Oklahoma - Here I come! Camping trip in Robbers Cave state park, Wilburton, OK

The week had been extremely hectic, with work, helping Paula move around and xcessive partying. Vinodh mailed on Thursday inviting me and sk for a camping trip to Oklahoma...Been fixed in Dallas for almost 8 months now, and dying for a break to stretch ym legs, i agreed. The members on this rather incredible trip will be myself, Vinodh, Anirban and Mekala

We started out on a lazy saturday morning, finally at 11 am (we had agreed on 9 am, talk about punctuality!). We bought some beer and ice and headed out towards oklahoma via the Interstate Highway 35

We had talks abt various topics ranging from current politics, how India can become rich in the next century, a particular character called Boris in Anirban's lab and his antics, state of affairs in Dallas etc. The chat was mostly informative to me but dont know how far with the others ;)

Once we left the lone star state (Texas) the scenery completely changed..Oklahoma is native Indian country (not East indian, which I am...I am talking abt American Indian)...hill country and very beautiful...reminded me of Kodaikanal in India...

We reached the Robbers cave state park at 3 PM on Saturday evening...
http://www.oklahomaparks.com/detail.asp?id=1+5U+3607
After searching for a place to camp for abt 30 mins, we found a nice isolated spot by the lake with a small cascade upstream.



We wanted to explore the territory, so started to walk as far as the main lake - with me and Anirban jumping inside the main area of the dam (check out the pic). We then came back to the campsite and made some barbecued chicken and meat with asparagus..The food vanished before our eyes instantly...(Read as we were very hungry...)We then took some pictures, started a bonfire to warm our ass. We bought the worng type of coal so had an incredible adventure to make it burn...It was a full moon night (Gosh only if I were a werewolf or vampire :D) and we took some amazing pictures in the ambient moonlight and chatted for sometime. It was like returning to the wild. But in a more civilized way as restrooms were only a quarter mile away ;)

By 10:30 PM I was tired and felt sleepy (as I mentioned, I had an extremely hectic week before) and crashed. The climate became very cool and rained, but thankfully the tents were good enough and did not get wet. Byt morning I woke up at 7 AM and the rest of the gang were already out - apparent Anirban and Mekala did not have a good sleep as the water leaked inside and Vinodh was early too....I woke up to the smell of good tea, courtesy of Vinodh - wildstyle. Nevertheless after drinking the tea we went to hke along the robbers cave trail, hiking to the top of the mountain through the torturous caves the robbers had used for hiding. It was kind of funny that there were no witnesses to robbers having stayed there - only that some travelers were robbed and a woman murdered around that area, that made ppl think that te outlaws would have hid here. Robbers or not, the area was one hell of a place for bandits to stay. The trail included places like the stone corral, devil's rock and names of similar nature to create a missense of adventure. The view of the lake and surrounding plains from the top of the mountain was very nive and we also had a glimpse of what looked like a barricaded area with dish antenna at the top of the mountain, which made me wonder if it was the headquarters of "Men in Black" :D

After that we drove bac in search of food to eat ad ended up in a secluded place by the lake, with no human presence for half a mile...It cud have been a good place to take a dip...Maybe skinny dip ;) but my company was not so enthusiastic abt it, and so the mission was aborted. Its hard to find a bunch of crazy people who share my same sense of misadventure. We returned from the place to the entrance of the park and then left the park to te nearby city of Wilburton to have food at a Mexican restaurant. After that we decided it was getting late and set out on the return journey back to Dallas. This time around we decided to take a scenic longer route via Oklahoma backcountry, instead of the highway, which is more monotonous.

On the whole it was an interesting trip esp to me as it was my first camping experience - returning the call of the wild.

The NBA game: Dallas Mavericks are..well Mavericks!!!

Posin in the Mavericks dressing room -

Wanted to see for the heck of it how the basketball games go in the US...So packed off from the lab at 6:30 with Hector and Zhuo to the American Airlines center in Downtown Dallas to see the Dallas Mavericks vs. Memphis Grizzlies basketball game...


Well to be frank this is my first presence at a live game in a stadium in my whole life (not counting those eventless Sports days in India :D)...And the defending champions Dallas Mavericks playing in their home city...


What to say the MAVS where too good and they won. Period. End of story? No! This is where my reliving the moment starts. I did not know what to expect and entered the center. Most people where wearing 'Nowitzki' T-shirts (Something analogous to a cricket fan wearing "99 Tendulkar" Tshirt. First guy - I thot his name was nowitzki...but when I saw about 50 more ppl in 5 mins, i thot...well heck there cannot be too many Nowitzki's :D Pardon my ignorance...


We toured the complex enjoying the sights (cheerleaders!), sounds (the game and commentary) and smell (ya...food..baby!). We got some nice freebies - a basketball replica key chain, a poster of mavericks cheerleading girls personally autographed by 2 of them...and wow...they were sooooooooooooooo pretty...Boyathey! as Hector wud call'em...
Cheerleaders -


We then bought some food ($1 out = $3 inside policy :( and entered the arena...our ticket was the cheapest and the one situated at the very end (shd i say top? check out the pix i took with my phone cam)...The game was amazing and we had a great time. Obviously i did not know who to cheer for. I am no fan of Dallas Mavericks cuz i did not even know who or wat they are before the game and I have been in Dallas for only 5 months to develop a bond with the place...Anyways i pretended to cheer and shout when Mavs scored and 'boo-ed' when the opponents scored to keep the people around me happy... :-/


Finally the game ended...along with my blog entry :)) Check out the pics...

