trip down memory lane

Today I drove with my two youngest sons around town looking for BMX grips. We went back to a store we had frequented so many times in buying skateboards and accessories like shoes called Endless Grind. The bike store above it was closed so we had to find other bike stores in the area. Since we did not have my son's GPS, I had to rely on my unusually super sense of direction to navigate the area. My middle son told me that his electronic generation was too dependent and had lost sense of direction. That was true in more than one way! It was interesting to think back to being in that very same store ten years ago with much younger little boys. In roaming around the area we finally ended up in Sk8-Cary Skate Park. We actually went there when they first opened in 2001 as the three oldest boys all skateboarded. It just so happened that today they were having a BMX competition with some locals and professionals. It was very cold but we stayed and watched the first round since we were shopping for BMX equipment anyway. It brought back memories from the past and we made new memories all at the same time!

lessons in life

This has been an interesting few weeks as of late.

This week has not been the high point in my life. I have been learning Squash during lunch breaks the last month. This week, in my eagerness to learn from multiple people's different styles and suggestions, I played too long and somehow hurt my back. Not the best timing since I am due to leave for India in a couple of weeks. I did manage to get my 50 Year Adventure web site up and running while resting with a heating pad on my back. I decided to use Host Monster to host my book web site. I also moved my Attentive 2 Design web site there also, since I can host as many domains as I want for a flat $5.95/month. I was already using it for another private NGO web site that I help maintain. That is the good news that happened while having a pain in my back.

Today I finished reading King of Bollywood: Shah Rukh Khan and the Seductive World of Indian Cinema by Anupama Chopra. My wife and I saw it in the reduced section at Barnes & Nobles a couple of weeks ago. The first chapter alone is worth buying the book as it explains what Bollywood is all about. It tells a story about how a man in rural Georgia won the lottery when he got to go up on stage with SRK when he came to Atlanta. What a great story!

A couple of weeks ago I attended a high school reunion in Virginia. My wife and I stayed with my sister, who we seldom get to see. We had a great time talking with her at night and on Sunday morning after the reunion on Saturday afternoon. I attended my 20th high school reunion but this one was the 31st and was much better. I really wanted to talk to as many people as I could since I had just finished my memoirs and the memories were still clear. Most of the people I attended school with from kindergarten to high school were present so I had fun catching up with them. My wife wanted to know why it seemed like everyone of them had been my girlfriend at one point in time - I guess that is life in rural Virginia! I found it interesting that my close friends from high school had little in common with me now, but I had a deep bond with those I grew up with in Churchville. It seemed like I had grown wild, changed a lot and then came back to where they had never left. Most of them were so dependable that I would trust my life in their hands. How that is what I call a true friend.

One of my childhood friends who lived behind me told me about the man who he bought sheep from to raise on his farm. He had only one leg and I cannot remember how he lost it. He had a huge sheep farm which he worked on himself. He was also quite wealthy and traveled all over the world hunting wild game. He had two large single story houses just to hold the mounted game he had killed. He never let his disability get in his way. My childhood friend looked to his two boys and said "Remember that the only limits we have are those we place on ourselves". What a great profound statement stated so eloquently from such a simple person who I am glad to still call a friend. Some days I think I try too hard and think too much and I greatly admire such a person very much.

sleepless night

I am really unsure what happened last night. I have been waking up at 3 am for many nights now. Last weekend I did not feel very good so I took a 2 hour nap on both Saturday and Sunday. Yesterday I took another 2 hour nap and that energized me to finally finishing editing my book around 3 pm. I then raced around the yard finishing the mowing in a record time of around 1 & 1/2 hours. Today I will have to go back over it and collect the extra grass clipping spread all over the yard, but at least it is cut! Last night my middle son and I went out to eat Indian food at Udapi. I have no idea what happened but after chatting with my son in California for a while about his MacBook "x" battery problems, I finally told him around 9:30 pm that I was tired and needed to go to bed. I am not sure I ever really feel asleep last night and finally at 4 am gave up and got out of bed. Maybe it had to do with my wife and two youngest kids returning home this evening. I have no idea but will definitely be taking a nap this afternoon after my Sunday morning cricket match.

These are some of the things I kept thinking about last night:

1) I really like this thought provoking comment about the Taj Mahal in India: "The typical was used to create the outstanding"

2) Somehow this thought kept coming up "I firmly believe that each of us has a unique reason to be alive, part of our pilgrimage on earth is to find it."

3) I have talked more with my middle son while my wife and other kids have been gone than we have ever talked in his whole life, which is a great thing. We were talking about what makes a skilled laborer when we thought that my oldest son, who is a wonderful artist when the urge hits him, would be a great tattoo artist since he has been getting many tattoos lately.

