Diwali

Today was the local Diwali Festival. We have attended this celebration around many times previously. In the past few years our daughter accompanied us, but this year my wife and I went by ourselves as are not cool any more I suppose. At the Diwali last year, our oldest son went with us also as he had just moved into his own house down the road from where they have the festival. What a difference a year makes as that was the beginning of all kinds of trouble for us. This year he is nearly at the end of his Army boot camp and a totally different person from last year, which is a great thing.


For me, this year was the best Diwali ever as we met and talked to several Indian friends the five hours we were there. We went early so we could see the younger kids dance as they are he cutest things ever in their Indian saris. I talked to a co-worker who designed all of the backdrops for the stage and the main logo when we first arrived. I had been wanting to talk to him outside of work for some time. Of course I had to stop by and see the man who we rent all of our Indian videos from as he always recognizes me. It was not that hard in past Diwali ceremonies, but this year there seemed to be many more white faces in the crowd. Next I met the husband of a co-worker who I had met last year at a company Diwali party. As I was talking to him I spotted a next door neighbor of ours when we first moved to this area. I watched where he sat with his wife and without being too rude, quickly went over and started talking to him. We saw him a couple of years ago with his family at another local Indian event but had not seen him since. Right as we were leaving I saw another co-worker who I play cricket with and of course had to stop and talk to him for an extended period of time. For me this is a perfect way to spend an afternoon, talking with Indian friends and getting to know them better. Makes me want to go back to India!

best 3D Flash sites

While I am working on lists, I have to give my top 10 list of 3D graphics sites I have seen:

1. eco da zoo


2. Roxik Max2007


3. Roxik toy


4. Barcinski-JeanJean


5. Fat Man Collective


6. Cheatham Lane


7. Lamberta


8. Cristof Echard


9. Orange 8


10. Mr. Doob depth-of-field

sports day

Yesterday was one of the most athletic days of my life. I played volleyball on my company team during lunch and since we lost the match and I did not do very good, I decided to go for a 3 mile run to "cool" off. When I got home my youngest son wanted to play tennis so we took off for the courts and played for over an hour. On arriving at the tennis court, he noticed the Indian cricket equipment I had in my trunk, so I had to show him how to play after we finished playing tennis. I decided to take off today and not do any exercise as my old body needed a break.

favorite Indian movies

This is the list of my wife and my favorite Indian movies that we have watched over the last couple of years. I still think watching Indian movies are the cheapest and best forms of entertainment on the planet today. We can rent these at the local Indian movie store for $1 each.

Taara Zameen Par
Vivah
Jodhaa Akbar
Bride and Prejudice
Black
Provoked
Eklavya
Guru
Bend it like Beckham
Chak ed India
Dor
Paheli
Veer Zaara
Iqbal
Lagaan
Pinjar
Hum Tumhara Hain Sanam
Swades
Dil se
Pardes
Hum Dil de Chuke Sanam
Fanaa
Dilwale Dulhania le Jayenge
Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham
Nanhe Jaisalmer
Rab ne bana di Jodi

A really good set of links on Indian movies can be found here: Highest Grossing Bollwood movies

beach

It seems like an odd time of the year to go to the beach since it is almost October, but the water temperature was very pleasant yesterday. The two youngest children went with us to attend their mother's sister's birthday party at their grandmother's which is at the beach. That sounds much more complicated than it really is. The kids and I went to the beach yesterday afternoon as it was a perfect day for such activity. When we reached the crest of the sand dunes and looked at the Atlantic ocean, we saw some very large waves. Of course my youngest son was very excited to see such huge waves as he had never seen waves of this size in person. My daughter was a bit apprehensive at the size of the waves. I stood on the sandy shore watching them for around 15 minutes before they came out of the water and insisted I come in with them. I don't recall the last time I had been in the ocean with waves that were way over my head. I think most of the waves had to be over 8' tall. With the powerful rip currents and undertow we lasted 30 minutes before calling it a day. The fight with the waves was a loosing battle. I tried body surfing a couple of times and that was a huge mistake as the waves were so strong that they just tossed me around flipping me over and over several times. The deciding factor on us leaving, beside the fact that we were tired from the fights with the waves, was that my daughter had a huge wave hit her, flipping her several times and making her sea sick. She says she blacked out and felt pretty sick, so we called it a day. Although on leaving my son said he hoped the waves were still big today as he wanted to go back. When we got back to his grand mother's house, we heard that the huge waves were being caused by a tropical depression in the Atlantic ocean. I was kind of wandering why so much of the beach sand had been eroded as it was the very same place my wife and I had been a month ago and yet the beach looked very narrow with a small cliff going down into the water.

virus

Although my middle son had a virus the last couple of days and still does not feel well, a much worse kind of Trojan virus landed on our Windows Vista laptop. It just makes me want to throw it away and get an Apple MacBook. We just don't have the money to buy a new one since most of our money went with my next to oldest son to school in California. I just upgraded my Norton Anti-Virus two weekends ago and somehow it got on the laptop anyway. What made it even more painful was that Norton could not remove it. I clicked the "Get Help" button and put into an on-line chat program. From there, the Norton support person was able to take control of our laptop from who knows where. He deleted all of the temporary files and then rebooted my laptop. When the laptop came back up, it then reconnected him using chat to my computer. Then the virus attached itself to a movie I had made with Window Movie Maker, which I found and deleted it. Then after two more reboots, the virus was gone. I had several tracking cookies that also were deleted that had been plaguing me for a while also. In all I lost two hours of my day dealing with a virus I have no idea how it got on the laptop.

tennis and cricket

The title for this blog entry is a play on words.

Since my oldest son left for the Army all tennis activity has stopped. This weekend all of the sudden my daughter and youngest son and I started playing table tennis again. When we lived in San Antonio we bought a cheap set of paddles and a foam and plastic net. We lost most of the pieces so we temporarily put a piece of wood molding through the foam holders to make a net. We used the dining room table with the extra leaf and even though the corners are rounded we still have fun. It has been over two years since any of us have played but we picked it up quickly again. Of course I have the advantage of having wasted many hours while at VaTech playing table tennis with my best Indian friend. Then when my wife and I met and eventually got married we were either playing tennis or table tennis daily. All of those hours of practice have come back to help me beat my son constantly.

Every Sunday recently I have been practicing my bowling skills in cricket with my Indian friends. Last year I learned how to bat and this summer I am learning how to bowl. Maybe next year I will be able to do both in the same game. Not that I will be anywhere close to doing it the correct Indian way as I spent too many years playing baseball and softball to unlearn those skills. That is not actually the cricket I meant in the title. This morning when I woke up and went downstairs I heard a very loud chirping noise from behind the refrigerator. I hit the refrigerator a couple of time and it stopped but always resumed. I then rolled it out and the noise stopped immediately. I sprayed insect killer around the back wall and the noise stopped, so I went to work thinking the job was over. When I got home from work in the evening the noisy cricket was again rubbing his legs behind the refrigerator. After a rousing game of table tennis my youngest son helped me search underneath the refrigerator and still no noisy cricket was found. I caulked around the back wall where I sprayed in the morning and had finally given up. I took off the back and front of the refrigerator looking for Mr. cricket and was putting the back on, when right on the floor in front of me was a green cricket! The cricket did not survive, but now we have peace and quiet in the kitchen. No more cricket until Sunday when I play my next match.