R-Rated

Finally completed a superb 3-day Memorial Day weekend in downtown Chicago, arguably the most beautiful downtown that there is. Thanks to CityPass, saw 5 attractions with little to no wait times at the long ticket lines. Visited the Museum of Science and Industry, Navy Pier and Sears Tower on Day 1. Day 2 started early with Shedd Aquarium and Oceanarium, Adler Planetarium and ended with Millennium Park. Day 3, also early, started and finished with the Field Museum. Sears Tower (soon to be Willis Tower), Shedd Aquarium and the Field Museum were my personal favorites. Adler was boring. Missed out on the architectural tour of the city. Chicago may be called the Windy City for its see-sawing political climate, but the weather was chilly and windy on the second day. Made grand and to the minute plans prior to the trip, but all that was washed out as soon as the plane landed in Chicago on friday evening. Decided to take Day 1 on the go and underestimated the time that would take to complete e...

The people of India have spoken and its the UPA (again) who will form the next government. And what a victory it has been. Indian National Congress gains 205 seats by itself and the UPA has close to 260. The UPA can literally pick and choose from the whole gamut to reach 272. It is a slap on the face of the BJP led NDA coalition which had dreams of forming a (radical) hindu government. L.K. Advani, Narendra Modi and co. have to rethink their strategy of forming a stable party before they can think of leading India again. Dr. Manmohan Singh is the right man for the top post. As various media outlets have shown and his own profile matches that of a non-corrupt, thinker, non-judgemental person who is silent but strong enough to lead India out of this economic recession. Weak PM.... that's all shredded to pieces by the Indian voter. Advani is called the Iron Man, but that title should go to MMS and righfully so. MMS has a lot to look forward to and his guarantee that India will be back...

And so after several unsuccessful attempts, I have decided to make this Memorial Day weekend an outing that I have tried to take for a long time. Its time that I visited and struck-out downtown Chicago from my list of want-to-visit-so-badly places. All the people that I know are seriously stumped as to why in the 9 months that we lived there, we couldn't see the place. Well, the situation then (2006) was different as we thought that Chicago was going to be our home for the next few years and that there would be ample time to visit. Ya right. Kirti eventually wound up moving back to Chicago and I remained in the wonderfully frozen tundra known as Minneapolis. Just the other day I was thinking, it has been 2 years in Minnesota, a place I did not think I was going to live for 1 year, let alone 2 years and counting. Having great friends made it possible. So the graph goes like this; Akron, Ohio (2002-2006), Chicago, Illinois (2006-2007), Minneapolis, Minnesota (2007-2009). The weird fa...

So the second edition of the IPL kick started on April 18 and now in the middle stages of the tournament, it feels as to when the games are going to end. Can't help but notice that 4 out of the 8 teams in the tournament have various shades of blue for their jersey color (Rajasthan, Mumbai, Delhi and the newest entrant Deccan). Whatever happened to the other colors, God only knows. Guess every one is turning a blind eye to the rest of the spectrum. Kolkata is nicely sweeping the bottom of the table while Deccan are a surprising choice for the top. This is only the middle stages of the tournament so who knows how the points table might look towards the end. The Chicago Bulls and the Boston Celtics played out a fantastic and memorable 7-game series of the Eastern Conference first round. Boston prevailed but not before some butt-kicking by the under-rated Bulls team. Less than 2 months to go for the project to come to a close...unless...Wipro pulls out a bunny from the hat (once again....