Pitstop at LasVegas

On the way to Tucson, Arizona, was an intentional 8 hour pit stop... OMG.. Even as you exit the gate in the airport you would hear the crinkling coins falling from slot machines... No drinking fountains anywhere, only vending machines selling "water"........ Welcome to Las Vegas, Nevada - An entire city dedicated to gambling, money and "fun" !!!!

I met up with Lakshmi (my cousin) in the airport.. and I would be too subtle if I were to say that she's slimmed down... I landed exactly in the wrong day as she had her finals on that day and she was not able to hang around.. She still came to the airport and saw to that I had a good day... I spent time for a while with a couple of her friends before being dropped at the most famous road of the city.. "Strip"...

So on one of the most happening places of the planet.. with little money.. absolutely no intention to gamble.. the afternoon sun scorching over the head... eyes craving for sleep... the teetotaler in me was screaming out ... "What the hell are you doing here all by yourself ???? "

The day when there are lotsa friends... When money really didn't matter... you would have some real good fun... and I would def. recommend it as one of the must see places in the US.

End of Second Quarter

Phew... I haven't blogged in a while... My exam got over on May 10th... It now looks like its been ages since it got over... I had just 2 days to clear up my home, sublease it, arrange for things to be shipped and leave on my muchhhh awaited vacation...

One round of house cleaning.. Shopping... Returning stuff in campus.. Emptying the house.. finalising on apartment subleasing...

The most fun part ofcourse was the Bombay bistro dinner just the day before I left... With just a few hours of deciding we finally made it that day and in good number...

At 12 midnight packing started and I had to leave at 4 30... Never thought I would have to put a night out for packing..

GoodBye Minnesota.... for three months... (Ugh.. I'm already misssing it... :( )

Only Minneapolis possible...

In Chennai, at this time temperature would be around normal human body temperature.
In Baroda, 44 deg Celcius is probably a normal day....

Only in Minneapolis, would I wake up in the morning on 1st of May and find it snowing outside...
Its around 0 degree celcius and I'm searching for my gloves....

Considering my life from January 2004 to April 2005, I've lived 8 months in Chennai followed by 8 months in Minneapolis... Think of it... On an average.. Temperature has been around 20 deg C... I've had one of the most ideal living conditions...

Phew... Now you know why it doesn't make sense to take an average always....

End Semester rush

In another 10 days I'll be done with half of my Masters Program. Can you believe it ?? 15 course credits completed. Consdering the 1 credit I would get for internship this summer, it leaves me with just 15 more..... Way to go......

None of these thoughts however, is going to make the rest of the semester any more fun... The finals for the Advanced Algorithms (algos) course is on May 10th. My Advanced Graphics project is also due on the same day... What is going to keep me busy apart from this is my TA work. I have another set of demos to do the entire week. This leaves me with just the next weekend for my course work. Oh.. did I mention the algos assignment due this Wednesday !!!

Running in my mind apart from this are... filling the Microsoft travel documents... finding a house at Redmond for the three months... Shipping stuff from here to there... Subleasing the apartment here...

Hmm.. thinking of it... the situation is not all that bad... I've got time... Let me take a nap... zzz....