Year-End-Sign-Offs

JAN M&S did a whirlwind trip to Abu dhabi, Dubai, Chennai. Weddings and why-not? FEB M,S & I hiked up Shenandoah National Parks highest point - Hawksbill summit The three of us did a flying visit to Houston Took Aarav out on a little hike to Little Bennet regional park. Poor kid trusted me enough to wade freezing cold waters. Farewell to the 165/211 STS/SEOs MAR FACT Training Moved to CDMX Pappaji was able to spend a good few weeks with us APR The 4 of us went to the Teotihuacan Pyramids! Work trip to Matamoros. MAY Miss V and Amma visit us. V explores snooker Family visits Basilica de Guadalupe, Xochimilco and the other touristy spots in and around the city Spend a terrific day in Las Estacas. S surprises me with wanting to jump into the frigid waters! S continues zipping on her scooter to El Angel on Reforma Sundays. Gave M a mild scare when she zoomed ahead all the way to the Panda and didn’t bother waiting for M. Prerna visits for a week Work trip to Nuevo Laredo JUN M&S visit Delhi, Parbani for Vinay’s wedding Work trip to Hermosillo JUL Quick trip to Baltimore for Nancy’s Arangetram Beautiful walking trip to Centro Historico, M runs into one of her school friends out of the blue S enjoys her Elaneer near the Frida Kahlo Museum. Lucha Libre. Meh! M&S visit good ol’ Boston! Joined CLO for a trip to Puebla. Also Africam Safari! Work trip to Matamoros S has started using her cycle with training wheels a lot more AUG Bostonians visit us for a week Work trip to Tegucigalpa, Honduras. Next time around, I should stay here for a bit longer! Visit Las Estacas again. The kids pool was a major disappointment. Not coming back here Meena goes on the PLP trip to Cuetzalan Ballet Forklorico - Kinda nice. S starts roller-skating classes and school! Sep Hike El Ocotal. Oh, so beautiful! M&I explore the rail trail on the bike Flying weekend visit to Baltimore for Sharath’s 50th! Joing CLO for a trip to Merida. Chichenitza and Cenotes! Work trip to Merida OCT Work travel to Fort Lauderdale. M&S were able to join too. Great 1 week right on the beach in Pompano M’s parents visit us for a week Lead the Girl scouts fall hike in El Ocotal. Too many kids and families. Ouch. Shouldn’t have opened this to the whole group. Appa and Athai visit us for a couple weeks. So glad they came together! NOV Shebani visits us for a week Ashu Bhabhi visits us for a day. She got some terrific green coffee beans M and Athai visit Chingahuapan Took Appa and Athai to El Ocotal. Super impressed with how much appa’s able to walk! Wheelchair helped quite a bit. Work travel to Managua. Didn’t get to visit the volcano. Next time around maybe? Marine Ball. Check. Took Appa and Athai to Teotihuacan and Basilica de Guadalupe. They loved it! Missed being with the extended family … for a few moments. Visited the National Cemetery for Dia de Muertes DEC Malinalco Camping with the daisies. Mesmerized by the mountains all around! Sneha visits us for a month Arvind and Patti visits us for about a week Hiked up San Miguel - Such a terrific birthday gift! Pub crawl with the ESC folks. Great evening! We bid and got our top pick. Yaounde it is in 2025! Started roller skating. This is so much fun! As I write this year-end note I realize how much I’ve not really documented. Some day I’ll get back to being more active in this space! Feliz Año Nuevo! ...

With quite a few developments on the personal front, the last few months has kept me quite ‘busy’. Despite Covid, I did a bunch of travel which is always nice! Last August, Appa kinda lost his patience and wanted to make a trip to India. We figured September was the most optimal time and I flew over to MD to accompany him back. With just a day off work, I was able to finagle a whirlwind weekend trip to the US and back. M and S head over to the states in October to be a bit of a help in MD while I looked after two grand old men here in India. It’s been a while that I’ve done this and but for a few rough days, I loved spending time helping them accomplish what they wanted to over the course of three months. Appa was able to get most of his ‘admin’ stuff done and more importantly got to spend time with his younger brother. ...

After a muted attempt last year, we were able to ring in 2021 with an early morning Surfing class at Covelong. The girls loved it and I couldn’t have asked for a better start. Exhilarating, to say the least. And oh, salt water does BURN your eyes! Shasta enjoyed her time on the beach with her grand-parents. Dainty princess that she is, she apparently had her shoes on - for the whole two hours. Nevertheless she did enjoy the early breezy morning, watching us fall umpteen number of times. When asked later, she did mention she thought we were exercising. We’ll go with that! ...

A glimpse of the past week and the few articles, podcasts, tools, videos and music that captivated my attention: Convincing their parents last minute, Divyaa and Raaghuv drove up to Maryland with us. The kids had a ball of a time in the last row of the Sienna. We stopped over at Durham for the night and met Uncle Lou the next day for breakfast. Of course also visited Fuqua school of Business. Rajesh graduated from here and we so wished he was alive to show us around this campus. A gentle reminder to check-in with everyone near and dear every once in a while… ...

Took some time out today to make sure I post a year-end update for 2014. I somehow seem to have missed doing this for the past three years. Looking back, this year has been extremely fulfilling - both professionally and personally. Here’s a quick rewind: January: Interned at Deloitte for two months. My first actuarial internship and a great start to the year. February: Attended the SOA Hartford Student Connect. Great drive to the ‘Insurance capital of the world’ and a good day spent meeting practicing actuaries. Bought a new bike - my first ever road bike! [icon name=“bicycle” class=""] ...

Over the past few months, there’s a lot thats been happening; but for some reason I just didn’t take the time out to visit this space. With the school closed down for the Christmas break and keeping up with the self imposed rule of updating my blog every year-end, here’s a quick snapshot of ‘my’ 2010. This year has been quite interesting from various perspectives. Looking back, the major checkpoints[not necessarily listed in order] this year would be: ...

Reached home quite late after an active day at work. Scrapped the ‘New year party’ plan and decided to crash after a quick dinner. A perfunctory check of my e-mail throws about twenty ‘greeting’ mails. I invariably tend to shift+delete such e-mails as I prefer talking over the phone to e-mails/SMS/IM. But one particular mail from my sister just swept me off my feet..- ‘may this new year bring you closer and closer to everything you want to do…’ These simple words are something that have stood by me all through. Miles away, she’s someone who’s been such a wonderful source of motivation for each and everything I do - day in and day out and I couldn’t see any better way of thanking her than warding off my sleep to take snapshot of the amazing year 0f 2009! ...

I’d written this long post on my 21st Birthday when I didn’t even have a blog. Happened to come across this when sifting through my e-mails and thought I’d save and back post this for records… December 12th 2006: It’s been almost six months that i’ve been placed in Infosys. But still at times, I find it hard to digest the fact that I hit the bull’s eye, right in the first shot! Having ideally no much expertise in coding languages, leave alone my own technical field, It’s been an admixture of both shock and surprises for me all the way through. If there had to be a core reason for me being placed, I would primarily attribute it to my Dad’s choice of enrolling me in the university that I am presently in. The reasons of enrolling me were way much different then. But does’nt everything happens for a reason? ...