Contd....Tsunami...The Killer Wave

When the waves hit the different parts of South-East Asia....they have had some devastating effects.....thousands have been killed (at the time of the post the death toll is abt 1,00,000 and is still rising).....and millions have been rendered homeless...the scenes that I have been watching on the television for the past few days have been very very shocking and sad....I saw some amateur videos on CNN and CNBC which showed the Killer waves hitting Thailand and Indonesia....the sheer force with which they hit the coast was mind-boggling. The other fact that the wave travelled as far as Somalia and caused devastation there is even more mind boggling as Somalia is 6000 KM from the epicenter of the quake !!!!!!

I have read a lot of amazing survivor stories...and every story is a miracle in itself....though I watched only the images of the tsunami on the TV...I can say that the survivors were those with luck and determination to fight against all odds (u need both to survive such a disaster)....the TV coverage on the tsunami has been very extensive....i am glad that i am able to follow the situation so closely...thanx to CNN and rediff.com....

The fact that such huge waves went undetected for most part (a US Pacific lab claims to have detected the tsunami)....is very very shocking. I guess Mother nature reminds us time and again....how ever advanced the technology can be....how many ever inventions man has made....she is still in control of the earth and we cannot deny that.

The Pacific lab that claims to have detcted the Tsunami...says that they didnt have the contacts of the concerned people in their address book to warn those countries....are u kidding me ??????.....how hard is it to get the numbers or email addresses???? if not anything...atleast they could have googled for the numbers...and I am sure they would have found 100 of those......this could have saved many lives!!!!! I am not saying that it would have saved all the lives...but even saving some lives is as precious......what if the life saved was that of ur beloved one ??? wouldnt u have been grateful ???

one more incident that read on a blog on rediff ..... when DD (Doordarshan) was asked abt when they would be airing the next update on the Tsunami...guess what the answer was????...."How can we air an update in the middle of a cricket match !!!!!we will air the next update after the Cricket Match between indian and Bangladesh"....can u belive that??? is a cricket match more important that giving updates to the families and realtives ofthe people that were effected by the killer wave???

the aid has been flowing in from all directions....but is it too late???? u never know....atleast we know that people in the world are trying to help those hit by the Tsunami...that is very very encouraging...people all over have been sending in food/clothing/medicines apart from the monetary aid and volunteering....

someone aptly put it.....on the first day of such an adversity the victims need..food and shelter.....on the second day clothing....third day medication...finally relocation and rehab....I guess we are into the medical attention and relocation mode right now.....

seeing all this i was wondering....how come soo many people were killed in only one incident when 4 hurricanes one after the other in Florida was resposible for 14 lives ???? I saw a lot of things that were in favor of the US....they are very well prepared for these kind of adversities...i am not saying that they are prepared for a tsunami....but i am sure that they will not be hit as badly as they crisis management and emergency management organizations are very well trained and are upto the task....unlike the countries that have been hit by the tsunami..it clearly shows the amount of effort that US puts into these ememrgency drills..the fact that they (effected countries) are among the most densly populated places in the world..doesnt help....it only made the effect of the tsunami more severe with lot more lives at stake....

to be continued......

Tsunami.....The Killer Wave

As most of u know that South-East ASia was hit by the tsunamis (killer waves) in the early hrs of 26th....people had just finished their Christmas celebrations....Kids were on the beach and the streets playing cricket etc....the fishermen were getting to work....women were out mending the fishing nets and helping the men go out into the see....hundreds were on the beach for their early morning walk and jog.....people in the tourist places were out to beat the crowds to the beaches....the businesses on the beach were abt to begin in full swing.....but all these people were unaware of the danger that was brewing the depths of the Indian Ocean !!!!!!!!!

Earlier that morning a 9.0 earthquake had hit the shore of the Sumatra Island in Indonesia....taht itself had caused a lot of devastation....people from India will remember the quake that hit Gujarat abt 3 yrs ago....its after effects cans till be seen on the streets of Gujarat whre people are still trying to get over the personal and financial losses that the quake had brought...

