Tahoe

Lake Tahoe it was the past weekend. Preceeding our trip to Tahoe was amazing food+movie+games at Uttu+Manjeera's place (kudos to Manjeera and Himani for the cooking!). After we lost SidJon, Deva, and Dina Fri night, the gang that embarked on the memorable journey to Tahoe was: Utkarsh, Manjeera, Atish, Himani, Mallika, VK, and me. As the days passed, the numbers dwindled. First night, the horrendous fateful night, was the campfire night (next was the forest fire night). Next morning we went rafting, and then in the evening to the casino. That's the executive summary.

I'll spare you all the gory details of every minute of the trip, instead just give you samples to convince you that it was all happening there. Beautiful, crazy, wondeful things happened: one among us was christened "handsome retro", VK got a speeding ticket, Manjeera had a coupla milkshakes :), awesome cooking by manjeera+himani, atish fell into the water rafting, Uttu accepted a dare and walked on the edge of the raft while in motion, himani was so drunk and deluded she thought she won a fortune at the casino, videos of VK+uttu snoring were taken, Mallika was caught "playing" with a teddy bear, we got free drinks at the casino, there was an embarrassing restroom episode following anish+mallika getting lost in a 500 mt radius circle, resulting in a 911 call, a graphic story was constructed on the drive back from Tahoe, in addition to lampooning Mithun Da, fortune cookies of atish&himani caused them to want a "shield" in the car, and not to forget, witnessing the taho forest fire in all its fantastic fury. The rest is history. It'll suffice to say it was one helluva trip!

Weekly Tops

Weekly posting of top songs I've been listening to, and movies I saw. In no specific order...

Top Songs:
========
- "She Hates Me", Puddle of Mudd
- "Here I am", Spirit - Stallion of the Cimarron
- "Lag Jaa Gale Ke Phir Yeh", Woh Kaun Thi
- "Chiquitita", Abba
- "Circle of Life", Lion King, Elton John

Top Movies:
=========
- Kill Bill
- Life is Beautiful
- censored... (kidding :P)


If you want your favorite song/movie to appear here next week and/or think I've missed something, lemme know! I'll check em out...

Beijing!

Was in Beijing 9-16th June for SIGMOD 2007. Presented a paper titled "Leveraging Aggregate Constraints for Deduplication" (I know you don't care, but for completeness :). What did I do apart from attending talks and schmoozing with people? Here are some highlights:

(1) Went to the Great Wall, which blew me away. 3000 miles long wall built atop endless mountains, winding all around. No wonder it's a wonder of the world. Hiked up to (the most famous and highest) peak of the wall, got a certificate for reaching there :), and took the cable car back down. Was amazing!

(2) Ate some snake delicacy, lots of roast duck, and several other weird things I don't remember. The snake was better than the cocoon I ate at Korea :D. Oh yes, there was this interesting street in Beijing I went to late at night where you get tons of food on skewers, including scorpions, snakes, starfish, dogs, and more. I didn't partake any of it as I had filled myself to the brim at a traditional dumplings restaurant earlier.

(3) Went to the "Pub Street" in Beijing. A street full of pubs. We had chinese beer in one of them. Was additionally exciting as all four of us were out there very late at night, and didn't know the language. Four strangers left at the mercy of cab drivers, and a piece of paper with our hotel name written in chinese to take us back. The story about our journey from the pub back to the hotel, and the adventures thereupon stay in Beijing!

(4) Went to this street mall were young pretty chicks try to sell you clothes. Don't remember what I wore that day but plenty of the chicks came to me and said "handsome guy", etc :-). Then when I didn't end up buying things from them, they'd say "dirty/mean guy". It's true I'm both (both doesn't stand for dirty and mean, but stands for handsome and dirty/mean!) LOL...

(5) The conference banquet was at the gorgeous Summer Palace. Took a boat to reach this island palace. Saw a traditional chinese (changing face) opera which was amazing. Also witnessed an acrobatic performance by young kids, a Beijing opera, a magic show and more. In all it was wonderful.

Pics of the trip coming soon, so stay tuned.

Blackwleder Ping-pong Tourney Update

The Stanford blackwelder ping-pong tourney concluded a few weeks back. Needless to say I won the men's singles, and VK and I won the men's doubles. Too bad the mixed doubles got cancelled else I'd have been part of the winning team there as well :-)

Anyway, the prize for the men's singles+dubs has given me close to ~$30 worth of Jamba juice, and $15-20 worth of stuff from the bookstore, none of which I've used yet.

Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
And miles to go before I sleep.