San Diego, Again

We just returned from another road trip to San Diego. This time my mother, who is visiting for the month of October, came with us. Like last time, we had planned to leave on Friday afternoon. Like last time again, unexpected delays came up, (this time they really were unpredictable, and not related to Shreya) and it was quite late in the evening by the time we were ready to hit the road. This time however, we decided not to simply leave then. Instead we got an early night and set out on Saturday morning, at 4:30! This time, the stars were favorably aligned however, and we didn't run into any snowstorms or fog or major road work, and we arrived in San Diego around 8:00 in the evening.

On Sunday, Tom and I both gave talks at the INFORMS meeting. As a brief tangent from always reporting about Shreya, I should mention that this is a crazy conference. There are close to eighty parallel sessions! I don't have a good estimate of even the order of magnitude of the number of participants, and can't seem to find his information on the web, but one could see lots of participants milling around for several blocks around the convention center. The printed program is about the size of a telephone directory! When I mentioned this to my sister, she asked how one decides which sessions to attend. The answer is quite simple if unfortunate -- one just looks for ones friends. Annoyingly enough, some of the talks we were interested in were scheduled in parallel with our own. On the whole, the entire thing was rather a pandemonium.

Anyway, we both attended some sessions on Sunday and Monday, while Aai and Shreya hung out at the hotel, where Aai exercised Shreya (or was Shreya exercising Aai?) On Tuesday, Tom went to the conference site but spent the afternoon working with a collaborator instead of attending the sessions. Aai, Shreya and I spent the time in Balboa Park, where Shreya had fun splashing in the fountains and riding the tram. Tom joined us there in the late afternoon for about an hour, and then, in the evening, we began the journey back home. This time we were not so pressed for time as UNM had their fall break, so Tom didn't have to get back and teach. So we decided to take longer on the drive back, and take in some sights on the way. And that is just what we did, on Wednesday afternoon and Thursday morning and afternoon. More about it in another post.

HB

It's my birthday, and I hear from my father, who heard from my grandmother, that it is also Shreya's birthday according to the tithi (Indian lunar calendar, according to which Shreya was born on Diwali, which of course makes it easy to remember, if one keeps track of that sort of thing). An interesting coincidence. Happy birthday to us! I wonder when our birthdays will coincide again?

Balloooooons!

[I wrote this post a week ago, on October 9, but it's taken us a while to get the pictures ready.]

On Saturday (October 3), we all woke up at the eye-rubbingly early hour of 4a.m. to go to the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta. This is a big annual event in Albuquerque, and lasts about 10 days. On the weekend days, it is apparently attended by several hundred thousand people. We were going to take the shuttle from a Park and Ride location at a mall a few miles from our home. (The Balloon Fiesta Park itself is about 13 miles away.) Of course we had the added complication that there were more of us going than would fit in our little car. Hence the need to leave extra early, to get to the mall in two shifts. There, of course, we had to suffer long lines for the bus. We waited in line over an hour and a half after we were all there, before we were finally able to squeeze into a schoolbus that transported us to the park getting us there just shortly after 7a.m. when the mass ascension event started.





None of us had ever been to a balloon fiesta before, and it was quite an experience. We walked around and saw hot air balloons being inflated. We saw them take off at very close quarters. We saw the sky full of hot air balloons. We saw the sun rise over the Sandia mountains -- it looked not unlike a hot air balloon ascending! There were lots of colorful balloons in the traditional bulb shape, but there were also some unusual shapes like a beer mug, a pair of bees (attached for at least part of their flight), a fish, a jack-in-the-box, and believe it or not, a cow. The cow was the size of about three normal balloons, and had a lot of trouble getting up in the air, but when she finally did, she flew really high! It was a spectacular sight.








I was uncertain what Shreya would think of these strange goings-on, but she seemed to enjoy herself. She did not get vocally excited, but perhaps that was due to the earliness of the hour. She definitely watched the balloons, following them with her eyes while she snuggled comfortably in her carrier.

The only downside to this lovely morning was the line we had to wait in to get back home. There was total chaos in the mad rush to get on the bus, with several lines merging into one, and confusion about which line was for which destination. Once again it took nearly 90 minutes between when we got in line and when we boarded a bus. Still, we had an interesting fun time, and at least I am enthusiastic about going again... next year.

Visitors

Last weekend Shreya had some special visitors: her uncle, aunt and grandmother. Of these, her uncle and aunt stayed for four days, but her grandmother will be staying for a whole month! What fun for Shreya!

As in Atlanta, Shreya took to Pallavi very quickly. Obviously if she was around it was safe to fall asleep.


Here she is, playing with Aji.

She was deeply suspicious of Pramod all through his visit, smiling at him or playing with him only when she was safely clinging to someone else that she knew. But one afternoon she allowed him to walk her around the house. His theory is that she didn't know who was behind her. Look at her though. She looks totally comfortable!

Lost Keys!