This quake in Indonesia seemed to have shocked the world by its magnitude as 9.0 quakes are not commonly seen....the one in California in 1986 was much smaller than this one...so u can imagin the magnitude of destructiion it can cause. Tsunami is a tidal wave that is caused by quakes close to the shore or in the ocean....the quake caused a disturbanc eon the ocean floor which develops into a huge wave that is only 1 meter in the ocean but travels at 500 mi/hr (near to the seep of jet)....it travels very fast in the deep waters and slows down considerably when it approaches the shore...the bottom of the wave is slowed down by the sloping (elevation) of the ocean
floor as it approaches the shore...but the top of the wave keeps traveling at a greater speed and accumulates water so it rises to abt 20m in height as it reached the shore with millions of gallons of water.....when it hits the shore it hits it with such force that it can literally destroy everything in the vicinity.....

example....if a tidal wave of 90ft(~25m) height hits the east coast of Florida...it can travel across Florida....flooding the whole state!!!!!!!!!!!! and drowning most of it

the waves that hit Srilanka were abt 40ft high, those that hit Chennai were 20ft and those that hit indonesia are speculated to be abt 60ft high...so u can imagine the amount of devastation these can cause....

to be continued..........

Saga of the Cleveland Browns

I recently attended a talk of Terry Pluto...leading sports journalist in the US and the probably the best sports writer in the North-East Ohio area. I used to read his articles in the Akron Beacon Journal (when I used to subscribe it, I dont anymore....newspaper is a luxury in student life...hehehe). He, like most of us, is an ardent fan of the Cleveland Sports teams and is very disappointed with the unsuccessful sporting history of the teams....Cleveland Indians havent won a world series since 1954, Cleveland Cavaliers havent even reached the NBA finals ever (for most of the people who dont know much abt Cavs....its the team Lebron James plays for) and the Cleveland Browns havent won anything in the past 25 years....so basically all the sports fans in Cleveland are longing for some kind of Success of these teams and the closest or the only glimmer of hope is the impressive run of the Cavs so far this season and I atleast hope that it transforms into a Playoff Season!!!!

Cleveland is probably one of the few cities with teams in all the Professional Sports....NBA,MLB and NFL...and it has got a tremendous fan support and sporting history. The Cleveland fans are considered to be the most enthusiastic crowd (as there are only a few things to cheer for these days) and its sad to see that these wonderful fans are disappointed day-in and day-out by the lacklustre performance of the sports teams.

Terry pluto has written books on the Browns, Cavs and the Indians but his favorite topic is the Browns (who doesnt like football???). He talked abt his new book False Start ...that was based on the bad choices made by the NFL when Art Modell left Cleveland with his team to become the Baltimore Ravens!!!!!!

I learned a lot of things abt the transactions that took place in that period between 1995-99...and how the Cleveland Fans got shafted...by the then owner of the Cleveland Browns ..Art modell....demanded a new stadium for the Browns with the City money and since the City of Cleveland rejected the idea he was pissed and left with his team to Baltimore which built a new stadium for him.....so much for the fans feelings!!!!!!

Terry mentioned that the NFL didnt take any actions against Art for leaving the city on the contrary they proposed to set up a new team in Cleveland as they knew that the fans in Cleveland are so crazy that they will pay to watch anyone play!!!!! so the whole point here was for the NFL to make the most out of the oppurtunity to make (more) money. The price that the currrent owner of the Browns paid was abt $550 million when the rate for taking over any franchise was between $300 - $350 million ....the LA Dodgers were then sold for abt $325 million and everyone expected the Browns take over to be abt the same price.....but the NFL increased the franchise take over cost and in a way ensured that the next person to buy a team (which happens to be Texans) will have to atleast pay that amount....this was a smart move by the NFL to make more money.

Usually, when a team moves out of a city, the city is up for grabs for other teams to move in within 900 days but when Modell moved his team out the NFL let abt 1500 days pass by before letting another team come to cleveland....this way the owners of the other teams could blackmail their respective cities to build new stadiums....as they could say ""Build a new stadium or we will move to Cleveland!!!!".....to support this argument there were atleast 5 new stadiums that were built or were agreed upon in that period of 5 yrs.

