Meena and my family gifted me an Odroid XU4 SBC earlier last month as a Christmas/B-day gift. One of my projects during the year-end holidays was to setup a robust home server; Essentially getting my webservers home from Digital Ocean, where they are currently hosted. This would be a terrific companion to the nextcloud fileserver that I setup earlier using a raspberry pi. Earlier this week, I chanced upon DietPi and decided to launch it on the eMMC chip. One of the first things I did was to install Pi-Hole. With uBlock addons’ that should be some good riddance to ads across my home network! Would be interesting to keep track of these network pings to see what devices are needlessly calling ‘home’. ...

Had my eyes on this trial ever since I saw the ‘Gun powder falls state park’ sign on I95. Drove over for about 30mins with Sharath to get here this afternoon. Pretty surprised not to find many folks on this trail. The weather was just right and this short 5 mile round trip hike was precisely what we needed to close out 2018. The short stream crossing at the end of the trail was an added bonus! ...

A bright December weekend calls for a quick hike with the brothers! Here for the third time this year, and it still mesmerizes me!

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! ...

It’s about 2 AM and I am on a side bed in Sinai Hospital. Earlier today (yesterday) Meena and I brought into this world a sparkingly beautiful 7lb 5oz girl. I remember seeing Meena during the institute at TFI with some of her school kids and thinking she would be a wonderful mother one day. Eight years from then, as I see this little munchkin in the crib beside her, I am more than thankful for all that has led to this day. I’m thrilled beyond limits. ...

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. ...

As we stood there in front of the casket, me pouring the last drop of water in his mouth, memories flashed in front of my eyes. Of monkeys cornering us that early morning on their house terrace in Ahmedabad; Of walking on the busy roads in Habsiguda, him walking on my left, guarding me from the traffic and I craning my neck to look at him as he mentions how I would be wonderful doctor; Of us both sitting beside Amma in the hospital bed and him explaining in ‘kid terms’ what was likely happening in Amma’s brain as she was fighting her tumor; Of him and Sharath gate crashing wedding receptions in our colony; Of all the discussions we had on ’living’ life and making a concerted effort on spending more time with family; Of the weekend in Queens, NY during their visit to the east coast; Of Grouse Grind and the Dragon boat race, he wanted to do together; Of setting up a local cloud server and him wanting to get into software development and app design; Of all the outdoor trips we planned to do over the next few years; Of our visit to Allouette lake when we visited them a few years back in Vancouver; Of him making arrangements to get a ride for us from the airport to the hospital where he was the patient, Of him asking me not to leave that early when I visited him in June… ...

Came across this phenomenal documentary from Patagonia about the Tarkine in North western Tasmania. Reminded me of the incessant wood logging that I witnessed almost on every backpacking trip across the western ghats in India. Irrationality of humans blows my mind beyond all proportions. If only there was a master switch to reset it all… [embed]https://youtu.be/MHdE2YCRjck[/embed]