Mon, 22nd Dec '08, 11:45 pm::
Juliet and I are in my aunt's house in North Brunswick, NJ right now. We left Florida on Friday December 19th at 10am and went to see her grandma in Deltona, FL. After that we drove to Atlanta, GA to see my friend Heather and her boyfriend Sean. We saw the famed Bodies exhibition and another very unique but eye-opening exhibition, Dialog in the Dark. I highly recommend both of these, especially the latter. We drove to Alexandria, VA from Atlanta to see my cousin Purvi and her husband Allen. We went to the Botanical Gardens in Washington DC and had some surprisingly wonderful Ethiopian food. We drove next to Philadelphia, PA and chilled with my friend Megan and her husband Chris for a few hours. It was pretty good to see her again after over two years. Finally we drove to North Brunswick, NJ and got to my aunt's house on 11pm on Sunday, December 21st almost perfectly as planned.
Earlier today we went to a local shopping center for a few hours and then went to a pub in New Brunswick, close to Rutgers University. There we had a few drinks with my friends Tamara, Syed, and Arthur. It was great seeing them after a long time and finally we topped off the evening with some truly greasy food from the infamous Grease Trucks on College Avenue.
Of course, the best part of the last few days is just seeing and talking to all of my friends and family whom I don't get to see on a regular basis though we do keep in touch online or over the phone. I'd say the best thing in life is spending time with loved ones and there's no better way to do it than drive 1,500 miles across the country and making it actually happen. By the way, it is 1,500 miles or 2,900 kilometers from the north Indian city of Srinagar to Kanyakumari, the southern tip of India. Next up on our list is New York City, Queens, Maryland, and whatever else may tickle our fancy. It is pretty exhausting but meeting everyone makes up for the tiredness. We still have another 1,500 miles to get back to Florida so we're going to need all of the energy we can get.
Thu, 18th Dec '08, 12:25 am::
After months, I finally got around to taking picture of all our pets. Here is our lovely zoo family album.
Thu, 18th Dec '08, 12:15 am::
As a way to relieve stress from our classes, papers, exams, and work, Juliet and I bought a 1000 piece 2ft x 2.5ft jigsaw puzzle last month. After almost two weeks, we finally completed it on Monday. Here is our Candy Galore jigsaw in all its delicious glory.
Wed, 17th Dec '08, 10:55 pm::
I have an awesome superpower that most people don't know about. It is my amazing ability to trim kitty nails without any sort of violence or bloodshed. I just trimmed the nails of our three cats in under five minutes total - 12 paws, 54 nails - 0 meows, 0 scratches, 0 angry cats. Up next are the sugar gliders. I know they'll be pretty violent but I think we'll all survive to see a brighter day, a day without scratches on our hands and feet, a day when all animals live together in harmony and sing carols and feed the homeless... Either that or I'm going to be bleeding out of every inch of my skin. We'll find out soon.
Wed, 17th Dec '08, 4:55 am::
Sometimes I just can't explain how my physical body works. Fortunately, I've been healthy for a long stretch and haven't experienced any illnesses for a while. Yet yesterday while driving home from work in the evening, I went from completely healthy to completely sick in under five minutes! I left work after a typical day and felt completely normal. While driving, suddenly I started to experience nausea, light-headedness, and motion-sickness. I'm certain it was not something food-related but rather felt like flu. It was pretty cold yet my body was burning up. I got home after what seemed like the longest-drive ever and collapsed on my bed. Juliet slowly helped me move to the sofa after I rested for a few minutes. She had cooked steamed veggies, pasta, and brownies for dinner and fed me two bowls before I asked her to stop. She prepared some TheraFlu for me and then I went to sleep by 8pm. I woke up a short while ago feeling completely healthy!
I'm going to drink lots of orange juice and TheraFlu over the next few days. It's just scary thinking that I went from feeling completely healthy to miserably sick in a matter of minutes. Maybe my body was lacking in some critical vitamin and the dinner replenished it. Hopefully, we'll both be healthy for our trip up north this weekend.
Mon, 15th Dec '08, 7:25 am::
I've been quite busy past few months. My first semester in business school is over and Juliet's done with her exams for now too. This was the first weekend in over four months when we didn't have homework, papers, presentation, exams, or projects due. So we took some much needed time off and went to the Florida Aquarium in Tampa. This weekend Tay and I also launched a new website that we had been working on for two months, The Laugh Button. It's a simple website with non-stop stand-up comedy by hundreds of famous comedians like George Carlin, Bill Cosby, and Mitch Hedberg. You can try the Random Comedy page while you do other work.
Juliet and I are leaving for New Jersey at the end of this week. We're very excited! I will post more details of our travels once we get going.
Sun, 7th Dec '08, 2:25 pm::
My buddy (and best man at my wedding) Arthur just ran the 26.1 mile Las Vegas Marathon in an incredible 4 hours and 11 minutes! Congrats! And good luck for the even crazier race in March-April 2009, Marathon de Sables - a six day / 151 mile race across the Sahara Desert in Morocco.
Fri, 5th Dec '08, 10:45 pm::
We just got back from my company's Christmas party and it was a LOT of fun. This was the first time Juliet and I went out to a social event together and it felt so nice to finally introduce her to all my coworkers and their significant others. We sat at the dinner table with my boss Eric, his wonderful wife Amy (who always makes sure that there is enough vegetarian food for me), and his brother Brian. After some yummy desserts, the casino tables opened up for all employees and each of us got $1,000 of fake chips. Juliet and I mostly stuck to the Blackjack tables and grew our combined $2,000 to over $20,000 in fake money at one point. In fact, we wanted to get back home and kept trying to lose it all but as luck would have it, we just couldn't lose! We bet everything on a single round over and over but kept winning. After almost twenty minutes, we finally lost our chips and having nothing left, bid our good nights and drove home.
This weekend is going to be tough for both of us. She has five exams this week and I have two. So it's pretty much non-stop studies for both of us till late next week. Then we have one weekend to go shopping for supplies and on December 19th, we plan to drive off to New Jersey via Georgia, Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. I'm excited about our long road-trip. More details once the plans are finalized. Till then, it's lots of studies and tons of work.