33 miles

I have never been an athletic kind. For the past month something has triggered me off and I am busy looking for shit to do. I am open to cycling; kayaking, white water rafting and anything that will help me sweat a little and push my body to its limits. This past weekend I did something which I had never even dreamt of doing. It is amazing as to how much your body can take when you don’t expect much from it. My buddy Mr. gawker, who I have known for the past 8 years, also became a convert a few years ago. He had been telling me to get my ass to his town so that we could do some biking.
That’s exactly what happened the last Saturday. My wife was out of town on business for the weekend and I wanted to do something constructive with my time and hence I headed down to a small town near Philly. I left home around 8:15, stopped off on the way to my sister’s place to pick up a bike. I was at gawker’s place by 10ish after a lot of arguments with him over directions. I had told the idiot to give me his address so that I could put it in my GPS but he refused to do so cos he felt that the GPS would take me away from him rather than to him. Anyways, I finally got to his pretty neighborhood. The best thing about going anywhere else other than Jersey is everywhere else is prettier, cleaner and less populated than jersey. It is a good change. I went to gawker’s house. He gave me some Creatin supplement or some bull shit claiming that I would feel as strong as superman in his chaddhi. So, we hung out for some time where I said hi to Mrs Gawker. She wanted to know whether I wanted anything to eat and I said no. Gawker and me headed to dunkin donuts to eat some crap and then we headed towards the Valley Forge trail. I was bloody excited about the whole thing. See, the idea was to bike through the trail which was 20 miles long and end up in downtown Philly. The carrot for us rabbits was the beer at the end of the journey.
Gawker had a clean water bottle for himself which he filled with water. I had forgotten to take mine and he gave me a water bottle which had water from ancient times in it and smelt like shit. Being the warrior that I am I rinsed it with good clean water from the fountain and filled it with water. The weather was cloudy and pleasant and it was perfect. The sun wasn’t there to beat shit out of us and it was all set to the tee. Gawker had gloves for his hands and a gel seat for his arse. He was kind enough to give me his helmet. I guess he gave it to me cos he wasn’t using it and also the fact that he knew that I hadn’t biked in many years and didn’t want me to end up with a cracked skull. We set off on the trail. This trail runs by the Schuylkill River which is beautiful. We started riding like maniacs. At first I was peddling like a mad man and was ahead of our man and then I started getting tired. I also had no clue about the gears and how to handle them but in time got that too. Man perfects by practice and improvisation. Anyways, we set off and after the first couple of miles I was pretty tired and then I started slowing down. Then I realized that I had to be consistent and not ride like a pea brain. Slowly I got my bearing and then we started functioning at a healthy pace with him in front of me by 100 yards. He has done this trail many a times and seemed to be pretty comfortable on his ride. Me, on the other hand was doing good but my palms and my buttocks were killing me. My palms cos of the weight on the handle bar and my butt because the seat was violating me. All said and done, after a while I got used to the whole discomfort and we continued on. The trail wound here and there and there and here. It was awesome. The peace was good. The mind is almost in a trance while the physical body is consistently churning out energy. We stopped for a pee brake somewhere half way and then set out again. At the 16th mile, we stopped at the famous Manayunk brewery and this is where we committed out first sin and mistake. Being the knuckle heads we were and beer lovers we were, we ended up having a couple of beers. We set off again and got to the end of the trail which was by the arts museum in downtown. Gawker wanted me to to do the whole thing. He congratulated me and was proud to be my friend. He said that he was amazed I could do it. From there we set off in the quest for getting lunch and some more beer. We met up with a friend of mine for lunch at the triumph brewery on Chestnut Avenue. We had a couple of beers, some food and a lot of conversation with the lady and her husband across our table. Apparently she was half Punjabi and half Canadian and her husband was a goumba from Jersey. After we were done eating, we bid adieu to my friend and the couple we met and began cycling again through downtown Philly. We took the train back to Norristown and then biked back to the beginning of the trail. All in all, he told me that it was 33 miles and I was happy with the number. He now says that it is anywhere between 30 and 33 miles. I will leave it at 33 miles because I like the higher number and my sense of accomplishment is greater at 33 miles rather than 30. The beer didn’t do good things to us. I had a bloody headache the whole day and apparently gawker was all cramped up too because of the dehydration. 4 beers did it to us. The next time, we will not be repeating the same mistake. We are going kayaking this weekend and hopefully it is as much fun and demanding on the body. This kind of pain is beautiful and makes it all worth while. The next day my butt was hurting pretty bad. I was ok with everything else. So all you lazy farts out there who think they cant do stuff like this please wake up and smell the coffee. It is fun. Youth doesn’t stay around for a long time. Make the best use of it.
If you want to know more about gawker my eccentric friend, please visit

http://goose-egg.blogspot.com/

I am surprised he didn’t write his version of our journey through the trail, Philly and back. If I had failed in this endeavor, he would have run home and written all kinds of shit about me. I should thank him though for inspiring me to do this. If it weren't for him, i for sure wouldn't have tried.
In a couple of weeks, we intend doing 50 miles on a bike.

Oriental hegemony?

I am staying up and I am waiting. I am waiting for the market. I am waiting for the market to make up its mind in Taiwan so that business can be conducted. The roles are long reversed. We in the US wait for them to determine what and how much should be sold and then we fight and speculate all day long. At least the money is still here. For the time being eh?

