A glimpse of the past week and the few articles, podcasts, tools, videos and music that captivated my attention: Watched the Sky is Pink with Meena, while Shasta stayed at home. A touching story and at some level I believe it did nudge Meena to consider signing up for the Bone Marrow registry. While I fail to understand what’s holding her (and other folks in my family) back, hoping she does see this through over the next few weeks. ...
State of the network: With better access to the router and some re-wiring in the house, I got around rejigging my server setup. This will change once I get my Odroid shipped over. For now though, here’s my current setup: NexcloudPi installed on a Raspberry pi 3B+ board Diet-Pi installed on another Raspberry pi 3B+ board running the pi-hole The SBCs and the modem are now connected to the UPS inverter, so hopefully that gets rid of the hard shutdowns. Might consider getting a stabilizer at some point in time. I am also leaning towards a more robust homelab system. Yet to whet the core setup and will probably explore that a year down the lane. ...
Travel: We were in Hyderabad for a friend’s wedding. Wedding’s are a wonderful opportunity to meet some good old friend’s. This one was no different. Been a busy week otherwise shuttling between meeting friends and family, and finishing up some admin chores. Didn’t get around taking Meena to the ’touristy’ spots. Will have to plan another trip for that. Did visit the Infosys campus though. Back here after eight years! While not much seems to have changed, the space does look super green. The plants of the 2000’s are now huge trees almost shrouding the walkways. ...
Shasta’s almost standing! Yesterday we heard her say a coherent ‘Hi’ in response to random call from Meena. She’s growing way too fast! This was one good workout week. With S needing to work on her general fitness, we’ve been regularly hitting the beach for those early morning barefoot runs. The one day we had to turn around and head home because of strong rains, Meena got us to do a good round of Ashtanga. Also got around swimming thrice at the Madras Boat club. My legs ache in a very good way and I am loving it! ...
I’ve had my eyes on the Billy goat trail for a while now. With a beautiful foggy forecast, this Sunday was a great day to head to the woods. We reached the Chesapeake and Ohio National Historic park in about an hour’s time, only to realise that the Billy Goat section A and B trails were closed due to flooding! Having come this far, we decided to explore rest of the park. The short hike to Great Falls via the locks was insanely beautiful! So glad we decided to head this way! ...
A short morning hike to the Liberty Dam near home. Scouted a shorter trail but ended up hiking on a proper road up to the Dam. 3.6 miles round trip and a quick scrambling attempt on a rock face with N at the end. Got back here via the trail the subsequent weekend. The trail was pretty picturesque. Winding by the North Patapsco river and eventually terminating at a beautiful vantage point right near the foot of the dam, this dirt trail made it totally worth coming back here again. A branch off this trail also seemed to lead back to the parking lot at the top. Will likely get back here while putting in some mileage for trail runs. ...
Photo taken at: Cadillac Mountain, Acadia National Park Last November we drove to Acadia and had a terrific experience there with the Labrador cold front.Being off-season, there was sparsely any crowd and we had most of the park just for ourselves. Those three days were the most relaxed days we spent together in a while. Earlier this month, we revisited Acadia, this time with family. The park was very crowded and we had to rise up pretty early to have access to some quiet zones. Nevertheless, it was a just great being back there. Drove around the park loop, hiked up the bubbles, and visited Schoodic peninsula and Bar Island. Stayed at an RV camp park in Ellsworth. ...
Photo taken at: Mount Moosilauke First backpacking trip in recent years. Had a 27 pound backpack on and felt every ounce of it on my spine as we hiked up Moosilauke on Day 1. With a thunder shower forecast for the weekend, we had one person drop out from the team just the night before the trip. After the initial meet at the Appalachian Trailhead on NH-25A, eight of us packed in two cars head towards the Beaver Brook Trailhead at Kinsman Notch on NH 112. Started the hike at around 09:30hrs up the Beaver Brook trail. ...
Nik turns 10 and we decided to spend the day outdoors. Head to Cunningham falls for a hike instead of Shenandoah. The falls by itself wasn’t any impressive. Took less than 30 minutes to reach the tiny cascade standing all of probably 80ft. Was expecting Maryland’s highest falls to be much higher than this! Looped back to the parking lot on a slightly longer trail. Miss shey totally killed it! This 2 year old hiked the whole stretch with absolutely no complaints! ...
Seward Johnson’s - Return visit A quick weekend trip to Chicago to meet Neeraj and Kanu. Took this opportunity to explore Chicago a bit. Chicago downtown felt like an eclectic mix of Boston and NYC. Spent some time walking around the city on Saturday covering the regular spots leading up to Navy pier and back. Totally mesmerized by the greenish-blue waters of Lake Michigan! Headed over to Native foods cafe (finally!) for dinner. Elizabeth joins us and later we decide to head to Hopewell Brewing company. Grab some drinks and dive into some interesting board games with live music in the background. Played a slew of bananagram rounds and decide to head back to the hotel. ...