Musings From New York

A Big Round o' Thanks ...

... To Kartik (my brother) for his leet Photoshop skills in modifying the banner image above.

The photo was taken on the rooftop of the Rockerfeller Center this afternoon, on a gorgeous summer day.

Engaged! ... Again!

Yes, again! ... Rather, officially!

What a weekend ... What an amazing, dizzying, electric, terrific and terrifying weekend ... I took 4 days off, but I gotta tell you, between the 8-hour one-way, soul-crushing (not to mention spine-crushing) travel from work, engagement planning, and driving/ running around over the weekend to make sure things were just-so ... boy, I need a vacation!

So let's see, where to begin ...

Friday Afternoon

Most of Friday afternoon was spent in a traffic jam with the world's worst backseat driver, The Lady's sis-in-law ... Nah, I kid, she's really sweet. But I wouldn't be in any hurry to hitch a ride with her, if you know what I mean. We spent a few hours going to a CostCo 3 miles away to do some bulk shopping for Sunday's brunch.

Aparna & Parag (The Lady's cousin, and her husband) had invited the whole group - numbering over 20 at this point, I think - over to their place for an icebreaker, which went on till about 10 or 11pm. An early night for an early morning.

Saturday Morning

Most of our guests had arrived on Saturday ... including surprise last minute trips from The Lady's cousins in San Diego. I have to admit, I wa a little nervous about meeting a few of The Lady's cousins ... I'd been told they were very protective of The Lady, and I might have to face some tough staredowns, games of chicken, or even arm-wrestle them into submission. In fact, they are the nicest bunch of people I've ever met ... a really fun bunch of folks that kinda reminded me of all the hangout groups and cliques in BITS or UIUC.

Saturday morning was the little puja, and the reading of the contracts between my parents and The Lady's parents. Something along the lines that I agree to marry The Lady, and vice-versa. The Lady's cousin - a professor of Sanskrit in Toronto - read out several verses from (as yet unknown) text. Gifts were exchanged, ... bling was exchanged, and the whole thing was over in a couple of hours, and was followed by some most excellent South Indian grub.

Saturday Evening

The main party on Saturday evening. Lots of food, drink, and good company. The Lady's, and my, father gave a toast (which Arjun recorded on the camcorder ... gimme a few days to edit and upload it). We didn't have an opportunity to reto ... umm, reply, as we had to cut the cake and officially declare the party started. Unfortunately, the music system conked out before we could dance much, but we probably got an hour of naach before we had to pack up at 10pm. The "youngsters" then moved over to Aparna & Parag's place and ended up talking, and playing a fun game called "Mafia" till about 2am.

I swear, when I saw The Lady dressed up in that elegant light peach sari ... I really thought I'd died and gone to heaven. She was just ... perfect.

Sunday Morning/ Afternoon

Sunday morning saw a brunch at The Lady's apartment that went on till about 1pm. We changed back into the party wear from the previous evening to go to a studio photographer. I feel guilty about haranguing The Lady's family into this, as they were all obviously very tired ... hell, even I was! But last was probably the only occasion for a long time where both families  were together, and I really didn't want to miss the opportunity to capture the moment.

Sunday Evening

Sunday was The Lady's mother's birthday, and we celebrated by going out to Bombay Club in Harvard Square.

...

And that was it, really. Wound down on Monday, and flew back to New York. My parents and Kartik stayed back in Boston to do a bit of sightseeing, and are set to return today (Thursday). Dad & Kartik leave next Monday, but Mom will stay on till 3rd week of July. It's a pity I'd spend most of that time in Kansas.

A lot of people took photos over the weekend ... I have all the photos except Kartik's. I've picked out the better photos and put them up for all to see.

I'm sure some of you might find this to be a rather dry account of the proceedings. Luckily, I have a backup :-)

PS: A plug for one of the Lady's cousins in SFO ... search YouTube for "nithin guitar"

You know ...

I really am a total sop when it comes to underdog stories, but this story caught my attention especially given my nascent interest in opera. He was a guest on NBC's Today Show this morning, and I was lucky enough to catch the segment in between channel surfing for some news to watch.

The YouTube entry appears to be British, shot after the first round of the competition. He went on to win the competition.

Can you believe Paul Potts already has a Wikipedia entry?! And controversy?!

My Geek Welcome

My zip code is apparently changing. It's due to increased postal volumes going through this area. I realized that it would be the 4th zip code I've had in as many years in New York ... and the geek in me remembered the delight at my first zip code - 10010.

Yup, I was 18, and in New York.

My first opera song

Now you all know by now that my earliest exposure ... indeed, my most frequent exposure, to classical and operatic works was through cartoons, especially Tom & Jerry and Looney Tunes.

Well, this morning, I purchased my first opera track - La Donna e Mobile (literally, Can I have your phone number?) from Verdi's Rigoletto. And I must've listened to it at least 15 times today - seems to be one of those instances where I can't get a song unstuck!

I'd heard it while watching Analyze this last night at 2am, and somehow it made a more lasting impression than all the other times I'd heard it!

On the subject of music, and the classics ... June 1st was the 40th anniversary of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club. Yes, 40 years since pop, rock, and psychedelia were fused into what turned out to be the Western world's introduction to the sitar (yes I know, Harrison featured the sitar as early as Rubber Soul, but not to the extent that Sgt. Peppers did) ... outside of cheesy Indian restaurants that felt it necessary to put up a lone picture of the Taj Mahal.

Why certain other blogs chose not to write a critical piece on the album and it's impact, I'll never know ... instead, I had to trawl through sickeningly sycophantic (ooh, alliteration!) tributes in some newspapers I read.

A little summer cleaning ...

Ozzy the Cat's blog has been removed from the list of Virtual Friends. The blog became inactive 2 weeks ago after several months of silence.

When the Mac Sucks ...

It sucks BAD.

So I bought a new camcorder. Took it with me to Seattle over the long weekend, and shot about 1 hour's worth of footage over the 4 days. I have been struggling with importing it into my Mac, for two reasons:

1. Final Cut Express HD refuses to recognize the camcorder. I mean, one of the things Mac ads boasted about (back in the days of the Switch campaign) was that no special drivers were needed for anything ... it was supposed to be literally plug & play.

2. iMovie does recognize the camcorder (thank the Gods!) but crashes if I import more than 10-clips (or thereabouts), thus forcing me to manually sop and restart capture every so often.

I've spent one hour just getting through all this, and have only imported the footage from Day 1! It's going to take me some time to get all of it in ... the good news is that once I've captured in iMovie, I can open the iMovie project in Final Cut.

What cumbersome process.