I have vague early-childhood memories of my parents and their friends hooking up wired remote controllers to an old black & white TV in the early 80s to play pong. I never got to play it but soon after we got a handheld pinball video game that my sister and I loved, similar to this Nintendo. I was never good at it but it was fun. Few years later we borrowed a ZX Spectrum from a family friend for the summer and played JetPac. This was around the time PCs were becoming common in India and I got to try out the original Prince of Persia. My friends were playing Contra on NES but I never got into it.

Few years later we got our own PC, a brand new Intel 486 DX2 with 8MB RAM and 500MB Hard Disk, and over next few years my sister and I played so many games on it from Gods and Jazz Jackrabbit to Aladdin and Lion King. As I was still pretty bad at games, I discovered the wonders of Game Wizard, a background app that allowed me to freeze the number of lives I had so that even after my character died, I could play over and over again without losing. I made a few simple PC board games around mid 90s but didn't really go down the gamedev path. Then Wolf 3D, Doom, Need for Speed, and Terminal Velocity came out and my cheating apps didn't help.

After I started coding business systems in late 90s, I stopped playing games. In early 2000s, during my college years, I only finished one game, Splinter Cell because a good friend of mine, Chris, loved it and gave me tips. My favorite part of Splinter Cell was that I could save and load any time. So I would save right before I entered a room full of bad guys and keep loading the saved game until I managed to shoot them all without dying. I was terrible at it but I finished it without needed a modern Game Wizard cheat.

In 2005, I came across Falling Sand Game and loved it. It was more of a toy than a game but I'm fairly certain that when I decrypted the Java code and resized the tiny game to be full-screen, it launched the genre. I didn't write the game but I'm pretty sure I pushed the metaphorical "GO!" button and I think I also came up with the name itself. Other than this, I don't think I played any games until after I married Juliet and we tried Portal. It took us a few weeks but we loved solving the puzzles together and finished it after much effort. I listened to the Still Alive song from the game for months after. We tried Portal 2 a few years later but never completed it.

I rarely played games on my phone but Juliet tried a few ones like Candy Crush. Then my parents got me into a few word game apps but it was under 20-30mins per week. When Naveen turned 4, I installed Terraria on his Kindle and he started playing it. Couple of years ago I bought Oculus Quest and tried out Beat Saber and enjoyed it until our living room was once again overtaken by baby toys.

Last year we started playing a few games together on the Apple TV and during the initial lockdowns, Naveen and I got into Oceanhorn 2. We played it all summer and when the game was over, I was crushed because it was such a great experience just sitting in the living room with kids, looking for hidden treasures to collect on-screen. Thankfully for Naveen, he and Juliet started playing Sneaky Sasquatch soon after and I believe they are still exploring that game 9-10 months later today.

Earlier this year, I bought the new Xbox Series X and we all started playing games together again. We absolutely loved Call of the Sea and What Remains of Edith Finch. I finished Gears 5 on my own, with Naveen occasionally telling me to "go there" or "pick that up" from the sidelines, but the experience was nothing like when we played Oceanhorn because Gears is not really a kid-friendly game.

I haven't started a new game with Juliet yet but after trying out a LOT of different games, Naveen and I finally have a new game we love to explore together, Outer Worlds. It is a surprisingly feature-packed game with so much to explore, ton of player customization and upgrades, and great story-line and interactivity. Naveen uses his experience from Terraria and suggests how I should modify my gear, barter items, or select newly unlocked perks. We haven't finished it but we've explored a lot of the game already and can't wait to see where it goes.

Three decades after getting my hands on a video game, I am still terrible at them. I can barely fight an enemy boss without half a dozen attempts to save and reload. I often get lost and have to go into the same rooms and hallways repeatedly just to find my bearings. And despite all of it, I thoroughly enjoy playing video games, especially with family. I miss the days my sister and I would stay up all night just to get past one tricky level. Now I get to relive those exciting moments and nerve-racking emotions again with Naveen in every new game we try, and someday maybe with Leela.

Books, films, TV shows, and music each have their own place in my heart when I want to engage in passive entertainment. Board games and outdoors adventures are wonderful for active entertainment. But video games for me hit the perfect spot as a blend of both active and passive activity and best of all, since I am so bad at them, last for weeks and even months! And I think it is this prolonged participation in each particular game that leaves such deep, wonderful memories in my mind. Because when we're playing a new game, I am living in that world for a long time, unlike a 2-3 hour movie or a few evenings worth of reading a good book.