4) somehow I thought of this list of sports activities I have done in the last year at work either at lunch or after work:

Cricket, Volleyball, Wallyball, Racquetball, Sqash, and Tennis

In the past I have also played the following at work:

Basketball and Flag Football

The only sport I want to try one day at work is:

Ultimate Frisbee

Stone Mountain

While my wife and two younger kids are having fun on a Princess Cruise to Scandinavia, my middle son and I decided to go hiking. I have always wanted to visit Hanging Rock State Park or at least hike up Pilot Mountain State Park next to it. Yet again I did not go to one of these as we decided to visit Stone Mountain State Park instead as we heard it had some waterfalls. Once on the park trails it reminded us both of the area where we last saw waterfalls earlier in the summer. Just when we were getting tired we decided we had to see the actual Stone Mountain while in the park. When we reached the grassy open field to see it we did not to expect such a huge granite rock mountain. As we looked closer we saw people at the top and some tiny little people climbing up the side. We went to the very bottom of the rock face and saw ropes that people were using to go up the 600 ft rock face. When I looked at the park map, I saw there was a trail that crossed the top of the mountain. Since we had to backtrack to get back to the car I suggested we try the trail so we get on top of the huge rock. The trail map said it was a strenuous climb but all we saw was a series of never ending steps. The more we walked up the steps the harder it became until we had to stop a couple of times to rest. It was all worth it when we reached the top as we had a full view of the Blue Ridge Mountains in all directions. I wanted to stay on the 2305 ft mountain top forever and just soak in the beauty that GOD created. We did not have a camera or else I would have taken a whole roll from that point. I did not find any posted on the internet either that fully captured the scene. I included a couple that I did find. I need to move back into the mountains and forget the city life.

photos of kids

photos for book

book photos

785 miles later

For the long 4th of July weekend we decided to take a trip to the western part of NC to visit waterfalls that we did not see in our last waterfall trip two years ago. It was a five hour drive for the three of us as we decided it would be a guy only trip. We finally reached our first destination at 3pm. The last time we had reached Panthertown Valley it had started raining on us as we got out of our car and after a short walk we gave up and returned to our vehicle. We were determined to actually see waterfalls in this park and we found around ten vehicles parked on the dirt road to the main trail. We reached Schoolhouse Falls after a long walk and there was another family in the water with the father and grandfather fishing below the falls. It was only after talking to him and showing him the map we had did we realize where we were in the park. He told us where to go to see Warden Falls as it would be possible to reach that and have plenty of time to return. The hike was pretty steep in places and when we reached the falls there was camping equipment scattered all over the area around the base of the falls but no one was around. We decided to go in the water since we were pretty hot. After swimming across the pool we walked up the side of the falls and found the moss under the water really think and spongy which was so nice on our tired toes. We also noticed how soft our skin felt and I could see mica and fool's gold particles all in the water and the sand around the falls. I tried sliding down the lowest part of the falls and bruised my tail bone, but it was a great remote place to relax and enjoy the beauty around us.



Once we got back to the car after the long walk back we decided to see one more group of waterfalls before nightfall on the way back to Brevard, NC. We decided to take a short sidetrack to see the French Broad river where there was a group of rapids around the Cathedral Falls. We had written down directions before leaving as otherwise we would have never found them. We were the only car at the small gravel pull off on Highway 215. There are a series of falls right next to the road with a small dirt path leading to all of the falls. Our favorite was called Bird Rock Falls and we stayed as long as we could climbing around the rocks going down the river. After a full day we headed back to Brevard and found out that both of the hotels were completely full, but the person in the Hampton Inn told me they had rooms in the Etowah Country Club and gave me directions on how to reach it in the dark as it was around 9:30pm. We decided to eat at the Brevard Pizza Hut, which was the very same place we ate the last time we were in this area after learning that the hotels were full. When we reached the country club they had plenty of rooms and so we settled in for the night. In the morning as looked out the front door of the hotel room I saw the two golf green style croquet fields in front of me. I did not even know such things existed in the USA! The night before one of my sons had walked on it and thought it was spongy astroturf.


It was a tough decision the second day on where we should do. One of my sons wanted to go to Sliding Rock, but when we got up and felt how cool the air was outside we talked ourselves out of that morning cold shock. We decided to eat at the Huddle House for breakfast and then head to Gorges State Park which was west of Panthertown Valley. The hike was not as remote as the one the day before to Warden Falls, but it did seem to go forever. We saw several people walking back on the trail even though it was 10am. No one else was going in the same direction so we began to wonder if we were going on the right path, but there was only one path and we kept going. A couple hundred feet on the top of a ridge I asked the people coming down if we were close and they said we were. When we saw Rainbow Falls from the railed overlook we were all amazed. It was the most spectacular waterfall we had ever seen up close. We crawled down the rough dirt path to the bottom of the waterfalls and decided we should get in and go for a swim. The water was quite cold but the boys went in first. After they both got in and started swimming, I dove in from a near rock and swam over to the cliff. It was cold but not unbearable. We stayed for a long time to enjoy the cold water and marvel at the falls. It was hard leaving but there other falls in the area we wanted to see. It turned out that both were disappointing. We actually stopped in the parking lot for Whitewater Falls but we were too tired to make the walk even though I tried to force the boys out of the car to see it. On the way back home we stopped to see Looking Glass Falls right outside Brevard as we had seen it before. The problem with that waterfall is that it is so easy to get to that it is always crowded. That ended our 4th of July waterfall adventure trip for the summer of 2009.