A new franchise is usually given abt 3 yrs (Texans were given that period)....to prepare for the opening season....but the Browns were given only 11 months!!!!!! that too with countless restrictions.....the head Coach Palmer was asked to hire the personel for the team but the restrictions from the NFL were:

U cannot approach an Asst Coach of another NFL team
U cannnot hire anyone that is on the roster of another team
U cannot sign any player that is currently signed with another team

now with these restrictions even the best possible coach like Parcels would have found it difficult to put a team together....so Cleveland Browns were put together by gathering Coaching Staff that was either fired by other teams or from the College level....the players were drafted from the Expansion Draft where in the teams will leave the extra baggage (dispensible players) and Browns picked them up....now with that kind of coaching staff and players I dont think its fair for any one to have high expectations from the team.....there was nobody in the Club house with any experience of putting a team together. can u imagine what a fair draft or hiring process or preparation time would have done to the browns team???? it could have been a play-off contender by now!!!!!!!!!!

As expected the Browns were annilated by the teams and we fell to abt 2-14 and Palmer was fired....in comes the hotshot coach from the University of Miami....Butch Davis...but seeing the plight of the browns he had insisted on being the incharge of the hiring and draft in short he was Coach/GM.....his first season here he did wonders by leading the Browns into the playoffs as he was still Coach Davis but the last couple of years the Coach in him was over shadowed by the GM Davis and his team fell apart...as a result we finished 5-11 last year from 9-7 record of the previous season......and this year were are on our way to finish 3-13.....now tell me what kind of expectations should the Browns (Cleveland) fans have from their teams????

The Indians tooo are falling apart with the last survivor from the 90's team....Vizquel....being traded....there ended the golden era (partially)...we atleast reached the World Series.....of the Indians and we are rebuilding again!!!!!!

Cavs are the only bright feather in the current Cleveland teams thanx to our local boy/hero....Lebron James....it has been a treat to watch him on TV....i have been following this kid for the past 4 yrs since he was a Sophmore in HighSchool....he was a Phenom...Pluto had been wirting abt him since and I have seen this kid grow from a Highschool star into a NBA Phenom....he is a great guy....unlike the other younger people in the NBA...he is level headed and knows to move with the right crowd and not take part in a crappy rap song full of gangsters (u cant claim u were innocent Anthony!!!)....

well all in all...being an ardent and die-hard sports fan of the Cleveland teams I hope there is a turnaround in the fortunes of our team!!!!!!!!

Earth Sea

I eagerly awaited the mini-series on the Scifi Channel...Earth Sea....I was very much thrilled by the previews and had the expectations similar to LOTR....but I guess I was expecting tooo much from a normal TV series.....LOTR trilogy is once in a lifetime classic...it doesnt happen everyday.

Anyways, back to Earth Sea...it was a story abt this young wizard (they seem to be the most popular guys around in Hollywood now...Gandalf,Harry Potter, Dumbledore.....) who wants to get all the powers ASAp....but as we (those of us in school) all know that never works as it will lead to disasters.....welll thats exactly what happened and he is challenged to calling the spirit from the dead....from the side of darkness...and now he has to send it back else it will devour him and get all his powers and the world will be in trouble!!!!!!!!!

The idea for the min-series was pretty good but I felt that they were trying to put too many things into the 4 hr (2 episodes) series.....they wanted to show the elements of rivalry among young wizards in school (like Harry and Draco in HP) , wanted to show the great burden the wizard carries when being hunted by the spirit from the Dark Side (like Frodo baggins) and he has a fat friend that accompanies him to the mouth of danger (aka Sam wise Gamgee).....there are Priestesses, Men, Evil Spirits, Wizards , Dragons.....etc...in the series.....though it looked great in the previews the original storyline was very thin and never had the punch the movies like LOTR and HP had....

Though it was a disappointment I am an ardent fan of Sci-fi and Fantasy stuff so I watched the series for 4 hrs even in the middle of my Final weeks....heheheheh...and I also ended up writing this post on that series...so I guess I kind of liked it a little bit.

