You know that feeling when you've been driving in the rain for what seems like hours and you suddenly pass under a bridge or an overpass and for a brief moment in time, everything seems peaceful? That's how I feel right now with zero emails in my inbox. For the first time in many months, I have no emails that I need to respond to or take action against. This ephemeral feeling of calmness is why I even remembered to share my thoughts here.

This year has been busier than most. In addition to email-replying and toddler-chasing, my waking moments have been consumed by family-tending, friends-attending, and money-extending. During the few hours I have to myself each week, I swim, pet our animals, and watch space videos on YouTube. A hundred years ago we thought our Milky Way Galaxy was all there is. And now we are "listening" to black-holes colliding a billion light-years away in a universe that might as well be infinite.

When my inbox has 27 emails nagging me to code this or submit that, documentaries about our ever-expanding universe help me realize my tiny, trifling place in the universe. Knowing that I am forever caught in this tug-of-war between family, friends, and coworkers who need me to do things and a universe that doesn't care if our sun goes red giant, surprisingly helps me calm down. News about politics and economy ruin my sleep if I start to care too much. So now Britain voted to leave the EU. It will slightly and indirectly affect me, along with the rest of the world. But you know what else could impact me and everyone else even more? Solar flares that can fry all of our satellites and shutdown our electric grid! Suddenly a few unanswered emails don't seem so bad, do they?

I don't think Hubble, Einstein, or Feynman unraveled the mysteries of the universe just so I could lower my stress but it sure works wonders. Maybe I should write a book on how to maintain a good work-life balance: Work hard, play with your kids, and watch videos about the 10 billion trillion trillion carat space diamond and 10 billion billion billion liters of space alcohol.

I read about 10-12 blogs of different friends regularly and it just amazes me that people who are so much like me, have such different lives and lifestyle. Here are some random excerpts from my friends' blogs, just to show how different their lives are compared to mine. I hope none of my friends mind me putting these on here as they are all publicly available on their blogs anyway. Also, I'd love to read what friends/family of my friends write on their blogs, just to get a different perspective.

Kelly:

WRX with some nice mods. I HAD to go from a dig with him 0-120mph. He got owned. 5.0 mustang. Roll and Dig. Roll he was owned. On the dig I remembered how to drive the first time. Second time I forgot how to drive so he took the kill. LT1 TA with a few mods. We were a dead even match till top end. Then I wanted to walk... but he always cut out before giving me that change. We ran a few times just for fun. 1g DSM with a Super 16g was 3+ cars behind.

Taylor:

As a late college graduation gift, my mother and I will be traveling to a few great cities over the next 2 weeks. Here is my approximate schedule: ... I will be seeing most of the touristy stuff, catching a few concerts (the BBC Proms!!), and taking in some overpriced dining.

Liz:

I'm definitely on the search for an engagement ring--of course i'm not planning on getting married, but if i'm going to have to freakin lie every single day about my marital status, then i might as well rock the ice just for the fun of it I haven't decided if i really want to drop some big money for a nice one, or just buy a really cheap one off of ebay....okay, so the practical side of me is saying to go cheap, but that wont stop me from looking at Tiffany's website, hehehehehe. It's really bizarre, too, my infatuation with engagement rings. I kinda wish they didnt carry the meaning that they do, cuz i would really like a simple diamond ring for my birthday--hell, let's be honest, for ANY day, do i really need a holiday to justify it?

Vu:

Currently, the FIA has rules in place to actually give inferior tire performance, although aerodynamic considerations are much more flexible. Current tires have a mandatory high profile and have four channels cut into the tread to reduce grip and increase slip angles. Aerodynamics helps increase the mechanical grip otherwise possible with a static tire load. For the rules changes, the FIA hopes to increase mechanical tire performance while reducing aerodynamic effects.

Lisa:

There's shooting outside, and one of the new volunteers looks nervous, but we tell her it's "happy shooting". That means the gunfire from a wedding or a high school graduation party- celebratory. It's an ironic phrase, and we say it with a twist in our mouths, but it's the best way to explain. There's been more random shooting during the day in Nablus, since perhaps the past month. We don't really know what it's from, but this is a new volunteer, fresh and a bit impressionable, so we might as well say that it's happy. Let's be happy.

