Perfect Example of Murphy's Law: Misadventures of a student on his way to San Francisco!

Like any other first-time-to-California lad, I was also very excited to finally go to San Francisco, the city I dreamed of visiting for over eight years now! So, Finally I saved up the money and find out that my cousins also invited me there over the winter break and I decided to go there. I booked a ticket with Continental Airlines. Now as you all know there is nothing interesting about getting to San Francisco and it’s all fun only after you get there! You may be right for the most part! Well, I live at College Station, Texas and my flight leaves from Houston. All I had to do was to book a taxi or a shuttle service to the airport. Leave it to me to be ignorant till a week before travel. Finally when I checked the availability of Shuttle service; Surprisingly, there were no seats available! Now, the obvious option is to rent a car and go to Houston Airport and it’s so simple. Except it was not! Did I make it to the departure at the right time? Did I go to San Francisco the same day? What ever happened of me? Where was I when I wrote this blog? Read on to find out!

My flight to SFO leaves by 7:25PM on the 23^rd of December 2009. It’s the Sunday (20^th) and I ask around if I can tag along with someone to go to Houston’s Bush Intercontinental Airport. I find a friend who leaves to San Diego on the same day by 3:00PM departure time and was also searching for a ride to the Airport from College Station. So, we decided to share the expenses and asked a common friend to rent a car and take us there. Everything is fine, we ask a couple more friends to join in because it will be a boring drive back to College Station for the friend who dropped my friend and me off. So, it’s five of us, off to Houston with my friend who had to be dropped off by 1:00PM for his 3:00PM flight and me by 6:30PM for my 7:25PM flight. We are all set and it’s the 23^rd and the one driving us there, rent the car for us and we are all set to start by 10:00AM. The usually lazy me packed and cleaned my stuff up only on the “day” and somehow we ended up leaving late by 11:30AM! Before that my friend who rented the car ran into a small misfortune and he was caught speeding just 10MPH over the speed limit and fined a $230 USD!!! Yeah right! And he was freaked out even before we started! Now what do you think happened on the way?

Well, I had the GPS with me and I operated it to the best of my abilities and helped get my friend to the airport by 1:45PM for his 3:00PM flight of course with a lot of trouble when we took exits and entries to freeways that we shouldn't have in the 1st place and we thought it was all a part of the game and got there. Now, that we dropped him off, we had about 5 hours to kill before our next trip back to the airport to drop me off. We decided to have some really good vegetarian food and then head to Pearland, Texas to a temple and finally get back to the Airport. Sounds simple right? As usual it’s not! The Restaurant we chose, Bhojan (an authentic Gujarati unlimited buffet) was about 30 miles away and we got there without commotion; thanks to my GPS navigating skills I mastered! With good food there, next was the temple that’s another 27 miles away! We got there with no so many commotions but late. We spent a lot of time there (mostly fooling around) and left really late like about 5:30PM (Flight Time: 7:25PM). U may think at this point, everything is going on well; there is hardly anything to make up as a story, but why muse on? Still, my question is, did I get to SFO on the same day?

My friend, who was driving the car, felt, I had the GPS all day and I was doing a good job navigating. Now that I’d be dropped off at the Airport, he wanted another good navigator by his side on his return back to College Station. He asked another friend to navigate from the start. I was ok with it and he entered the address and the route mapped out. We are like “Let’s go!”. I was still in the front seat and then the so called ‘misadventures’ start! My friend who is a 1^st time navigator had some difficulties and then I took over the GPS and continued on the route because we were getting frustratingly late. For about half an hour we kept travelling on back roads filled with frigging signal lights! I was getting irritated that we kept crossing freeways and never got on it! The time was 6:00PM. My boarding time was 6:50PM, and for heaven’s sake I did not want to be late! At that time, adrenaline levels started rising. Adding to that, my friend driving was very cautious not to commit another error given the bounty on him in the morning! There it was! I was stuck in the middle of Houston with 25 miles to go for the airport and we were getting nowhere and were driving inevitably in circles with the raving mad traffic of the city! It struck me, what the hell is the GPS doing? I ask my so-called co-navigator, what did he map the route to? I always ask it for the fastest route to the destination and it usually takes freeways. And for God-Knows-What reason, he chose the shortest distance! That made me MAD! And I reconfigured the GPS to fastest route by 6:20PM and by the time we could recover, we were lost far in the city! I was freaking out. The speed at which we were travelling was faster than the speed at which the GPS was rerouting because by the time a new route is made we would have gone straight on a signal where it would then ask us to turn right! Oh God we were in trouble! Time’s ticking away and it was 6:30PM. We were still nowhere near the Interstate 45 that takes me to the Airport! We go to the Interstate-610 Loop (freeway) and decide to get to the I-45. By the time we got to the I-45, it was 6:40PM and I was sure it was neck and neck. I was calling up my cousin at SFO to check for flight status and try to calculate if I can make it or not! He said as long as I had checked in, and had the boarding pass, I can just go in straight to the gate, and he also told me the gate number was E10. I was thankful, when I get there, I’ll get my bags an simply run because I had already checked in and had my boarding pass! I put my phone down, freak out that its getting late beyond recall and ask my friend to speed up. While we were switching lanes, Wham! And OH MY GOD!