I have watched every Marvel and DC movie made in the last 20 years, most of them multiple times. Last summer we spent over 120 hours playing Oceanhorn. That's twice as long as all of these movies combined and then some. And best of all, I spent every single one of those hours engaging with Naveen, asking him why he wants to go there or pick that up, letting him come up with the winning strategy, working with him on his decision-making process. Sure, at the end of the day it's all just games but we needed the escape from reality when Juliet was alone in the hospital after her diagnosis of MS. And now while we await the results of her secondary, possible diagnosis of Myasthenia Gravis, I'm just glad that Juliet seems interested in playing Fallout 4 next.

Today I went paddleboarding for the first time when we went to the local beach for one of Juliet's friend's husband's birthday party. The Gulf is finally warm enough to swim in and Naveen had a blast playing on the sand as waves came ashore. Before we went to the beach, I played table-tennis with my dad for an hour and then jumped in the pool for a couple of hours. Six hours of Florida fun in a single day!

Tomorrow my mom's brother, Ruskin Mama, and his family are flying down to Tampa. We'll hopefully go to some touristy places and get some pre-summer shopping done. It was cold for far too long. I'm glad summer is almost here.

Today was a fantastic end to 2015. I spent the entire day outdoors with Naveen. We went to a local nature preserve and saw a variety of birds, fish, crabs, and even a few water snakes. We took a nice long walk on the boardwalk and then played in the children's playground. Afterwards, we had some ice cream to cool off, followed by a lazy, hour-long lunch at a local Cuban deli. Post-lunch, we met up with my friends Kelly and Chris at the beach for some sun and sand. Their son Cameron is slightly older than Naveen and the kids played in the sand while us parents kept them from eating it. Once Naveen had his fill of the beach, we drove home, cleaned up, and got ready for a nap. Just then Juliet came home from work and as soon as Naveen heard his mommy, he forgot all about the nap.

Last week I took a few days off from coding so we could have a relaxing Christmas with family. We put up our Christmas tree earlier this month and spent quite a few evenings reading to the baby by its soft light. We recently bought a Nintendo Wii U and Juliet and I have been playing lots of mini-games after we put the baby to sleep each night. We're coming up with a new routine that works for all three of us and while it's taking some effort to get used to, it's definitely much better than the crazy, no-sleep life we had for most of this year.

I don't have any major resolutions for 2016 but I do want to keep up the progress I've made this year with my health, leisure, and social life. So instead of a specific goal like "go to gym 5 times a week", I just want to keep being active, attend more parties/events, take more vacations, and overall get better at planning how to spend the little free time I have.

Last night at 11:30pm, I got home from a superb kayaking trip with 60 paddlers down in the Florida Everglades. I found out about the trip on the Green Wave forum and immediately decided I'm going. Friday evening after work, I got home, strapped my kayak on to my car, packed some food and clothes, and headed South. I never have to pack anything other than food and clothes because everything I could never need for camping and kayaking is already in my car at all times - US/Florida Atlas, tent, sleeping bag, pillow, beach chairs, beach umbrella (eh eh eh), kayak paddle, seat, straps, paper towels, and a plastic bucket for wet clothes and trash.

I passed Everglades City at about 11pm and found my camping site in a few minutes. I setup my tent and went to sleep. I could hear frogs croaking all night in the wilderness. I woke up at around 6:20am and drove over to the Everglades Park Range Station kayak ramp near the south tip of Everglades City and met a bunch of people putting in at the same time. We paddled about 6 miles to Indian Key out in the Gulf. We meandered to many a coves along the way, catching glimpses of porpoises, herons, and ospreys. Linzy, Lindsay, and I walked around the island and saw an amazing number of whelks, conchs, tulip shells, and dried corals. There was a big lunch grill but I don't like to eat much during long hauls. After lunch, we paddled for a few miles, found a small strip of sand on a mangrove island, and shored our kayaks. A quick dip in the water cooled us three down for the rest of the paddle. We got back to the put-in at about 3:30pm. I went back to my camping site, showered, checked out, and headed back to Triad's in Everglades City for dinner.

