First Outing as a Family - Niki, Shivin & I

It had been a while since Niki and I had been on a trip together and certainly never for Shivin in his little time in the world so far!

 

Niki found this place called Wilderness Nest – in the Chorla ghats on the way to Goa, only about an hour’s drive from Khanapur. Was not sure how it would turn out to be, but it turned out extremely well and was a very pleasant stay in the end.

I had just come back from Bangalore after collecting the VISAS and we left after ensuring we had packed every thing that Shivin might need.

The drive was a nice one, but be on the lookout since you might miss it if you are not looking attentively. An open top Mahindra Scorpio transfers you from the highway near the car park into the cottages a kilometer deep into the Jungle.

The view from the room was breathtaking. It is on the edge of the valley and overlooks a very large and deep waterfall. But sadly being this time of the year, there was very little water. Large floor to ceiling glass windows and a nice balcony made it even better.

 

Lunch was good and very traditional Konkani food. Served in earthen ware, it was a decent spread and was good. The Solkadi was very refreshing & amazing!

 

A nice relaxed lunch followed by spending some time sitting beside the swimming pool which was an infinite pool with a great view. But!! But!! The water was freezing and only Shivin had the enthusiasm and the courage to enter the water. The kid loves water and enjoyed playing in it while I held on to him! J

I took a nice little afternoon siesta while Niki Shivin and Mummy went exploring the Mehendi art etc.

Evening we went on a short hike of 30 minutes to the sunset point. Golu fell asleep on the way and it was a nice walk on a steep path, but guess I needed the exercise. However, the view from the top was amazing. Deep valleys, a nice glowing-red setting sun and a nice winter early evening breeze was heavenly. Hurried back before it would get too dark in the treeline.

The special event for the evening was a folk dance by some local women. The ladies must have been in the late 40s and 50s, but their fitness and agility would shame even the youngest of the guests. Niki also joined them in their dance and it was a pretty jolly affair and everyone enjoyed quite a bit.

Then some nice hot dinner – the fish fry and kheer stood out especially!

Retired to a well deserved night of sleep with the soothing chirping of insects in the valley and forest around us.

Morning up early as Golu does it everyday irrespective of where he is and how late he has slept. Took him on a short walk before getting ready for breakfast. Others did go for a trek to the waterfall but it would have been too long at 6kms with Shivin, so we decided to stay back and explore the resort a bit more and of course his swimming pool!

Shivin's experience with a monkey that decided to show up outside our room was so interesting - he was both excited and scared as the monkey lunged towards the glass windows.

Spent some nice peaceful moments and finally headed back at around noon to our next stop – lunch at Pandu’s house in Jamboti!

Am glad we picked up the place. It was well worth the money and we had some peaceful times.

Golu and mummy liked it as much as Niki and I did!

Hopefully we get to make many such visits in future all over the world.

Blue Ribbon - Southern style barbecue!!

Its been a while since I wrote on this blog space. I have been busy with the other SDM blog, but this is my go to place when I have to say something about food.

Its been for a really long time on my list - a visit to a typical smokehouse - a southern style barbecue place for the succulent beef brisket and the fall-off-the-bone ribs.

Well, this Sunday it had to be! My partner in such meat-eating excursions - Vikrant Thapar.

We headed out to this joint called Blue-Ribbon Barbecue in Arlington. The place smelled heavenly - of grilled and smoked meats.



We ordered the following.

A pint of Beef brisket. Sweet, juicy and perfectly caramelized. So tender, it just melted in your mouth!



A half rack (6) of smoked pork ribs. They have been cooking for hours and were falling off the bones as you picked them up to bite into.



A texan link sandwich - a mildly spicy pork sausage in a roll with the signature "gold" sauce, with two sides of potato salad and baked beans.



The food was amazing. It was sooooooooooooo good!

But we could not finish all of it, of course and had to pack some home for later. Hey, I can relish all the goodness in another meal later tonight! :)

The place is self-service and pretty small. We had to wait a bit to get a table.
The prices are decent. All the above with a couple of drinks cost $40.

Later, drove to a nice nearby lake called - Spy pond for a walk to partially digest all the good food that we were loaded up with.
Here are a couple of pics of the same!

Why am I doing, what I am doing?

2014 - I am 34, with a good, well paying job, well settled in family life and looking forward to moving into our new house with my loving wife and our baby who is on the way!

2015 - I quit my job, sell my house, talk to my wife and we decide that it is best I move to US for a year, alone!

Some might say we are crazy, but others who truly understand why we are doing, what we are doing, may think otherwise.

I am moving to study, invest in our future and more than anything prove to myself that I am capable of doing it.

This August, I moved to Boston to be a graduate student at MIT - the premier institute of the world.
That sometimes surprises me, but the realization that it has taken immense hard work and we have sacrificed so much, so I can come here and chase my dream keeps me going. My wife more than anybody decided to be a part of my dream and supported me to go on.