A truck side swiped us and broke our rear view mirror too. I thought it was over and the day is finished! He pulled up to the side of I-45 and so did my friend. A Sherriff’s car pulled over too and a very friendly officer stepped out. I was the 1^st one out of the car and ran between both the cars trying to find out if it was fine if we just went on! I had no idea that to get the insurance claimed on our car we needed insurance and other info of the other driver. My friend on the other hand was bent on settling the issue with the other truck driver and getting an accident report from the officer! I was boiling and pacing helplessly on the shoulder of Interstate 45 where cars were doing 60MPH just a few feet away from me! Everyone were jus there in their own cars doing nothing! I went upto the officer and he brought up a solution that we can exchange insurance information and then simply just drive off! I liked the idea and we got on to it. Meanwhile I was on the phone with my cousin at SFO telling him this and he said there is always another option that will be available from Continental Airlines should I miss this flight! Furious, irritated and helpless, I simply waited for the insanity to be over. Then we were set to go with the GPS showing 15 miles left to the airport and the time was 7:05PM! That is right! 7:05PM (Flight Departure: 7:25PM)! Then there is the next issue, my friend driving has had incidents after incidents all day and he’s in total pressure! This fact made me fear for the worse on the roads! I had to let go of my belief that I would make it to airport and to the departure gate of my flight to SFO. I asked him to concentrate and told him there was a backup flight (when in reality there was not!) Meanwhile, I got updates that there were alternate flights by 9:00PM but knew they would be full. That didn’t take the pressure off me one bit, but I quacked it! We were almost there where we had to take a single exit to finally get on to Beltway 8 freeway leading to Airport and guess what? We missed that exit too! Drama after Drama! What on earth is wrong with my day! Then I rerouted and the GPS adds 4 miles more from 8 to 12! I got an update that the flight is delayed 10 mins to 7:45PM and the time was 7:25PM. It’s a bloody race against time! We got to the airport entrance by 7:30PM and i sat restlessly as we went around the long sweeping corners. The feeling of "I want to make it to the flight hoping its delayed more" Vs. "Who gives a damn" was going on in my head! Finally we went to our terminal and there were these signs: “Terminal C arrivals in right lane and Departures in the left lane”. At last, I was at least breathing, though it was way over the departure time by 5 mins! Then we miss departures and head towards arrivals in the ground floor by missing another road exit! Its a perfectly fitting example of Murphy's law: "Anything that can go wrong will go wrong". The time is 7:35PM. Delayed flight is scheduled for 7:40PM. Did I make it to the flight with the crowd, security checks and the fact I’m at arrivals and I have to find gate E10 from there?

I know this getting juicer than one can put it, but as you see something gets delayed! I grab my bags and run into arrivals section instead of departure with no clue and sense of direction! I ask for departures, they say its 1^st floor. I sprint to the nearby elevator that was just closing and made it in. On the first floor, I looked for Continental Airlines check-in kiosks which I thought it would surely lead me to right direction. And I found them, asked one of the check-in counter lady that was if the flight was still there! She said it’s about to leave and I should run! I followed her directions and went panting down the long hallways and finally after a couple of minutes of exhaustive running I saw signboards leading to gate E10 and came to security check. Its Holiday season and what would you expect? Crowd right? And that I’m doomed! Except that I’m not. I was so lucky I never realized the holdup was actually a security check till I got there. I passed on all my stuff and ran through the metal detector. Yes it beeped! Then I gave the wallet and mobile-phone. It still beeped. Next were my belt, shoes and laptop (and what is left of my dignity)! Finally I went over the other side and the guard suspiciously checked me thoroughly because I was in a hurry to get past the security check! Finally I got a sloppy set of my belongings and I tried putting all stuff back in. I bolted without wearing my belt in a hope that the flight could still be there with last calls! It was a bad idea and my pant kept falling! I ran for 100 more meters and finally E10 was around the corner. I was breathing heavily, sweating and holding my pants and the time was 7:40PM. I cannot see anything but the sign gate E10 around the corner and I expected to see was the board “Gate closed!” Hating myself, I miserably walked that last few steps, with last hope that I can still get on the flight. Did I get on it?