Megan:

pop (grandpa) passed away quite suddenly on wednesday. he was 85. he was one of my favorite people in the whole entire world. i just can't believe he's gone and i'll never see him again. every single memory i have of him is a fond one. when i was born, my parents lived in an old farmhouse - my grandparents on one side and my parents on the other. apparently i would wake up at around 2am every night. pop would get up and take me out of the crib and walk around with me and talk to me until i fell asleep. he was the only one who could get me to stop crying. he was my bud when i was growing up. we'd take long walks in the woods, he'd fix whatever i needed fixing, he'd come to my basketball games, he'd give me lots of hugs and "great to see ya, hun"'s. every holiday dinner, gram would ask me what vegetable i wanted, and i'd always say 'carrots', because i have an abnormal love of carrots. well, pop HATED carrots, and when dinnertime would come, i would tell him to pass his plate, and i'd load them up with carrots, and he'd laugh and put half of them back and then the rest of them on my plate. i'm making carrots for dinner tonight. i miss him so much already.

Tony:

Long veils are beautiful to photograph, but torture for the bride.

Lynn:

I have to be honest, if I were in LA, I would be looting too. I would steal food and shoes and clothing, dog food, water, and if I had a child, diapers and formula for my child. The fact that the governor of LA has enforced a "shoot to kill" policy is sickening. When someone is taking diapers or food, basic NECESSATIES, they should NOT be shot to death. This is ludicrous. And I must say something about the civilians who are shooting at the "help" - this is what happens when people panic. When people panic, it creates chaos. Who wants to be in such disastrous conditions? No one...

"The average blogger is a teen-age girl who updates her friends and classmates on her life, with words and spellings not quite as informal as instant messaging," says this article about a blog survey conducted by Perseus Development Corp. While both these sites look pretty spammy/marketing-junk, I think their conclusion is correct: "Perseus Development Corp. randomly surveyed 3,634 blogs on eight leading blog-hosting services to develop a model of blog populations. The most dramatic finding was that 66.0% of surveyed blogs had not been updated in two months, representing 2.72 million blogs that have been either permanently or temporarily abandoned. In fact, 1.09 million blogs were one-day wonders, with no postings on subsequent days. Active blogs were updated on average every 14 days. Only 106,579 of the hosted blogs were updated on average at least once a week. Fewer than 50,000 were updated daily." - As quoted on PreSurfer.

I guess the fact that I update my 'blog at least 5 times a week makes me either very deligent or extremely bored :-P Hehe. What can I say, I have about 30-50 people who check out this site every week and 7-10 people who see it almost every day. I might not have a large audience but at least I have a dedicated one. And of course someday when I'm rich and successful and famous, the ones who keep in touch with me will get diamond-studded doorknobs at b'day gifts :)

More interesting thing I found out about the Diamond article - the Choksi family: "One such group - headed by the Choksi family - bought a $35,000 batch of preliminary Gemesis research stones last year and is currently selling them in India at a 10 to 20 percent profit." I'm pretty sure they are refering to Ruchi's family. She's my cuzin Purvi's best friend and I've met her a lot of times. I know they're extremely rich and in the diamond business. I gotta verify this fact though. Sweet nevertheless.

I'm still reading the Diamond story and must admit it's one heck of an adventure. The plot involves a US Vietnam General, genius Russian scientists, top diamond cartels from Belgium, corporate executives from De Beers, research scientists from Univ. of Florida. Add in a little blood and you have a Hollywood blockbuster!

Belgium... My friend Arpan is in Belgium right now. I talked to him just a few days ago. He's in the diamond business too. Still learning the tricks of the trade but he's honest and hard-working, so I'm sure eventually he'll hit the diamond mine :) Shout out to Arps! Hey buddy! Hope life's good in Antwerp.

Diamond, you see, is now the geek's best friend. Companies like Gemesis are now mass-producing real diamonds (yes real, not artificial/American) for extremely low prices. Good news is, this is good for computers, esp. semiconductor industry. Can't wait for my diamond crusted AMD Athlon XP 5000!

Last night I barely saw the fireworks. Cuz well I was driving and as usual, got lost - this time, in the infamous Jersey City at midnight. Yeah, don't do this. Ever. Phew I'm just glad I made it back. Took me over 2 hours to get back home. But it's not because I'm a bad driver or anything, but mainly cuz all the exits to the Jersey Turnpike were closed for some reason and we (My cuzin Sneh, her friend Vic, and myself) had to drive allllll over Jersey City before we made it home. But hey, the fireworks were definitely worth it. We saw 3 different displays for about 25-30 mins and I got to drive for over 6 hours!

This morning my aunt left me back @ my bunker. I miss living @ home. I swear! And I know this sounds really corny but my aunt is definitely the best aunt ever :) I am literally her son. I love her sooooo much. I talked to her for a while and then I became all homesick. So I called up my parents and talked to them. And my rich diamond-jewelry-buying sister. Yeah she just bought herself more jewelry, kinda like this. Damn rich people! Hehehe...