It was pretty neat talking to a bunch of young and old kayakers about their favorites places to paddle to. I sat across from a retired captain and his daughter Jen. Many of the older kayakers are into paddle-fishing and while that's something I don't do, it was still interesting to hear them talk passionately about it. I met a few guys that actually designed these kayaks and write articles for kayak magazines. The funny thing was that I've been to more places than many of the seasoned pros mainly because I like going to a new place every time. Oh and the old captain paid for my dinner and I didn't even know or got a chance to thank him! They left early so later when I asked for my check, the waitress said "oh you're paid for."

I drove home, threw the trash, hung out the wet clothes to dry, and went to bed. Today will be yet another lazy Sunday.

The Falling Sand Game I am hosting on my server is attracting over 30,000 different people each day to my website. Kinda interesting. Till Dec 25, about 200 people a day visited different pages of "chir.ag". Now in just 4 days I've had over 9,000 people check out my maps and over 25,000 people check out this page (my blog). The good news though is that my server's able to handle all this amazing amount of traffic without showing any signs of slowing down. After being linked on Digg, Reddit, Delicious, MSNBC and tons of other popular websites, I'm kinda proud of my little server holding up just fine. Head over to my /tech blog to read more about Little Servers, Big Performance.

I generally don't have the patience to play video games or puzzles. But I found an awesome one: Sand - Draw lines to alter the flow of various substances. Via Fark.

Pictures of Katrina's Aftermath.

Talking to random people online and offline in last few days I've realized that are there are lot of people who say "Oh I'm not watchin the TV or any news because it's too depressing." What they really mean is that "I am burying my head in the sand to ignore what's going on in this country because I am a coward." I think if something like this, i.e. the largest natural disaster in almost a century, doesn't move you, then you are a heartless monster. This is a time to help, to donate whatever you can, to show support - NOT to ignore and hope that this goes away and the news media can finally go back to reporting important things, like missing white teenage girls on Springbreak-Islands.

These same people today who are blocking all news and instead watching re-runs of "Everybody loves Raymond on TV are the ones who were glued to their TV-sets on Sept 11, 2001. Why? Because what if the terrorists attacked their little town in the middle of nowhere?! So they studied the news, read everything there was to know about Osama Bin Laden, and after extensive research miraculously concluded that waging a war on Iraq would stop all future acts of terrorism on the American soil. I'm sorry but the sheer stupidity of the common man is something that always amazes me.

Everyone was so up-in-arms about everything going on after 9/11, the invasion of Afghanistan, the "War" on Iraq. And now? Nobody cares! Why? Because well, we don't get hurricanes in Maine. Or Wisconsin. Or wherever these people happen to be. It is a sad day when apathy rules. From the common man to the Federal Govt.

Had an awesome time today at the beach. Lynn and I sat in my cool new sand chairs and had some good food. We couldn't see the sunset because there was a thunderstorm coming so we got back home. Watched Gothika (mad scary) and Boat Trip (pretty funny). Pretty chill day :)

Homeownership is lotta work man. I woke up at 7:30am because the security system guy came a bit too early. Now Brinks guards my home 24/7/365 :) I got free installation with glass break monitor, fire alarm, carbon monoxide monitor, motion detector, and three door monitors. Not that I feel unsafe in my house without this security system, but it's just that if I'm not here and something bad happens again, I don't want my kitties to be in danger.

It took the guy about 6 hours to set it all up and then I decided to finally clean my laundry washer and dryer. The previous owner of this house was nice enough to leave me both for free but oh man, were they nasty! There was soooo much grime and filth inside the washer that it took me over two hours to clean it up! But now, I'll have clean clothes once again :)

Homeownership is a lotta fun too. I'm a kid when it comes to playing with water hoses. I bought a flat and a coil hose last week and finally got to use it today. I'm all drenched right now because it's so hot outside and I ended up spraying water all over myself.

Anyways, yesterday I also bought two beach/sand chairs, a beach umbrella, and an ice cooler. I'm gonna go watch the sunset at Treasure Island Beach in about an hour - the sunset is at 8:30pm but I wanna just kick back and relax for a few hours. When you live 2 miles from the beach, every weekend is a mini-vacation.

7 minutes and 5 seconds - that's how long it takes to drive from my house to the Treasure Island Beach free parking lot on 124th Avenue. It takes less than four minutes to get to the paid parking lot on Madeira Beach. I went for a quick stroll on the beach and also to check out the grocery store closest to me, which happens to be half-way between my house and the beach. The water was quite rough but since I didn't feel like going in to wet my feet, I just sat on the shore and relaxed.