I strolled on till a small queue came into sight. They were from gate E10 and were waiting to board! I thanked the good lord for working things out for me. Be it this way, stood there straightened myself up in the 2-3 person queue and boarded the flight! Never have I ever raced time of this sort. I’m finally at SFO and I keep wondering what a dramatic entry into it!

PS: Wrote this Blog when I was flying to SFO in the flight filled with turbulence all the way! BTW Cali looks so amazing from above in the night!

"Avatar" - The New avatar of CGI

(I know I am blogging after very long time… It’s been an entire semester without blogging! So it seems that I was blogging only to muse… But No, I’ve decided to go on…) Well, here is my first movie review; I’m not quite the right person for even writing a review… But these are just my thoughts/take on Avatar.


A couple of months back when I saw the trailer of Avatar, it seemed like another CGI movie with a fantasy story. Then the director’s name struck a chord that got me interested even more - James Cameron (A director’s name even known to some locals in Tamil Nadu because of Titanic!). The fact that the script was ready back in 2005 and the movie was made in 2009 just because Cameron felt that the technology was not yet developed for how he pictured the movie, made me want to even ask for a ride to the Theaters on the opening day.
So, I Did! Not only was the movie so good, I wanted to watch it twice and that too I did. Anyways getting to the actual review, the storyline was not so huge and different. If we look at it on a bird’s eye view, it’s got the same outline, Hero sees a group to take down, becomes one of them to know their secrets then when he decided to take them down he’s one of them and protects them. The amazing part of the entire movie is… The way such a concept, a Visual treat that most only dream of till today is made into a movie! The entire planet of Pandora to its intricate detail is simply amazing! The Hallelujah Mountains (floating mountains) to the living/glowing plants equal the Potter world’s level of detailing. The Na’vi, native people are well thought of characters where with interesting hair ends. Their hair ends have tentacles that connect with similar ones on plants and animals that let them read their thoughts and communicate back. Similarly the same allows them to communicate to a sacred tree and share memory and save it. An entire human brain’s functions are done by a tree and that is sacred! Not to mention everything there glows.

One of the coolest things I liked in the movie was the flying hunters. Especially The Mountain Banshees. The Thanator, Very vicious and absolutely awesome predator and Hammerhead Titanothere is a good thought. The fact that the Na’vi (and most supercars!) are made of natural carbon fiber bones makes me feel, I should reinforce my exoskeleton too!


This is one hell of a movie where reality meets fantasy. A brilliant masterpiece by James Cameron that will stand out for ages to come. Avatar will turn out a successful franchise with how many ever sequels follows. This is just a musing about a few subtle aspects of the movie I felt was also amazing, not quite a review! Again maybe another load of hot air?

Surfing life as a wave…

Life in a nutshell cannot be summarized at all. But the closest I can come to is relating to when you surf a wave. Really, you can relate to anything but it does not matter. When they say you get what you deserve in life, trust me it’s always right. And most of the times it’s never unfair (Psst: I know many will not agree here!). Sometimes it makes me think, if I succeed in something, was I really worthy of the success? Thereby hindering me to live the moment! Incidents over the past year have left my mind in bits and pieces, blown up to smithereens one part at a time! It’s a very different experience to stay in track of what you are doing if your mind is in a gazillion pieces! So I thought I can muse here about how if my life was fair or not till now. I’m obviously not going to start with my childhood. Lets skip school and hmmm, college too! Assuming that whatever incidents happened there were or are not bad as the ones I’m facing or faced! Pardon me for the tone of negativity throughout this musing! Until the end of college, believe me, everyone is shielded by our parents. Many may not agree, but we don’t stand by our own. Which is bad u may think. You may have wanted a bike or a cell phone or anything for the matter of fact badly and for some stupid reason as we may think, and all were turned down! Then comes the point where you move out of India and all excited to go study in the US thanking God for making everything work for u. Well, don’t thank him yet!


