Book: Walking from East to West

I am reading this book by Ravi Zacharias. So far, I have read nearly 100 pages. This is the first book for me by this author. I have come to like this book a lot because the author and I seem to share a lot of similar sentiments.

Christine gave this book to me as part of her wedding-day gift, because of a lot of similarities in Ravi Zacharias' and my backgrounds: we both were born in Tamil Nadu, India, speak Tamil, moved to the Americas in our early 20's, married white girls, etc.. I did not appreciate this insight from Christine much then, but now I appreciate her gift of this book a lot.

Besides the strong faith inspirational part, this book has also educated me quite a bit about Indian tradition. You learn about the early German-Swiss churches in Kerala, Mughlai cuisine (India supplied the spices, and the Mughals brought in the almonds, cashews, and creme), and close details of life in Delhi, to name a few, from this book.

This is a recommended read.

On a related note, I am also reading in parallel these books: Shalimar the Clown, by Salman Rushdie, The Prince, by Niccolo Machiavelli, and a biography of Che Guevara which I started quite a few months ago.

Sledding

Christine and I went sledding today with another couple. We went to nearby Mendon Ponds Park, a massive park with terrain that is absolutely perfect for sledding.

When we had gone there a few weeks ago with another set of friends there was snow at least a foot deep, but this time it was a bit thin. However, it did not stop us from having lot of fun!

We had 4 sleds - three circular ones that we labeled flying saucers and the fourth one resembling a traditional sled. We tried several combinations with the sleds, including 'chaining' them with all four going down the slope front-to-back, each holding on to the person in the front. This was called a Caterpillar.

We did this until 5:00PM or so when a light consistent snow fall set in. The light snow fall did turn into heavy snow within an hour, though.

The coldest run

I think this morning's run was the coldest one ever for me. It was 13F, and with wind chill the temp was 2F. Very rough!

The run was with the local running group. Being the slowest in the group of three (today) I was asked to set the pace. I was hoping to set a pace of 8' 30", but it was very difficult - perhaps I was setting a 8' 45" pace. To make it harder, a tall hill was chosen for the route.

Nevertheless, I managed.

It was so cold that the tear drops (my eyes watered constantly!) on my eye lashes froze into big balls of ice! It was such an awkward thing.

The other two, who are excellent runners, were very kind to me, though.

It was a great run overall, and I am very happy that I did it. Ran a total of nearly 4 miles in ~35 mins.

A cardinal outside my home office

From Winter

Spring is here!

At least it feels like Spring is here. This morning the temp was a balmy 39F, with the forecast predicting it to rise up to 43F! Until today, we had not seen 30+ in more than a month. It is a welcome change, mate.

As soon as I heard the weather report I called out to Christine that I was going out for a run, and quickly jumped in to running clothes and shoes. I ran nearly four miles and it was such a bliss!

The side walks still had a couple of inches of snow at places, so I had to run on the road to avoid such spots; nevertheless, it was a sweet run. No treadmill run can compare to a run outside.

Finished the run at 8:40AM and joined Christine for breakfast.

Ride report - Feb 11

I rode with a friend here last evening for 15 miles or so. The ride was interesting to say the least.

The temp was 22F, with a wind of 10 - 12MPH. There was at least a foot of snow on the sidewalks and road-sides, but the roads were cleared. So I bundled up in the best of winter wear and got out.

Naturally, riding the road bike was out of question, so I rode Christine's mountain bike, after having switched the Look pedals from my bike. Her bike is a neat and light-weight bike with dual disk brakes and other bits of fanciness.

My friend Remo is a very seasoned rider, putting around 6000 miles every year on his bike. He is an excellent climber.

We decided to do four loops of a five-mile circuit. All that I felt in the first run was the cold, and my incompetency in switching gears on the bike. (It was the first time for me on a mountain bike). I also started noticing ice in my drink. No problem. I shook the bottle hard; and I had my drink.

The next loop was fairly ok. By now I had warmed up, and my fingers and toes were warm, too. Nevertheless it was difficult, since it was the first time for me on the bike since a mid-December ride. By now the water bottle was much more frozen and I had to beat it really hard to get a drink out of it.

The third loop was strange. The sun was almost set and so it was a little more chillier, and the water bottle was completely frozen - I could not get a single drop out of the bottle. But I felt quite warm, thanks to the several layers of clothing.

We decided that we would stop after three loops (15 miles), because of the lack of light. And we were two miles away from finishing at home. I was drafting Remo now, but all of a sudden I started feeling a bit light-headed. Nevertheless, I focused hard and stayed on his wheel and we finished.

We quickly peeled off the outer layers and went inside Remo's home to warm up. Inside I noticed Remo's face was quite flushed and blue. By now we both felt horribly light-headed and feeble. It was a very strange feeling that we could not explain why. Then Remo's wife Patti made us an excellent meal after eating which our lives came back and we started feeling normal again. Once we were okay we realised that if we had gotten in any trouble in the last mile of our ride - anything as little as a flat tire - we would not have had the presence of mind to get through the problem, and so we would have gotten ourselves in a deep soup!

On a related note, Remo commented that I spin a lot, and he encouraged me to use a bit higher gears and make my muscles work a bit harder.

New blog

We begin this blog with a picture of Tine taken this morning before she left for work.