I love the beach, the ocean, the sand, the smell of salt-water... And now, at 7:00 pm I could be in my house and at 7:10 pm walking on the beach. It's great.

OH HELL THAT WAS STUPID! I just got back from jetskiing with Brian and I gotta admit, this was THE MOST STUPIDESTESTEST thing I've EVER done! Let me take you on a long journey, deep into the mind of someone as retarded as myself.

So we get into the Tampa Bay around noon and the winds gusts were easily around 40-50 mph. It was very hard to get the jetskis into the water as they kept being blown off on to the sandy shore. We looked around and there were about 2-3 other cars on the beach and just one windsurfer guy in the ocean. The water was amazingly choppy and the waves were about 3 feet in height. Quite frankly the first hour of jetskiing was simply awesome. The weather was rough but it was so exciting.

Things got more fun after about an hour and a half when the waves suddenly got twice as high! I was jumping the jetski from one six-foot wave crest to the next constantly. I don't think it is possible to explain in words how much fun that was. Brian and I kept going back-and-forth right next to the Courtney Campbell Causeway - Rt. 60 when I noticed in the distance, a big black wall of feeder band coming right at us. It was gonna hit it soon so we decided to get out of the water. We turned the jetskis around and all of a sudden, BAM! The rain pallets hit us so bad that my scalp still hurts after over 2 hours! It was absolutely impossible to stand out in the open and visibility was reduced to less than 50 feet.

We rushed towards the shore and put the jetskis on the trailer behind his huge SUV. The rain got stronger and the wind gusts were almost ripping the road signs off their poles. And that's when his truck got stuck in the sand! The back tire kept spinning and dug deeper into the sand. We got big pieces of stones and tried to jam them under the wheel but no luck. Guess it was time to call a towing company.

We called over ten local towing companies and each of them had a waiting period of over an hour, some as much as three hours! And it was gonna cost us a pretty penny to - at least $250! Just to get his stuck truck out of the sand! $250! Guess the demand's high during a hurricane and supply is low. We kept calling one towing company after another but then after no luck, we decided to do something ourselves. The reason why his truck was stuck was because the jetski trailer was filled with water and pulling 700-800 lbs out of the ocean was too much. So we went out and unhooked the jetski trailer which by itself was a major feat. All of a sudden, a Good Samaritan drove up in his huge construction truck. He asked us if we needed help and we looked at each other and said "HELL YEAH!"

It took him about 20 minutes to pull Brian's truck out of the sand and considering the fact that the back wheels of the truck were under almost two feet of ocean water, it was quite an accomplishment. We got out and we got stuck again! Since the chain from his truck to Brian's was still in place, it took only a few minutes and some pretty big jerks and pulls to get his truck out again. And then just as quickly as he had appeared, the guy took off and disappeared from our sight. All we know is that he was from some local construction company whose name probably starts with the letter "T" - it was raining too bad to actually keep my eyes open for more than a few seconds.

Back on the road and finally breathing normally, Brian and I just couldn't stop laughing. Oh my God! This was absolutely the stupidest thing to do in such a weather! But thanks to some kind-hearted random soul, we got off without any injuries or monetary losses. At one point, we were sitting in his truck just wondering how long it'll take for his truck to be pulled into the ocean, because it was certainly possible.

Obviously, throughout the ordeal, we both made sure that our personal safety was still the #1 priority. I even had my life-jacket on during the whole time. We weren't really worried about ourselves, but mostly his expensive and tricked out truck along with two jetskis on a trailer - all of that could've very very easily been sucked into the Tampa Bay within a matter of seconds. All we could've done at that point is stood on the shore and sighed. But, nothing bad happened :) Brian is at his home and I'm at mine with Giga playing with my toes. I even picked up a large pie of pizza on the way home and just finished eating it.

I think while we were going through all of this there was something else that was going in the back of my mind - something about how we take our secure lives for granted. During bad weather like a hurricane or a thunderstorm, we sit sheltered under our roofs, watching TV and eating warm foods, oblivious to the fact that the distance between everything and nothing is just 6 inches of wood or cement. Out in the ocean, pushing and pulling my hardest to unhook the jetski trailer from Brian's truck I realized how close to the raw power of nature we really were. One big gust of wind and a few waves and everything would be pulled into the ocean. One minute we were having the time of our lives riding one huge wave after another and the next minute we were shouting in horror as his truck kept sinking down into the sand by the second. And just like that, a few minutes later we were back on the road, on our way home - safe 'n sound and it didn't cost us a thing.