The life changing experience awaits you. In one year, filled with failures and bad grades and job searching in vain, in the end it’s very easy for you to give up! You come here free from your parents and with some money in the bank. You are happy you are here and then you want to get the feel of the country and you shell out a few Benjamins you have in the bank. You think the semester is going well but before you know it, the end would be there and you will have the pressure to do well to save your grades. Of course last minute study is usual but in my case it didn’t work out and I had letter sent home saying if I don’t do well next time I’ll get kicked out! Reality strikes me! Out of cash and don’t want to turn to dad for it! Meanwhile scholarships and Assistantships were important to me and searching for them is not an easy task. When you spend hours and hours searching for it and you have no sign of anything positive, you… (I’ll leave you to decide)! This frustration brought my grades down 1st semester! “OK”, I said to myself, New Year, New semester, new start and ill make this happen! New Job (same pay! ), I decided to take 1 tough course and 2 other courses that are easy! I worked night shift in the semester which brought a mental turmoil 5 days a week! Yet you give a 100% at the opportunities of interviews you get and at the exams like nothing ever done before! You end up not getting it and to top it, with a bad grade. I’ve never seen anything being denied in my life in this scale before. Amidst this chaos and clutter I stand wondering if there is a plan laid out for me to complete the puzzle called career! I’ve still got to look forward to the future that something bright will be there! Life’s twisted and it will kill you but it’s all in your head to be sane and live it up! Nothing comes easy and there is no element called luck with me.


So, at first you admire the wave, then you’re tempted to surf it. You can only learn to surf it in the ocean. You head out. Then you forget you don’t know swimming! You still head out confident you won’t fall in. Then as always it s the 1st time and u fall in the ocean and u gape for air! You get saved obviously and try again and again. But if you’re not (Different story)! Surf’s up, and life’s about riding the wave out…

The Life and Death of My iPhone 3G…

I’m writing after quite a while and I only write when I think I have to write about it!

I was close minded, narrow and all excited when I bought the iPhone 3g a month into me being in the US… It cost me quite a Bit - A 2 Year contract with AT&T and a Data Plan of $30 every month compulsory. All was fine till they offered the $599 Phone for $199…! The first month I racked up huge bills for the advance payment for next month’s bills. Then as everyone would imagine it should have been smooth sailing. It kind of was. Then the $30 Dollars you spend, u realize that you inexplicably won’t use it for its worth. The 3G network pisses you off by not connecting the pages properly and not loading the GPS properly! You end up using the Wi-Fi network home to connect finally rendering the 3G subscription practically worthless! Well one can argue that the Signal strength would not have been good in my area… That too is a reason! AT&T network is so pathetic, Trust me I miss the good old Airtel back in India to which I was a dealer of! So, Now I use the phone off the House… Everyone knows the Application Google Maps on the iPhone! It’s good to an extent to check ROUGHLY where u are on the roads and get local destinations on your Map and find a Route to it. There is a ticking blue dot indicating your position on the road and take my word for it, it’s a bad idea to try and use it as a GPS! The 3G network’s pathetic Latency makes you miss the most important Exits on a freeway! Other than that, Several times, either the 3G or the Wi-Fi would die out for no reason on the Phone and I end up on a Null connection to the internet. With so many things to get on your nerves and more, the recurring $30 was absolutely pissing off! I decided to give away the phone when my friend offered to swap his phone with mine.

It was good while it lasted! Unparalleled iPod features and the Music quality are off the Shelf! Watching Movies in it is another pleasure I could only dream of in India! The Multi Touch makes it really cool to with a 3G or Wi-Fi connection. For Example, there is a Facebook Application I used for Mobile Facebook. Pandora and Virgin Internet Radio, Mobile Banking Applications are all among those! Other applications are to-do lists, grocery lists, running meter etc… You can use and get to lot of stuff off apple Store for free! The phone is normal in speed and not like the Nokia 1100 I used to use in India. Gaming in the iPhone is worth a Mention as there r so many different games that use up the iPhone’s accelerometer and one can race with just tilting the iPhone! Millions of Applications are there among which half are only goodto use without internet!

I have to Say I kept finding out new features and gestures off my iPhone every other day. Like a swipe on the button in one direction will make something happen. And then on the usage and understanding will improve. I thoroughly enjoyed the luxury it gave when I had it but didn’t come to my full senses that I actually had an iPhone and that feeling made it a bit bad! I would check my mail read my RSS as and when I want! That’s a luxury that you should have when you deserve it, I thought so. Hence I waited for the moment to give my phone off so that I can transcend back to reality and what I was. Ultimately, it only got me worse because, whenever I go about doing something on the phone, I keep on to it for hours and believe me, it’s that addictive! It got me into deep trouble in all my time management issues!

To sum up, the iPhone 3G, though I had fun with it, was a through waste of precious time and money and especially unnecessary for me in this point of life when I’m trying to get a Masters degree!

Nickelback Rocks!

Jus listen to this!

Bliss at 10,000 RPM...!