It all started when I got up one day from my work desk after a typically busy day and really asked myself, if this is what I want to do all my life. I already knew the answer!

10 years after I had last attended school, I dared to challenge myself to see if I can do what I believed I was capable of.
But first, I had to crack the GMAT!
I started off with weekend classes and since I was so many years after college, as expected I was slow off the blocks. Took me an extra attempt and 6 months overall to get to a 710 score. Decent but not out of the world.

But I knew that my job had taught me lots of things - among them was to value the rich experience I had gained from working in a start-up, that I had helped build into a formidable one. Everyone starts small, yet can achieve wonders with two basic guidelines - perseverance and integrity.

Took me another 5 months of research in finalizing the programs that I deemed were fit for me, applying and getting though a few of them. Of course, everything is not rosy and I did get rejected from some programs that I had applied to.

But one program that I did get into was from MIT - System design and Management!
It fit in well into my expectations of a course  -

• Balance of technology and management
• Small cohort
• Great diversity
• One of the most famous schools in the world

 So, here I am!

Where I come from,  people have said a lot of excuses - they are too old to do this, no time in life, busy with family,  too much money, don't want to put family in trouble etc.

But, I have to say one thing- if you really want to do it, it can be done!

There could not be a more apt line than the one from the movie - "The pursuit of happiness" which continues to inspire me :

You got a dream, you got to protect it. 

People can't do something themselves, they want to tell - you can't do it. 

You want something? 

Go get it. 

Period!!

My family and I are in this together and we know we will do our respective jobs - I will grind it out here, give my best, my wife will wait it out patiently and take care of the baby for sometime on her own, my parents will support me and we will all get to the other side where a bigger, better and interesting world is waiting for us!

I know it, I believe in it!

AMEN! :-)

Labor Day Weekend - Quincy Market!

After two weeks of intense orientation and design challenges, finally enjoying a much needed break before we dive into our classes.

This being a Labor (note labour spelled without the 'u'!! This is America, Duh!) day weekend, we headed to the lively Quincy market and Faneuil Hall.


There was a great crowd and a lovely crisp September evening. There were some nice performances going on, music and of course some great food.
Walked around the place. Cobbled streets, beautiful architectural structure, felt almost like London for a while.


There is a food court which is lined with all types of cuisines. Makes you spoilt for choices, but finally I decided what to have, after walking up and down the aisle a couple of times to weigh my options. The food ranges from philly cheese steak burgers to brick-oven pizzas to japanese teriyaki to Mediterranean food.

I however decided on the Maine lobster roll with clam chowder! The line to place the order had 20 people at least, but I dug it through and it was rewarding. The roll was amazing- the lobster sweet and moist. The clam chowder - creamy and steaming hot. Heaven!!

Then we made our way to the long wharf for the main event of the night - fireworks!
The show was awesome - plenty of fireworks of all colors lit up the Boston skyline.
Lasted for ~20 minutes but was worth every minute. Standing in the park watching it in the cool September evening, I missed Nikita so much. She would have loved it here. It will have to wait for now. Studies and grinding it out first, before we can have a normal life and enjoy these simple pleasures of life.

We were then joined in by Akshay and Gaytri. All of us headed to Cheers (from the TV show), for a round of beer, before we called it a night. Had a nice beer - blue moon - recommended by Akshay- with some nachos and cheese and of course some even better conversation.


Finally took a cab back - watching the beautifully lit Boston skylike while crossing over the Charles river.

I think I am in love with this place called Boston. More to see and explore in future, but I am mighty impressed with what I have seen so far!!

Week ONE at MIT !!

In one word - AMAZING!

 In the true sense of the word -

• Amazing place - the campus and the beautiful skyline of Boston city beside Charles river
• Amazing cohort - wonderfully accomplished people
• Amazing team - my design challenge team. Could not have been more perfect. Each member was so smart and so co-operative. Loved being a part of it
• Amazing to see all 14 teams up to the task and actually coming up so many brilliant solutions to the design challenge
• Last but not the least - I was amazed at how quickly the week went and how much fun we had inspite of all the long hours we all put in.

Day 1 was introduction of all the 100+ folks including people from IDM, Grad certificate and our very own SDM. Took the entire day but was very very interesting to see how varied the group was and how much folks had done in their lives and careers.


Later in the evening, the actual design challenge was finally revealed to us.

We had to build a drone from a F550 kit and LEGO parts. Also, the drone had to be able to do the following tasks.

1.  Shoot at a target
2. Pick up and deliver a fixed load
3. Carry a dangerous liquid and be able to deliver it safely

WOW!! That is a lot of tasks.

But first order of business was naming our drone. After a long discussion, we come up with a nice name - the flying lobster!!



Next day were the team building events -  they were fun and we learnt some stuff too - about ourselves and our team mates.


 

Most of the next few days were the same hectic schedule  - sessions from professors in the morning and DC in the evening.