 Some interesting Laws....

LORENZ'S LAW OF MECHANICAL REPAIR-

After your hands become coated with grease, your nose

will begin to itch.



ZADRA'S LAW OF BIOMECHANICS-

The severity of the itch is inversely proportional

to the reach.



ANTHONY'S LAW OF THE WORKSHOP-

Any tool,when dropped,will roll to the least

accessible corner..



KOVAC'S CONUNDRUM-

When you dial a wrong number,you never get an

engaged one..



CANON'S KARMIC LAW-

If you tell the boss you were late for work

because you had a flat tyre,the next morning

you will have a flat tyre..



O'BRIEN'S VARIATION LAW-

If you change queues,the one you have left

will start to move faster than the one you are in now..



RUBY'S PRINCIPLE OF CLOSE ENCOUNTERS-

The probability of meeting someone you know

increases when you are with someone you don't

want to be seen with..



WILLOUGHBY'S LAW-

When you try to prove to someone that a machine

won't work, it will..



BREDA'S RULE-

At any event,the people whose seats are

fartherest from the aisle arrive last..



OWEN'S LAW-

As soon as you sit down to a cup of hot coffee,

your boss will ask you to do something which

will last until the coffee is cold..

Wow!!!!!!!!!! you must be wondering if the picture was taken 20 yrs ago.....it was taken a couple of months ago at a gas station in Akron... 

U think u are modern and savy??? what else can u say abt the modernization in India and abt the cell phone revolution 

Do I need to comment on this picture??? its after all...public transport 

Haystack or what!!!!!!!! to me it looks like Lorry with a Mane :):) 

Now you know what not to do when in College....you shouldnt be in the bad books of the staff members:):) 

waaaahhhh.....Palace on wheels :):) 

This amazing site is only possible in India :) 

We won Volleyball Intramural for the first time in 4 1/2 yrs !!!!!!!

Well....the title of the blog gives away the reason for me writing a blog so soon after the previous post (considering the frequency with which I have been posting over the past 6 months or so)....coming back to the title topic...

Our team "Biohazards" won the University of Akron Intramural Volleyball Tournament...the team...Shadi, Luay (both Jordanians), Sunny Virmani and me....Shadi Luay and me have been a part of the team for the past 4 1/2 yrs....the fourth person has been constantly changing....Jeff, Ninad, Bharadwaj, Mayur,Rajesh,Shawn....have all played for the team but we have never been able to win the Volleyball tournament...we have won wallyball (Volleyball played in a racquetball court)...abt 4 times but never in Volleyball....the closest that we have made it was Semifinals in my first year...so it feels good that we won after 8 tries:):)....I guess the saying "try and try till u succeed" worked for us...this year we didnt go in with any hope but we played well in the league matches that gave us the confidence for the playoffs....we went undefeated in the league and even won the playoff's without losing a game!!!!!!!!!....we lost only one game to team "X" in the league matches and that was a close one too.

We are the final of the Wallyball tournament too and by shear coincidence we are playing the same team in that final ...team "X"...it was some sort of revenge for us when we beat X in volleyball final as we had lost to them in the Wallyball fina last year....now it will be a double blow to them if we can beat them in the wallyball final this Thursday...our team has specialized in wallyball over the past 4 yrs now we can beat a normal team very easily...the dominance has been such that even without me and luay for most of the wallyball games due to my class and his TA assignment we won our games easily with Shadi and Sunny taking care of the bussiness....our only loss in that league came against X but we had only 2 people playing for us...final is going to be a different story....

This year as in the previous yrs we went into the volleyball tournament without any expectations and suddenly we started playing well....with Shadi and Luay in the front court and Sunny and I in the back court we started playing well as a team and won a couple of close matches that gave us the confidence to go all out in the rest of our games....as usual Shadi got fired up and he gets upset reallly fast....even if we lose a couple of quick points his temper gets triggered and I had to calm him down as usual....Luay and Shadi played brilliantly in the front court. Sunny playing with us for th first time blended right into the spot that used to be Rajesh's. Like Rajesh, Sunny also has a good serve in Wallyball but the advantage we got this year was that Sunny has a better serve in Vollleyball too....and this year my serve go better in volleyball so we could do well.