Elephant and Economics

Everyone is talking freaking simple economics. Everyone is talking supply and demand. Everyone is speculating. I heard something in a high profile meeting from a high profile guy. “I am more comfortable with three guys guessing the same thing rather than one”. Sums it all up. Everyone is guessing in some form or the other. All these different circumstances intertwined in each forms “the market”. Each market is unique to its own situation and is governed by latent as well as blatant connotations. You have the players working the market and pushing it in the direction that they want. The smaller players follow the pack. Everyone is under the assumption that someone else knows more than them. The someone else who knows better than them rolls the dice based on that fact that they have the money to spend. Money makes money and the rest of the idiots follow suit. The market leaders gain the most and also stand to lose the most. Like the titanic they sink or rise like the phoenix. Sometimes, the bigger players are so big that nothing makes a difference. It is a drop in the ocean. The bigger you are, the easier it is to stay big. Like an elephant trudging along and crushing anything along its path.

Jiddu Krishnamurti

Anyone know about him? He has been on my mind off late. Can he give me some answers? As I continue to live a life consumed by crappy materialistic needs I feel the pain. People continue to live and die in extreme hardship. How can one start to make a difference in this unfair unfair world? How? Tell me how? Tell me where to look and who to look at? Being a cynic really doesn’t help. Everyone on this world has a fucking agenda. Every human being knowingly or unknowingly has one. We should all be reprogrammed. Like an IC which is programmed to perform in a system. To be programmed into being productive and being a positive on this mother earth. I am blabbering. I need to be in touch with reality.

These are the things i say at work on the floor.

Fuck you
Market is in the shitts
Bastard
Bloody Hell
Are you fucking kidding me?
He must be on crack.
The market is full of crap
What?
How much?


I am foul mouthed. I probably will get fired for being a brash shit head. Its all cool now but things become uncool as easily as they are cool.

Labor Day

Something ain’t right. Something is missing somewhere. The motivation and the spark is low. I am watching Justin Timberlake in MSG on HBO. Pretty decent. I was very prejudiced regarding his talent. The guy seems to be pretty damn good. He sounds like Michael Jackson at times. He dances well and this show that he put on is pretty cool with good music and all. Work is going on.
When you have most of the things too soon in life you go out there looking for something else to do to fill that void. It has been 3 weeks since I came back from Bangalore but it seems like a lifetime ago.
Last weekend was pretty decent. My wife and I decided to go to central park and hang out there on Saturday. We had some brunch by the lake side restaurant. Pretty expensive it was but it was good. We wanted to take a row on the boat but those guys didn’t accept anything but cash and I didn’t have any and hence we didn’t go boating. Instead we slept on the grass while she was reading some stuff. After that we went downtown and did some furniture looking. We went to this wholesale place to see if we could get a bed set for our master bedroom but we didn’t find anything interesting. After that we came back to jersey and then ended up going to circuit city and we got poorer cos we bought a nice 40 Inch LCD TV for our bedroom. We dumped it into our truck and then went and got some Thai. My cousin was with us. We picked up some Stella along the way as it has become my favorite beer. We had some Stella and some Thai. We got home pretty early and hit the sac as we had something lined up for Sunday.
Sunday we were up by 8:30 and we got ready. The idea was to take the train to the city and then take the subway into the US open in queens. I decided against it and wanted to drive. I wanted to check the parking situation and realized that there was construction happening at the open parking lot and hence it was going to be shitty. The arrangement was that we would park at the Shea stadium and then walk across to the USTA. I decided against it and hence the three of us rushed to the train station and took the train to NYC Penn station. My wife is an expert in travel around the city and we left it in her able hands. We left home at 9:30 and we were at the open by 11:30. Oh man! What seats they were. I was fortunate enough to get court side tickets. We got to watch Serena, Venus and Nadal play on Sunday from the second row. It was an awesome experience. The beer, the atmosphere and the seats made it all worthy. We were stupid enough not to carry any hats with us and we were burnt to crisp. I am dark and fat now. We ended up going to my wife’s office. It was pretty cool even though I was grumbling all the way. I wanted to be home for some reason and I have no clue why. I pretty much behave like a spoilt brat when things don’t go my way and my wife does well to remind me about the same. Maybe some day I will learn to be a little more considerate wholeheartedly. By the way, I think I am one of the fastest guys on the earth to type with two fingers. We came home and then started assembling the sleek stand that we got for our TV. I must thank my cousin for being patient and hanging out with us and helping us finish the whole damn thing. We were done at around 3 in the night thanks to some out of the box thinking by both my wife and my cousin. The only thing I am probably good is my job. I suck at the rest and am a pretty one dimensional person. Monday was a nice and relaxed day. We tried lunch at some shitty Indian restaurant where the service was horrible. We went to my sister’s place and hung out there for some time. Came home and did a lot of stuff. All in all it was a very productive weekend.
I wish I could watch Tendulkar batting in this English series. It is like the candle which burns brightly before it goes out forever. I wish the man well. He has conducted himself with poise and dignity. A perfect role model to people who want to achieve things that mere mortals do not or are not capable of thinking off. This guy JT is pretty good and has a good ensemble of artists complimenting him.
Peace out and fuck you money.