The irony of having the fastest motorbikes all around you but not able to ride one, painfully alters your dream of owning one. 0-100KMPH in fewer than 4 Seconds and the “Drop Dead Gorgeousness” of the bikes r definitely worth everything! When you finally do own one, there is every possibility that the passion you had about the bike and the circumstances will not be the same! If the names Yamaha R1, Kawasaki Ninja ZX-10R, Suzuki GSXR-1000, Honda CBR1000 RR, Aprilia RSV 1000 R and the most amazing Ducati 1098 R don’t strike anything to you, then probably this article is not for you!

In India I used to fancy really good bikes and I try to strike a balance between power and fuel economy with a 150 CC Honda Unicorn (CBF 150M) when fuel sells for about Rs 45 a liter! In the USA, especially Texas, the converted rates are about Rs 25 for a liter. Given the difference in economy from India, everyone can afford never to look at Mileage! This makes it actually economic to drive Superbikes than cars…!!! In India, The Pulsar and the Karizma are the meanest of machines and the one that has one is apparently cool. The new R15 from Yamaha has set hearts racing as Yamaha has brought in the R series into India. The most powerful is the motorbike available is the Kinetic Aquila which is way too expensive for Indian Standards. Even the Honda Unicorn, I was not able to unleash all its power most of the time. This being the factors, motorcycle companies do not launch any higher models.



In the world market, it’s a different story. Cars r astonishingly cheaper than bikes! (If u think of it from an Indian Mind frame) And a decent student car can be anywhere close to $2000 USD (Used one Ofcourse!). Where as a superbike here is close to 12,500 Benjamins for a new one and a decent, used one it comes close to 6000 dollars! I’ve seen Cruisers for even $3500 USD and even driven one and they have amazing power compared to the teeny performers in India. But I’m a Superbike enthusiast who looks nothing further than the Bikes above will settle for nothing less, any day I decide to buy a two wheeler. My personal favorites are the Yamaha R1 and Kawasaki Ninja ZX10R! When you end up playing with the numbers, you plan on getting a used one in a year or so, when we get a job! This is all good! But given the economy, No one can tell!

So many things run in your mind when you ought to make a decision, you see the number of accidents that happen with such a high performance bike and then you decide you value your life more than owning and riding a superbike and ur all messed up in your head! You also see superbikes zooming through the main road next to your apartment and the passion of having one of your own comes into your head! So, it’s up to you to have enough fun with the bike when you own one and not get into trouble! It’s your life, so ride it safely! I’ve made my choice, I am going to get myself one somewhere down the years and I know my passion still says on!

So, another whiff of hot air you say? I guess not!

Dostana... "What Say? You Gay?" - SERIOUSLY...?

This movie is the first of its kind, and though its absolutely hilarious and non stereotypical, its Gay...!!!You Should not miss out on the "Date with Dostana" with Karan! Really, fire between the guys there is Amazing and never have i seen so much candor in talk shows before! I bet Abishek proposed to Ash with the same zeal as it is in the show! :D Russel Peters' joke is coming to my mind here... We might have a gay pride moment in India Soon...!!! To control the population crisis! This might just be a tip off! As we know people follow the movies as a fashion, Blindly! -Kidding- Well, i Started watching the movie with drools from the trailer where they show Priyanka Chopra not in a bikini but in a swim wear and being her fan i absolutely wanted to see it! With Abishek and John in the movie, i knew it was going to be interesting. Well i did laugh my ass off during the movie. I have to say Abishek can really act! This movie, I'm sure has changed the numbers in his bisexuality ratio, or rather made him one! We all know the movie and im not going to go on about it. Here's a thing that i want to say about my friend here at College Station who is totally "Maja" all the time, and as the local slang goes in Tamil, "Galeej". And this movie, set the notes of his jokes off in a really awkward direction! I hope he's not misunderstood as a gay here in this country!!! Well, even if he is, i would'nt care, cause the rascal has been one annoyer of a person lately with the jokes and lines he picked up from "Dostana"! That aside, i can remember a lot of my friends and friends of my bro, constantly refering each other as gay, thinking they are abusing each other! I had one pal back then who used to go one step further and piss me off jus like how Dostana happens...! I can only imagine what would happen of them and others if their idea of fun were on the same lines! That would be ugly from the outside, but once ur in the groove, u'll know that whatever extent your leg gets pulled, its simply just FUN! Till ur approached by a gay!!!! :D I also want to see the looks and comments of the so called elder people who still stick to the culture and are already criticizing the clothes people wear today cause of movies and so on... I have not heard of people in late forties and fifties comment on this... And You people can imagine, if they do, they can even suspect ur friends..!!! Guys, i mean... Now that's all im going to dig into... My Verdict: What a movie! In my lines of "FUN", this is up there on the top! Note the point - FUN and only FUN..!!! :P