Saturday dawned bright and fair. We had a full schedule, with lots of things to do, and in a lazy it's-a-long-weekend sort of way, we had even begun to do them. And then, trouble reared its ugly head. Setting out to run some errands, Tom discovered that he had lost his keys. We looked for them everywhere, on bookshelves, under furniture, in closets. We pulled out the couch cushions to see if they had fallen in there. We checked in the car. We even looked in the most unlikely places (the refrigerator, the oven, the washing machine). Then Tom went and checked in his office (borrowing my keys to drive and a colleague's to access the building.) No luck. Where could they be? Was it possible that he had left them in the door the last time he had used them and somebody had passed by and taken them? Surely they wouldn't do that? Was it possible that he had dropped them the previous evening when he took Shreya for a walk? Could they just possibly have evaporated? Hours later, we still hadn't found them, and Tom went to post signs on the neighbourhood trees asking if anyone had noticed them. And then, quite suddenly Shreya found them.

Can you spot the keys in this picture?


She could not understand why Mommy and Daddy were so upset and didn't want to play with her. Eventually however, it wasn't a matter of playing anymore. She was hungry and she wanted her milk. So we went into the bedroom and settled down to nurse her. And in doing so, we bumped her crib, (which adjoins our bed) and heard a jingling sound. The keys had fallen in the small slit between the crib and the bed and had gotten wedged between the mattresses in such a way that they could not only not be seen from above, but were also invisible if one lay on the ground and looked under the bed. When we bumped the crib, they were somewhat dislodged and gracefully slid lower and got caught on the bottom of the crib's railing.



Well, all's well that ends well.

Jemez

This past weekend was the last weekend of the summer (as defined by the UNM academic calendar.) To make the most of it, we went with some friends to the nearby town of Jemez Springs. Although it is only about an 80 minute drive away, and therefore possible to visit as a day trip, we nevertheless decided to stay over Saturday night so as to have more time.

On Saturday, we spent the morning getting there and coordinating with our friends. It took a little longer than expected, since we had decided to meet there, rather than in Albuquerque, and our friends don't have cell phones, and even if they did, we didn't have a signal on ours (Grrr, so much for Verizon having the best coverage -- that of course may still be true, but grrr anyway! ... and on a related note, I really wonder how people managed in the pre-mobile-phone days.) And to add to all the other hurdles, we had two babies' schedules to juggle. However we surmounted all the obstacles and eventually met up.

After lunch in Jemez Springs, we drove out to Jemez Falls, about 15 miles away. The town and falls are in the Jemez mountains, at an elevation of about 6200 ft. The scenery was gorgeous, with bright orange-red mountains dotted with tall evergreen trees, and occasional small bubbling hot springs just at the side of the road. From the parking lot at Jemez Falls to the actual falls was a very short hike, less than half a mile. However, even this proved to be quite challenging, because Jared and Julia's baby is about 15 months old, and having just learned a few weeks ago to walk unsupported, is very much into walking on his own instead of being carried. Of course, he doesn't always want to walk in the direction the adults want to go...


Oddly enough, we don't seem to have taken any pictures of the falls, as seen from downstream. We later walked a short distance upstream, and saw the river above the falls. It was pretty shallow, at least in some parts, and we had some fun wading in.


Here are Tom and Shreya just above the falls.



On Saturday night, after the other had gone to bed, Tom, Shreya and I drove a couple miles out of town, then pulled off the road to do some stargazing. We don't have a tripod, so no pictures, but the sky was quite breathtaking.

On Sunday, after breakfast, we decided to try something a little more strenuous, so we hiked a couple of miles uphill, to McCauley hot springs. These were really just lukewarm springs, but we still enjoyed them!


On the hike back to the car, we got a little nervous, as a bit of a wind blew up, and we could hear thunder from not far away. But fortunately, we didn't get any rain, and made it back safely. Here is Shreya, partaking of a little post-hike refreshment.


On the ride back to Albuquerque, the storm finally broke, and it has been raining (sort of) ever since.

Seattle

Last week, we took Shreya on her third major trip. This time we travelled to Seattle. Tom was visiting Microsoft Research for a week, to do some work with a collaborator. Shreya and I just went along for the ride, among other reasons because I'd never been to Seattle. Of course, in practical terms, I still haven't seen much of the region: during the week, Tom worked all day, and Shreya and I, somewhat transportless, hung out and played either in the hotel or in nearby playgrounds. In the evenings, in principle we could've seen some sights, if we had wanted to skip dinner for the purpose (since restaurants in Redmond seemed to close very early. I suppose this might not have been the case in the city, but in any case we did not find out.) That left Saturday to do touristy stuff, but of course the weather, which had been pretty nice if a bit chilly all week, decided not to cooperate. So, in the end, we skipped going to Mt. Rainier or any of the other attractions and just wandered around Pike Place Market (which Tom points out is an attraction) for some time and spent the day with Tom's collaborator and his wife. So in short, it was an enjoyable week, but uneventful. Here are some pictures.

On the flight out, Shreya attacks a packet of peanuts.


Playing at the hotel.


At Nikhil and Megha's Shreya was fascinated by the coffee table.


Mirrors, mirrors on the wall...