The Final was a close affair with we winnning 25-23, 25-23. This whole tournament was played in Olympic format with rolling scoring like in TT....whether we serve or they...the team winning that rally wins the points and not like in badminton where u can win points only on ur serve...we had difficulty with adjusting in the begining but we adapted to it real fast...the other chnage was that the serve touching the net was considered good rather than foul so we had problems as we were used to leaving the ball once it touched the net...Dhruv, Arjun and Sirish had come to watch the final so we can say that we played in front of a small crowd:)

All of us got shirts and we got our picture taken for intramural website (I will post the link as soon as it is up)...for sunny that was the first and for me probably the 12th or the 13th...but I think I have only 3 or 4 with me as used to give them to my roomies and now to sindhu...I took some of them as gifts to India for my friends and my Sister.....I thought i will win the Badminton tournament for one more shirt but I wasnt informed of it and it was won by a guy whom I can probably beat under 5....anyways, there is always next sem :):).....

At last I write again:):)......

Lot of things have happened since I wrote my previous post....
.....I attended 2 conferences, given 2 talks and presented 2 posters
.....Hemant's Parents had a nice vacation with us and went back
......Baddhu's parents have visited him and they went back too
......Red Sox won the world series
......the 86 yr curse is now broken
.....Phani visited us
.....India lost to Pak again:( in the ICC
.....Ind-Aus series started and we are getting drubbed
.....my poster won an award at the Conference on Campus
.....I have turned in 5 homeworks and 2 COmputing Projects
.....I have given 2 mid terms
......I drove abt 2000 miles
.....the 8 week class that I taught ended
.....I graded 8 Lab Assignments, 2 projects and 2 Finals
......I prepared abt 50 samples of Solutions for my Chemistry Lab (I am a TA)
.....I have debugged abt 2000 lines of code (I am a TA for C-programming)
.....I have written abt 400 lines of code myself in Fortran
.....Akron went from 1-3 team to 4-4 team in Football
.....Ohio State lost 3 games in a row and are out of contention for the National Title
.....Kumble crossed 400 wickets and is Closing on Kapil Dev's record
.....I have fixed my laptop, took me abt 3 hrs taking it apart and putting it back together
.....I have increased my running speed on the treadmill from 6 mi/hr to 6.5 - 7 mi/hr
.....I have started running more than 4 miles for the first time on the treadmill
.....3 presidential debates have taken place
....Rajesh bought a car....Congratulations Buddy!!!!!!!!!
.....tempatures in Akron have dropped by 20 deg F
.....I have played badminton 2-3 times a week
....ISA had Garba and Fresher's party
......I have played TT 10 times more than I had in the past 4 yrs together
.....Amru has bought a house, a great house abt 10 miles from here
.....George (my colony friend) celebrated his first wedding anniversary
.....he even bought his first car...Hyundai Santro Xing
....he got into IIM for distance learning MBA
.....my sister had a surgery and got 3 of her wisdom teeth pulled out
.....I have learned how to use a Chop saw in the lab to cut synthetic bone specimens
.....I havent had a hair cut though!!!!!!!....its long overdue....may be this weekend:)


I guess I have mentioned everything I can possibly think abt....now there is nothing else to write:):).....will post more often from now on:).....have a great halloween....

Ganesh Chathurthi

Last weekend we celebrated Ganesh Chathurthi at Anusha/Pallavi/Bindu/Sumi's house. For the first time in three years this occasion was not celebrated in 277 Torrey which had become the worship place during the 7 days of the festival. We used to have a proper Pandit/Pujari in Ravi Ayyer and now that he is in Cleveland we were left with no Pandits....anyways,,back to our pooja...it was the first time I was going to be involved first hand in the puja....i had just assisted my mom and dad before that....we were going to read the mantra's and the story by oursleves!!!!!!