In between all these, the TA's came up with more interesting stuff for us to do.
Small competitions that were both fun and had a purpose behind them.

The scavenger hunt was so much fun. We got to visit all the beautiful MIT buildings and departments and learn a bit about each. Basically find our way through - helps us get familiar with MIT.


Here is a link to all the wonderful stuff that we did - https://www.dropbox.com/sh/l4rt4pr995ert29/AAAtRFuCuh5eOKg318vr2Idya?dl=0

The good part - we came third among 14 teams in this event!!

There were also the singing contest as well as the poster contest, which were pretty interesting too.
We had to make up a song featuring our drone and a single page poster selling our drone idea.


We built and re-built and then built some more, to just perfect our drone with all the mechanisms to do each of the allocated tasks. So much went into the finer details - it was inspiring.

We had some good food to go all these days - it helped us keep going.
I however will have to agree that I ate the best when we had the Indian food - nan, rice, chicken makhani and dal. Had it probably after a fortnight and boy, did it taste good!!

Oh and not to forget the beer and yummy food at the Mead Hall after so much running around for the scavenger hunt.. It was so good!

There was also the formal photo shoot at - at the famous MIT dome, of course !!
All of us were dressed and looked sharp.




We got to finally test the drones on Thursday late evening and it took a while to figure out what was wrong with it. But fly we did and it was exhilarating to see all the hard work take shape as the drone actually took off!! YAY!!

All of Friday spent in doing the final touches, ensuring all the mechanisms work fine for each of liquid, load and shooting. After some really late night testing and flying, we were ready for the big day - Saturday!!
Important to note here is that at this point we were in second place in overall standings!

















The week had just gone by so fast, it was almost a blur!!

Saturday -  day started off with presentations - 3 minutes for each team. They were so innovative -  people had put in so much of their creativity. I personally loved the one with JP as the lego guy - it was so funny and smart.
 
Regarding the drones - wow! People are so creative, it just blows my mind.
Not just our team, but everyone else.
To top it all, everyone was eagerly helping each other out in the true sense of Co-Opetition!!
We will leave it to another day what "co-opetition" means.



Then came the final fight - game ON!
We did pretty well in the first round; we were up first and we did just right on the tasks.

But it did not go exactly as planned from here on.
It was a fight that we almost won, but not quite.
There was some healthy competition and arguably the best team won!
Here are some of the video clips of the morning and afternoon sessions respectively
(compilation courtesy - Dave Schultz)

https://youtu.be/T17FoJQfLQI 

https://youtu.be/XqKGolO0LN0https://youtu.be/XqKGolO0LN0

But what we did win was satisfaction and great team work. Got to know some great individuals and felt proud of what we had been able to achieve in such a short time.

Followed next was a wonderful celebration of completion of DC 1 on the 6th floor of Media Lab. Great food, good beer and an awesome view of the Boston skyline in the golden evening sun!



Week 1 down! Bring on Week 2. :-)

100 Ft Boutique - Sunday Brunch!!!

I had just filed my first two patents at the USPTO and I wanted to celebrate with my regular gang - Pavan, Prathap and Prassana!

With a strong recommendation from Prassana, we decided to try out the famed Sunday brunch at the 100ft. boutique restaurant on ---- 100ft road of course! Duh!

They have a nice seating in the open with some live music. The day was perfect, not too hot but sunny.


Its a buffet which includes a choice of cocktails, mocktails and beer. Unlimted!
The food is divided into four broad sections, if I may say so.

There are the starters in the buffet spread, which has a huge choice ranging from assorted cheeses, salads, breads, soups, hot and cold mezzeh, fish fingers and stuff like that.
 
This is what I piled on my plate for my first tasting! :-)
Loved the bacon wrapped prunes and the pungent Brie cheese in particular.

Trying the red and the white wine in the pic below.

 A champagne based cocktail!



 A white wine based cocktail.




Then they have the hot grills which is served on the table and has vegetarian and non-vegetarian options.
They have a choice of lamb chops - lightly marinated and grilled to perfection, prawns, chicken and mushrooms.
Please note the lamb chop that Prathap has so proudly displayed!



 You can order for a custom omelet if you wish to. We of course ordered the cheesy omelet!




There is the main course - which is a choice of rice or pasta with a couple of gravy dishes. But I do not remember anyone going for it given the vast choice and other interesting items we had.

Finally there is a choice of desserts. Red velvet cake, Chocolate mud pie, brownie and stuff.



Oh and did I mention they have some custom made pizzas and pasta. We ordered a classic margarita pizza.

A three cheese ravioli in (surprise surprise) a cheese sauce! Damn Pavan's love for cheese! :-)


If you are game for it, you can flex your vocal cords to karaoke.

We just had a great time there.  Catching up, eating, drinking and some more eating.


At 1500/- per person this is a good deal, if you just want to have a really lazy Sunday brunch spread over 2-3 hours.