Google trends - Sex, technology and India

Came to know that google has this feature called 'google trends' that shows you the most used keywords from a particular location - jus type the word and it tells you the city, country and language that most searches were from.

The pervert that I being am, I typed 'sex' in the field and the results were surprising - 3 out of the top 4 cities were from India. That's not the end - the most number of searches were from my language - tamil...and my city - chennai...Now I understand why our population is unshakeable :))

Certainly I dont mean it in the negative sense but thinking about it, the population will have the most number of 'working' people in the future. When the world abstains from procreating, we shall awake for active replication and prosperity!!!

Now, comes the interesting part...I type technology, economy and most of the top cities are from India. Especially 'technology' retrieved top 4 cities and were all from India.

Hmmm certainly something to be proud about!

My surroundings

After a detailed 'exploration' of my 'new world', I am posting some pictures of lab floor entrance, view from the 9th floor, my university entrance and my apartment in downtown Dallas. I live in the 'Inwood on the park' apartments, about 20 metres (ya u read it right its metres = 100 cm) from my univ.

The close proximity puts me in a convenient position to

1. Work (???) latenights
2. Avoid getting a car
3. Dodge public transportation (which is useless) and
4. Not getting killed (living in Dallas downtown and walking late night is the most effective way to get killed, next only to driving bike on the highway)

Indeed its a pleasure to be so close to the lab...imagine waking up at 8:15 in the morn ing and realising its 15 mins to the really crucial lecture...This is where living closeby figures as a significant advantage. The floor entrance to my lab is here:


Here is a pic of view from my lab floor (9th floor)

And my University :)

By the way I introduce here a new term which I coined - its called 'ALANDERING' and stands for AimLessly wANDERING. Its my favorite pastime. On weekends or wen I find a rare chunk of 10 hours useless time, I pick up my camera and head somewhere...nowhere...without any destination in mind. I use public transport - trains and buses, tains being my favorite. Its a great way to explore the city and get on and off wherever I want, watch people go about doing their daily activities. It feels great to not be a part of the system and instead 'watch' the system. The prof who tells his colleague about his work, the executive listening to his Mp3 player, the adolescent making out with his girl, the beggar asking for money (ya u do find beggars here!), the young girl reading the book, the slutty girl chewing gum with tall pointed high heel shoe and listening to mp3 giving me a weird look - people from different walks of life. Then again I head to the starbucks to pump up some caffeine and continue my ppl-watching. Sometimes I hang around reading books in trains which is really great experience. Travels like these introduce me to new people, places and exciting time. Its a whole new way to see a place. Esp the people are so much fun to b with when they are 'engaged' rather than passive watchers.

My new year party celebrated Spanish style...

2007 is a year I will never forget. My first new year outside India. I usually celebrate new year in India with my family and friends. Typically I would watch new year speacial programmes on TV, talk with family members, go out with friends, hangout at shopping malls like Spencer's and catch a movie at Sathyam...By evening i will be home with family, go out for dinner and come back by night and watch countdown on TV. By 12:00 pm, we call all other relatives and frends and wish each other a "happy new year" of course added with all sorts of adjectives like 'prosperous, wealthy, healthy'...

By 12:30 my mom with the womenfolk of the household go down to put the color kolam (a decoration on the floor at the entrance of the house using colorful salt and other materials)...There would be some 'kolam competitions' when judges would be visiting houses the next morning to see which 'kolam' is the best...

We menfolk would watch tv for sometime and crash. This was until i had the pleasure of owning a motorbike...After i got one I would hangout on new year night with friends. Last new year when I was in India, i went to Kishkinta for the new year party with frends and had an awesome experience. The year before that was the Tsunami year and we were at the Tsunami struck "Marina beach" jus for the heck of adventure. After that we went back to a friend' house, watched movie, drunk (juice and coke - I was a teetotaller then...) and crashed.

BUT

This new year was totally different. Its unique as I experienced it outside India, in the United States and celebrated it the Spanish way with Hector and his folks from Spain. Hector, his GF Laura, his mom and his sister, Elena made awesome Spanish food for us, Zhuo and I bought wine and beer and a big pot of icecream. At 9:30 we had the food, for which his folks had brought ingredients all the way from Spain. We ate the food that consisted of Pajaja, Spainish Omlette and vegetable cake. There were desserts made from Almond which was specially made in his district Alicante in Spain. His mom and sister explained to me some places in Alicante and have invited me to their place and I thanked them and told them - "You always have a home in India" "-)



The we watched the countdown and according to a Spanish custom for the last 12 seconds of the new year we have to eat 12 grapes. I tried to follow the custom but missed a grape and cudnt finish 4. Besides my mouth was full of grapes and I was looking like a monkey (I shd admit the grape was fantastic!!!)

I played the Domino game, a game consisting of wooden block with numbers that needs to be arranged. Each player starts with 7 blocks and has to dispose all the big numbers and the one with the lowest numbers added together wins. Check out the video



We then danced to some spanish and english music...Laura and Elena became fond of the 'It's the time to disco' song from KHNH and even sent the song home for their fols to listen and enjoy...I learned and spoke some Spanish and i shd say it wasn't so difficult to understand the Spanish they spoke with my limited vocabulary...

Dancing to music...



Finally drunk and tired I retired back to my apt and crashed into an instant sleep...