It was decided late the previous night to do the puja at their place, we were deciding on the prasad and it was finalized that Payasam,vada and Lemon rice would be the Menu. The next day morning Sindhu prepared the payasam (ofcourse under my guidance..heheheh..just kidding), Pallavi made the Vada's and Bindu made the lemon rice...none of us had performed the puja by ourselves without guidance so it was going to be quite an experience for us.

Hemant's parents were happy that puja will be performed and said that they will also come along for it, we were more than happy to have somebody who knows the puja to be present. Now came the things needed for the puja...we had 3-4 Ganesh idols and then we did the prathishta of the god using Haldi, Kumkum and flowers. Then started the last minute running around to get the flowers, vick for the lamp, oil, agarbathi, tape recorder for the arathi casette that hemant's dad had. The best part was all of us trying to figure out which way the god should be facing....no one had a convincing answer....so i called my mom(in India) to find that out. All in all, with all the things in place we started the puja at 10:55 Am...that too because it was supposed to be "Rahu Kaalam" from 11 :00 AM so we had to start the puja. I was asked to start the puja and I had no clue what to do...so started with my limited knowledge and some sheets of paper that had the whole puja procedure, mantra's and the story....but it was in Telugu...so only a few of us could read that...Sindhu/me/bindu....I hadnt read slokas in telugu ever in my whole life so it was going to be fun I thought....I started the puja and had a great difficulty in reading the slokas....but i was trying my best to not to mess the pronunciation....after sometime the slokas became more and more complex and I was making more and more mistakes in reading them....I was having a horrible time.....then came my savior for the day.....Bindu...she offered to read the slokas....though she started just like me....she got better with time unlike me who had gotten worse.....so she read all the slokas and the story in Telugu...and I performed the puja...a lot of people there didnt know the story involving Ganesh-Chandra (moon) and Lord krishna....so we explained the whole story in english and its significance before reading that in Telugu...then Uncle read Narad Mantra/Sloka with tremendous fluency which made me look like a fool with all the mistakes that I had made earlier....then I came home before the aarathi to pick up Aunty so that she can also be a part of the puja.....then we had the "Sukhkartha...." on tape and some more bhajans....in the end we had finished the puja successfully and I was veryvery happy.....it always feels good to worship....thats what I have noticed....when ever I go to the Cleveland or the Pittsburgh temple I feel a sense of peacefulness, calmness and inexplicable joy inside me.....u can call it what ever u want....but I love tha feeling and I have a sense of achievement I did something worthwhile that day......

After the Puja we had some hot-hot vada's with Payasam and lemon rice....the combination of food items was very very good and all of us there....me, Sindhu, Anusha, Bindu, Pallavi, Nisha, Uncle, Aunty, Suresh, Praveen, Vinod etc.....had a hearty meal as most of us had fasted till the time we had prasad (though it was only 12:30 pm by then). Then i went to Canton as a family that I am close to (Sneha and Sharvari's) was also performing the puja in the afternoon....I had nice time there, had some wonderful food (little bit in the afternoon and dinner)...also taught some kids cricket....all in all it was good day......apparently Kumar had also performed the puja at his place and I wasnt aware of that and couldnt make it to his place for the arathi in the evening.

Back to School.....

After a great summer in India and after some matches of Cricket now its time to get back to school and back to the normal grind:(....I had a blast this summer mainly on the India trip and now the past couple of weeks have been pretty busy with the school starting and Hemant's parents visiting us.

Our new Apt looks lively with Hemant's parents in town living with us....they had come last week and ever since its been very very exciting as we have had some awesome conversations and ofcourse the awesome food!!!!!!!!! The first week of school was pretty hectic as I have three TA assignments....Basic Chemistry, C programming and Physics of Heat and Light.....I also have a course to teach...Software Applications....and to add to that I have a couple of courses of mine that I taking to fulfil the PhD Academic requirements....I have never had so many things to do during school....oh forgot my research part:)....I have to take care of my research in my free time (if there is any:)).....The first weekend of school always ends with a long weekend due to labor day so it was kind of an early break from the hectic semester ahead....Sindhu, Nisha and I had gone to Raleigh,NC to visit Amol....we drove all way.....540 miles !!!!...it was a fun trip.

