thing that I will never forget was when the author NDT mentioned about the Nobel Prize in Physics for creation of LED lights. This was revolutionary in so many ways, but the way the three scientists created the LED lights was a testament to their genius and how important this creation was for the humanity and the way we live. The most amazing thing that I found while reading this story about the invention of the LED lights was that the scientists used the different portion of the light spectrum that is available to the mankind. For me, personally, this was something that I hadn’t heard before, so it just struck to me so much that I am not going to forget it for the rest of my life.
Specialty of the book The second most amazing thing about this book is the storytelling. NDT is quite famous for explaining complex astronomical and physical things in Layman’s terms, which makes it easier to read and consume his books. This book is no exception. The book starts off with the beginning of the universe and as we progress towards the end of the book, NDT correctly points out the time where we are. I think that was a subtle way of saying how much we have progressed since the beginning of the universe.
Why should someone read this book? I mean, if you are interested in knowing how the Earth and our solar system was formed, then this book is worth the read. I enjoyed reading it because I am fascinated about space and science behind the birth of the universe, so I thoroughly enjoyed devouring this book in a week. It is a short 100-200 page book, with a simple language, making it easier to understand the complex concepts in physics and astrophysics world.
stochasticity 