You know I always wondered why those retarded dare-devil skiers went down the most dangerous snow-covered peaks because they inadvertently cause avalanches and have to be rescued. Same goes for almost every outdoor sport that often result in emergency 911 calls. I used to think that these people must be REALLY stupid to not know the dangers and risks that lay ahead of them. Today I think I understood why. We didn't go out thinking this was going to be just another day in the ocean. We absolutely knew of the risks and decided that the fun we could have in four foot waves would be totally worth it. We got more than we expected when we faced waves taller than me! The thrill of jetskiing in a hurricane was absolutely worth every risk we faced. And if we had a video camera, it would look someting like this but instead of a surfboard, it'd be jetski. Thankfully, Tampa Bay is not a big ocean but just a small bay with land on three sides. Hence there wasn't much danger to ourselves of being pulled into the ocean and ending up in say, Cuba.

Well, I don't think I can ever forget an experience like this. I'm hugging my kitties a bit more tightly today.

I've been reading interesting material on psychological acoustics, physical and granular sound synthesis, real-time DSP for audio, and almost anything else related to generating sounds. My research topic is synthesizing the sound of footfall on snow, sand, and wooden surfaces. If you don't hate Java Applets (or better yet have Java Web Start), you can check it out for yourself and let me know if it sounds anything like sand or snow. I'm sure everybody's going to agree that the boardwalk sounds almost real. The sand is pretty decent too but I still gotta work a bit more on my snow :) Not a big problem because I got plenty of it right outside my bunker.

My biggest problem now is of course trying to render the sounds of water. Liquid sounds are pretty damn difficult to simulate.

Art bought me 100lbs of sand for my research today!!!!! Thanks soooooo much :)

I just spent 30 minutes walking on the snow for no apparent reason. Well there's a reason and I'll explain that later. Last 24 hours have been extremely blog-worthy. I don't remember so many different things ever happening within such a short duration. Almost every problem I had yesterday seems possible to solve now. Yesterday I went to the Goldman Sachs Internship Presentation on campus. Between 6:30 and 8:30, I got a good overview of what working in the corporate world after getting out of college could be like. While I was quite intimidated in the beginning during the DVD presentation, later after talking to the recruiters, things seemed a lot more homely. Goldman Sachs is one of the largest investment banking firms in the world and being a Computer Science and Economics major, I could either join the Technology sector or the Banking sector of the company. Obviously I'm leaning towards the tech side.

After talking to a few people from different divisions, I met with the Technology guy, who talked to me for about 25-30 minutes. While they were looking for 2nd and 3rd year college students to intern at GS over the summer, he said if my background is strong enough, I could be considered for a full-time position. At the end, I gave him a copy of my resume (or MS Word) and after getting back to my bunker, emailed him a copy just-in-case. Today I got an email from him saying I need to be more descriptive in my resume and explain which platforms and languages I used for which systems/applications. Here's a tip he gave me: "When applying for Tech-jobs, don't pay attention to the 1-2 page limitation because we want to hear EVERYTHING that you know." So now I'm going to release an Extended Edition of my resume and send it over. I wish I had read these resume tips before.

While waiting in line to talk to him for 30 minutes, another interesting thing happened. This cute 18yr old Russian girl standing behind me started talking to me. While she seemed really nice and all, in my head I kept saying "don't be distracted by a girl - you are here for a job!" After 15 minutes of polite small-talk though, she said she loved computers and wanted to get into the Technology field ever since she was a child. She doesn't party a lot and would rather read a good book or go to a museum instead. That's when sirens went off in my head. Whoa there lady! You're young, pretty, quite intelligent, like to learn new things, AND love computers? That's a first one I have to admit. During my talk with the Tech guy, she stood right by me and she asked a few questions herself. Afterwards we walked out together, she took my cell# and AIM screenname. I'm not sure if she'll ever call or IM me, but hey at least it was an interesting incident. Maybe I'll run into her on a bus sometime. But for now, all I know is her first name is Ally.

Three days ago after reading some whiny British students say how hard it is to pay tuition fees of £1,125 a year, I posted on Fark that my debt is so much more than them and the job market doesn't look good at all. After reading my post, someone emailed me to say he's hiring people with C++ experience in Texas. Now my first reaction was "haha funny" but I emailed him my resume anyway and today got a phone call from his Human Resources Dept. I have a phone interview this Monday at noon. Till about one hour ago, I wasn't too keen on this deal, till I Google'd the guy's name. That's when I got a little shock. Unless the guy who emailed me has an identical twin living in the same city and doing the same tech work, I think he is someone quite quite famous. A little bit of Googl'ing showed that he wrote this chat software and sold to Apple for $25 million! So let's see if it's the same guy or not.