Anyways, now I SERIOUSLY have to work. No, SERIOUSLY. So ya, no 'blogging for a while.

Haven't 'blogged in two days now. Yesterday, we went to Alta Ski Area, where only skiers are allowed - no snowboarders! Phew. Snowboarders usually interfere with skiers and go in weird random ways instead of predictable S-curved ski paths. Anyways, going down the slopes of Alta was probably the best 6 hours of my life ever. It was soooooo amazing I can't even explain. There was this one part right before I reached the bottom, where I was skiing down at approximately 30 mph (50km/hour)! My legs were shaking so hard I felt like I needed knee-suspensions just to hold myself steady. Hehe. And best of all, I went on the Black Diamond tracks with Purvi & her friend Alan. I fell a couple of times on the soft powdery snow (and it didn't hurt a bit) but I think I glided through most of the track pretty smoothly. Come on, Blue Squares & Black Diamonds on the third day of skiing? That's almost a World Record! I have a new (and expensive) hobby now and looks like I'm gonna return here every winter :) Let's hope at least.

Anyways, now I gotta wait a whole year till I can ski again :( But hey, it'll be totally worth it. We're not gonna go ski anymore in the next two days (got lotsa other exciting stuff to do). So anyways, after skiing yesterday, we got home, had a nice dinner, and then went to Salt Lake City Cafe and just chilled with Purvi's old high-school friends till 12 midnight. Then we rented a funny movie: Super Troopers from Blockbuster and watched it. The night before we had rented Ali. Ali's an ok movie, nothing remarkable. So that's like 4 movies already! Oh and yesterday I finally met Priya's friend Leah after talking to her online for over 6 months now :)

I woke up this 'morning' @ 12:30 pm and showered. Then we all went to a great Pizza place and I had the Five-cheese Tomato Pizza. Best. Pizza. Ever. After that we went shopping and I bought one nice expensive sweater-type t-shirt from J-Crew which looks kinda like this, but with stripes (I'm actually wearing it right now as we speak, since we're going out soon). And then we went to Barnes & Nobles and I bought myself three science-related books. Two of them are about the future of science and what the world famous scientists expect to happen in the next 100 years. And the third book consists of short anecdotes in the lives of famous scientists. All cool stuff that I love!

And now we're going to some famous Chinese restaurant within a few minutes. While I love Chinese food, the soy sauce messes up with my blood pressure often (because it is extremely high in the salt content). So I think I'll stick to noodles and low-soy items. All in all, this is quite possibly one of the best vacations ever. No tension, no work, no pending websites to finish, no big bills to pay except the expensive stuff I bought today! My shopping budget was exactly $100 and I spent exactly $99 today. So I have one more buck to spend on anything I want :) But then you can't get anything these days with a buck (other than a 20-minute phone call).

Oh and I got two more clients. That makes it a total of six clients waiting in line = 5 to 6 months of continuous business = good stuff :) In a weird sort of way, I can't wait to go back to Jersey and start working on these sites, especially since I haven't designed a new site in over a month now and I'm getting impatient. I want to make some really awesome sites now, kinda like Brighton.

Ok, gotta leave now. Chinese food is calling me. Hehe.

I LOVE SKIIIIIIIIIIIIING!!! Oh my God! I had sooooooooo much fun today skiing (again @ Brighton). And here's a little secret for you: I AM STUPID! Oh yes oh I am. Guess what! I made the stupid mistake of asking someone (who said he did not speak English) where the Green Circle (easy-level) slopes were. So I followed in the direction he pointed and I ended up on the extremely steep Black Diamond course (hardest-level). Now the interesting thing about skiing is that there is only one way and that is down! It would have been impossible for me to go back to the place I started from. So scared and petrified as I was, I just took a plunge and skied down the slopes. But guess what? I didn't fall or slip or break a leg or anything! I literally skied down the first 1000 feet without stopping or relaxing or falling :)

For a second, it felt like I owned the mountains. Of course, in the next 500 feet down I fell twice and managed to get snow in all my clothing. Hehe. But it was just sooooooo much fun. And of course, being 'intelligentically' stupid as I am, I went on the same Black Diamond course 5 more times and fell 6-7 more times (after all, this was my 2nd day!). Overall, I think I can tackle most ski slopes now. Unless they are Double Blacks or something, I can manage to rhythmically shake my hips and glide my way down ;) Hehe.

To see how far up the mountain I went, see this map of the slopes. I took the Crest Express and the Snake Creek Express (the two highest trails)