The drive thru West Virginia. Virginia and NC was beautiful with mountains and tall trees....had never driven to that part of the US so that was a first time for me in that area....we were scared that the long weekend would be ruined by Big Brother Frances....but fortunately for us (though unfortunate for all the people down in Florida....) Frances didnt hit NC atleast till yesterday .... when we had gotten back. Had a relaxing weekend...went to an Udipi buffet on Saturday and ran into an Undergrad friend of mine...that was a pleasant surprise and thru him i found out that some of my other friends were working in Raleigh too.....so much for my networking with friends...but got to meet some of my friends who in raleigh for the Long weekend....it was kind of fun catching up with them after 4 yrs!!!!!!!! back to the vacation part.....went to an outdoor mall one evening and played tennis later on....the next day we went to the Carolina Beach ...we had a fabulous time in the water....though we were at the beach only for 2 1/2 hrs we had a great time...the waves were big and we had fun trying to dodge the waves and at the same time not getting knocked off our feet....all in all...we had a nice vacation before the hectic semester in front of us....with me having a busy schedule for the rest of the sem and Sindhu having her Comprehensive exams sometime in October...we will surely look back to the past weekend for memories of fun:)....

Moving to Brown St.......

Well....after a long and frustrating Apt search Hemya and I are moving into university Rentals on 451 Brown St, Apt #4. We are going to close the deal and sign the lease tonight so atleast one thing out of the way.....the house search was very frustrating as there were lots of twists and turns to our approach.

First I wanted an Apt but hemant wanted a house with a porch so that he can drink,smoke and yell at top of his voice over the weekends :):)....we thought of a house on Rentschler St...there was a nice house (old though) with 3 bed rooms and a porch (to hemya's satisfaction)....I thought we found a house !!!!!!!! but then some bad memories of the st haunted hemya (Brijesh had lost his Laptop there)....and the fact that it was close to a sidy kallu area didnt help....all in all that house was out...then we saw some other house but the bedrooms were really small... so ignored!!!!!! Then came the new twist in the story that Miki and Megha & their roomie were also
looking for a house....thus started a house hunt with 5 bed rooms!!!!!! saw one but the landlord didnt seem that great and looked lazy so that was discarded....then one more twist...since we were going nowhere the house hunt miki says "i atleast have an apt but u guys dont have a place after the 15th so go ahead and look for a 2 bedroom apt".....

Then started our last mission of finding a 2 bedroom apt....saw some and liked a couple....one was like a deluxe suit so we were excited...but the price was really high....$775+electric !!!!!!! That was out of my budget....the other house that excited hemya was that the one with a porch....but the bedrooms were too small!!!!!!! so hemya goes home rethinks his strategy and comes up with a figure where he was ready to pay the extra amount that was out of my budget....it would have been a nice place for his parents too!!!!! so we go to the landlord and then find out tha tthe heat is also on electric!!!!!!!! that makes it $100 a month atleast!!!!!!! that put the house out of Hemya's budget too!!!!!!!! Then we finalise on this brown st Apt....the only thing is that it is slightly far from the desi junta....probably 5-10 min walk....but that shouldnt be a problem most of the times as both of us have cars...only Sindhu and his parents will have trouble during the day when we will be at the lab (or work).

This evening we will sign the lease to move into the house by next Friday. Hemya's parents who had put their air ticket booking on hold for us to find an apt can now get the confirmation and we should be settled in the new apt by the time they get here:):)...

This weekend and the next will be pretty hectic as we have back-to-back cricket matches in Cleveland and Colombus this weekend and have a game next Sunday and I will have to move over the next weekend!!!!!!!!.....I hope I will have enough energy to get to the lab the next 2 mondays!!!!!!!!!

One Pic of adi...at his laughing best....this was one feature of both Madhu and Adi that disrupted the play practices....they couldnt supress their laughter and even slightest incident would trigger laughter from one person and the other would catch on....I miss those practice sessions...they were fun 

Adi posing for the last time to Priya as Ayyer oggles adi for the last time in the US:) 

Ayyer and Anil with Adi...