http://starbase11.blogspot.com/2006/10/thanksgiving-dinner-2006.html

I have been really unhappy wth the MSN spaces, been hearing  lot of complaints about their snail speed and advertisements popping up. Hence this blog is now relacated to http://starbase11.blogspot.com/ where I already have 3 othe blogs. i will kep posting links to tha blog over hee though.

Well before the big weekend finale of the Florida leg we celebrated Kalpana nani's birthday. overall had a great time with nani ( heck we even made rasgullas together, my batch was kinda hard and small but it was good for my 1st try ;)


we also had a bowling game before the big day ( no the scores aint fixed, i am actually that decent at the game :P and off the record Raj mausa did most of the work on that score-board, including most of the good shots mausi, Rashi & Riya got ;)


After that came the big weekend. we drove down to the Kennedy Space Center and spent a saturday touring the complex.

It was mind numbing being in the presence of the machines that had taken man so far. be it their size or their complexity these things represented the ultimate human achievement and it was amazing just to be around them. the highlights were a Saturn 1b rocket,

thruster assemblies including that of a Saturn V ( the most powerfull engine ever built ),

the original 2-man Gemini 2space capsule ( man that thing looked cramped !! immagine hurling in orbit at many Km/sec around the Earth with a copilot for a couple of hours in that, the astronauts of today are pretty much in the lap of luxury !! )

and a memorial dedicated to the NASA's fallen.


Well its getting late now, i will have the final pics posted soon - Rashi and I hit Universal studios in Orlando. till then, take care.

spent over a week at Florida with Shefali mausi and family. got to hang out with all 3 of my cousins and pretty much lived in luxary considering the house they live in in Fort Lauderdale. heck, theres an artificial lake behind their house juzt for the beauty of it !!!



on the 1st day i went out with Nitin mama and his friends to Miami beach for a day of relaxing and just general passing the football around and not to mention enjoying the scenery ;)



the next evening i went out with Nitin mama and Rashi to see a game of baseball played by the home team the Marlyns.



next up is the Orlando Trip.
enjoy !

As many of you may know i have been touring the south-east of US for the last 2 weeks and have visited several places in the process.  i will soon upload pics and info about the trip. rest assured, its been a hectic yet fun time.

The Hard Rock Cafe in the CBD, the 3rd one i have been to. Had once heck of a meal there and good rock music too, not to mention the collectable they had up on display ( Sir Elton John's hat, Madona's corsette and more !! )



The view from the highest man made structure on the planet ( Observation deck and the Sky Pod of the CN tower ).




( yes i know what your asking, that head-shot of me is me lying down on the glass floor of the observation deck with a plesent 400 meter drop below me )
you can also see the closing of the roof of Rogers Center, the largest stadium with a closable roof ( no mates, it aint Colonial stadium in Docklands !!! )

Worked at the Daimler CGrysler plant this week. Windsor's installation covers over 75,000 sq. ft and is their main mini-van production plant. for the last week I was working in a team responsible for upgrading the entire plants computer systems. our job was to remove the old hardware, connect the new one and connect it to the main-frame server through Red Hat Linux. it was a 7am-3:30pm job and i was out of the house from 6am-4:30pm generally



A few gatherings with the team.



We were divided into teams of 2 and Muna and i were working together. we worked in the main assembly factory....


and the main construction factory where they put together the chasis of the vans with all the robots one can possibly immagine.



The main assembly plant was the biggest building, where they put together all the components from the dashboard to the engines.



the engines assembly part was the coolest. they start out with these base 3.3, 3.7 and 4.0 Liter V6 engines and by the end of the long line they are 2-3 times their original size with all the added components.



stepping out of the plant was when one realized the actual scale of the factory.



the construction plant was the hardest part of the job as the computers were spread out sparodically all over the place and there was quiet a bit of construction/maintanence going on so it became like a maze to navigate through. more pics of the construction plant



Well, it was a really messed up week with the job and all and im glad to be done but at the same time wish i was going back the next morning. until next time i guess.

enjoy

Considered one of the largest fireworks show on the planet this 40 minute feast was a jont operation between Windsor and Detroit.


i also have a movie clip of the ending here.

Enjoy.

well, off late i was trying to make a Wing Commander styled t-shirt and that somehow got me onto the front page of www.wcnews.com, the biggest WC network on the planet. the link is : here

Well, been haloing a lot. had akash ans shab over for some lan 2 nights ago.


Now that we have our new broadband internet connection, wiki, sujay and i tested how it holds on internet-multiplayer. pretty good i must say, its freakin faster than our previous DSL internet !!


And for the funny, wiki hanging around on blue base after i paid him a visit ( with a fuel-rod cannon :p )

the craziest Halo LAN of summer 2006 yet..........10 - 0 score !! my 1st time in multiplayer.



Players -
obesity : Abhay
a fat chick : Wiki
AIDS : Ranjan
George Bush : Sujay
Foxtrot : myself

well, i finished my first Voyager based novel just last week and boy did it bring back some memories. been a while since i've seen some new Voyager related material, let alone read a Trek book ( been like 5 years i think ) but it sure felt nostalgic. all in all, it felt like re-living one of the tv eppisodes. the story on the other hand is bigger than the novel itself as it spans 3 books, hopefully will have the other 2 to read soon too. in the book, the crew encounter a really messed up section of the galaxy where all known laws of physics seem to have been thrown out of the nearest air-lock. still, the writing is simple enough for high-school kid to make complete sense of it.

the book also commemorates the 10th aniversary of Voyager. WOW, its been that long already !! felt just like last month that voyager finished its final 7th season

cheers

Well, just moved to our new place on 1st of May. took a while to post this update ( vacation = lazy time ) but its finally here. its been a fun move-in, wish i had pics of the mess the previous house was in and the pile of our stuff lying behind the new house when we un-loaded the U-Haul but in the crazy last minute packing i wasnt even sure where my camera was :s anyways, here it is now.

since move-in i've managed to pick up a lot of stuff lying around our place, left out by other students moving out. the bounty collected include :
. DVD player ( ranjan and i had to fix it, it was broken but now it works like brand new :)
. 20" Panasonic old TV ( have it hooked upto my computer now )
. Lexmark inkjet printer ( not sure if it works though )
. 4 storey DVD - shelf
. Table which i use for the computer now
. Old dresser to keep the TV on

G'day folks
havnt updated in a while cos lifes been busy but i just wanted to share some info on an anime I saw recently called appleseed. the original movie released in 1988 was considered a dissapointment however the new remake of 2004 was done in breath-taking 3d and the story/characters are even stronger and beter then the originals. overall this movie has to be the best anime ive ever seen ( way beter than robotech and ghost in the shell ) and i would even consider one of the most entertaining movies ive ever seen. ive posted the trailer online on my website at

trailer

Enjoy.

I know i know, its "supposed" to be spring ! surely doesnt feel that way whenever i cycle back home at 3am !! However today was by far the most beautiful day i have seen this entire winter and despite only 5 hrs sleep last night and almost 8 hours of continous classes/labs after that was all done i was compelled to go biking to the river side, as a break from all the above. I rekon the whole of windsor was there because ive never seen teh river-side so crowded ! and as proof, here are some pics so enjoy ( and suffer as well if you missed it :P )