And finally I met with my research advisor Prof. Dinesh Pai and he suggested a few things I could do. One of the topics I liked was sound synthesis. That is why I walked on the snow for 30 mins. Prof said that I could find a way to generate the sound that is made when a person walks on the snow. Right now when movies and video games have people walking, it's mostly recorded sound. What if I could write a software that automatically simulates the sound based on a few conditions like the type of shoes, thickness of the sole, weight of the person, amount of snow (or sand, gravels, pebbles), and the type of surface like wood, cement, concreate etc.? Well if I can actually do it, that would be awesome. Now I have about 3 months in which I can either do it or fail trying. I think I'll do it. I'm optimistic.

So that ends the eventful 24-hours. Now I wait for a few hours and will prolly go to the bars with Kat. Haven't seen her for a loooong time now.

It's been a long time since I blogged. So what am I upto. Studies, work, select friends, and books. Ah books. Growing up, I used to devour the books my dad read, mostly works by Jeffrey Archer, Sidney Sheldon, and John Grisham. After I discovered computer manuals, help files, and FAQs, my interest in books dwindled. Last semester I took a class that got me interested in books again - Trauma & Literature; albeit a very different genre of books. This weekend I completed a book I'd been reading for over 2 months, Everyone's Burning by Ian Speigelman. Now I'm reading Andre Dubus' House of Sand and Fog.

This being the senior/final year, most of my friends are busy with their classes/homework so it's hard to hang out with them. Moreover, I have evening and night classes and work during the day. While it's great for me, since I get enough free time for studies, work, sleep, and just relaxing, it's hard to meet up with people and chill. I see Arthur every other day, just to chill, since he has a lot of free time in-between his classes. He gave me a ride to my aunt's house to pick up some of my client's mail. Then we went to an Indian food store and I bought some maggi for him. One by one I'll get all my friends addicted to it. And while my friends are gonna get fat eating Maggi, I have healthy lunches - today I had some good Chinese fried rice with tofu and vegetables. Since I have enough money to buy me mostly any food on/around campus, I have to be really careful with what I eat, especially if I get sick, there is nobody to take care of me on a daily basis. So I watch what I eat, but then people start thinking I'm on a diet. Look what Kathleen just said online with regards to my memory and eating habits: "You're an elephant with an underweight disorder. I'm calling you my anorexic elephant friend." But then just 2 hours ago I was with Cher eating some yummmmmmy french vanilla icecream, though only a single scoop.

I knew food would become a slightly bigger part of my life once I started living alone and well it has. I care a bit more about what I eat, when I eat, and how much I eat. But I never though cleaning would become anymore important. It is. I dust my room every other day and clean my bathroom once a week. What's my point? I'm turning 23 in 2 weeks, and finally I'm acting like one. No more excess drinking, eating, sleeping, working. No extremes - I'm becoming 'Fair and Balanced'. Hehe.

Anyways, my studies going on good. I have homework due tomorrow, on Wednesday, and on Monday. I already did the stuff for next Monday! Well simply cuz it's computer graphics and something that I absolutely love. Homework for tomorrow and Wednesday is pretty interesting too - mostly programming with a few question/answers. Nobody likes to do homework, but this is the first time I don't absolutely hate doing my homework - mainly cuz it's not repetitive or boring, rather interesting and creative. And as usual, my work's going awesome. I got one website to complete as soon as possible and got a new project for my university that I just started this morning.

Everything's going decent in my life right now, EXCEPT the weather. It's September and raining here as if it's the monsoons. Now I have nothing against rains, in fact love them. However I live 10 feet below the earth in well-sheltered bunker. I can survive a nuclear blast but I don't think I can easily survive Ms. Isabel - a Category 5 hurricane that could hit the US East Coast quite hard in a week or so. If by some misfortune the Raritan River in New Brunswick floods all the way to Easton Avenue (my home), I have no idea what I'll do. I'll probably move all my stuff (and trust me I have a LOT of stuff) out to the first floor of our house but it'll be a lot of work. So I'm keeping my fingers crossed.