I added the photographs from the recent Diwali and Thanksgiving holidays to my website. You can find them by going to the ‘Special Occasions‘ section and clicking on “festivals & holidays”.

Also, a bunch of our friends and colleagues in New York got together for an evening get-together a few days before Thanksgiving. It was an opportunistic plan put together by Ranjeet, since he knew that most folks would be in town for the short week before heading in different directions for the holiday. It was a fun evening at Art Bar, a nice little bar in our old office neighborhood. Svetlana had her camera with her, and posted a bunch of photographs from the evening on Sudipts website. Check them out as well.

This is the kind of football weekend that I hate, and makes me question why I bother with it so much.

First, my beloved Giants (once again seemingly headed to a second half swoon) get totally shellacked by a struggling Vikings team that is minus their star player. Does the Minnesota secondary (worst in the league heading into this game) have some kind of secret tape on Eli? 4 interceptions in each game they have faced him in? Something has to be off about that.

And then my fantasy season is wrecked by the worst of worse weeks. Going up against the first place team with the regular season title on the line, my team got shellacked worse than the Giants. And that was with my studs (Addai, MJD, Andre Johnson and Favre) having terrific matchups. Sure, Favre did great, but the others were only so-so. And with my opponent not getting a customary huge game from Brady (which is the reason for his first place ranking), I thought I could survive the letdown. But no, that would be too easy. Frank Gore has a career game, and the Bears D/ST scores big thanks to Devin Hester’s heroics (thanks Mike Shanahan, hater of fantasy players everywhere). And 18 tackles by Patrick Willis? Seriously?

Now I need Hines Ward to have a 330-yard, 6 TD performance tonight to save my bacon. Think I have a shot?

I added the photo journal of our L.A. trip to my website. You can find it by going to the ‘Travel Journal‘ section and clicking on “Los Angeles” in the travel map.

I also recently added two new albums to the ‘Life As We Know It‘ section – ‘Shivirs Visit’ under ‘All in the Family’, and ‘Top of the Rock’ under ‘Life We Live and Love’.

We got back from L.A. early this morning on the red-eye, so this last post is a little late as I spent the day wading my way through work like a zombie. The red-eye was our effort to give us one more day in L.A., which got off to a late start once again.

Heading to our first stop, I was once again struck by how bad the drivers in L.A. are. Swerving, no respect for lanes, sudden u-turns in the middle of the street, sudden stops – just a few of the reasons why I understand why L.A. has the reputation for the most road rage incidents.

Our first stop was the La Brea Tar Pits, a geological oddity right in the middle of the city. In Hancock Park, right next to the L.A. County Museum of Art, are a number of odorous, bubbling pools of gooey tar. It’s quite bizarre. The swampy pools have been a death trap for animals for over 40,000 years, in the process becoming one of the most prolific sources of ancient fossils on the planet. This has been worked into the design of the park, complete with a scene of giant mastodons shown sinking into the pit. All over the place, we came across orange cones (the kind construction workers use to mark road areas that are broken) that marked places in the park where asphalt was oozing out of the ground. One of the smaller pits was covered with a glass viewing chamber through which we could see fossil bones being unearthed and worked on.

Next, we headed into downtown L.A. to visit the Walt Disney Concert Hall. The amazing design of the building is why it is one of Frank Gehry’s masterpieces. We took a tour of both the inside and the outside of this tribute to music, money and corporate sponsorship. The shiny, curvaceous exterior of stainless steel makes the structure a visual delight to walk around. The audio tour (narrated by John Lithgow) provides great details about the architecture and design of the building, and the thought process that went into its design. The only part we couldn’t see was the main auditorium, which you can only see if you attend a performance.

From there, we headed to famed Hollywood Boulevard to visit all those sites we had seen on TV since we were kids. Along the way, we stopped to get a shot of the Hollywood sign. We followed the path of bronze and marble stars along the Hollywood Walk of Fame, locating favorites like Robin Williams, Christopher Reeve, The Simpsons and Godzilla. We visited Grauman’s Chinese Theatre and spent time in the court in front of it looking at and comparing our hands and feets to the imprints made in the cement by celebrities over the year. We also visited the Kodak Theatre (which was pretty anti-climactic) and tried to avoid being run over by the crowds.

From there it was back to the hotel to pick up our bags, but not before a final stop at Rodeo Drive for our last fill of L.A. glamor. A nice surprise was the lit-up Baccarat chandeliers (they had been off the entire time we were there) and a huge crystal Christmas star hung in front of the Beverly Wilshire hotel. The star is sister to another one hung in New York on 5th avenue. Tanu used the opportunity to take one of our customary shots of the car we rented, just for the record.

From there, it was just a short hop skip and jump to LAX for our flight back. At the end of it, it was a fun trip, but I still think I like Chicago, Vegas and San Francisco better (with, of course, New York to lord over them all).

Given that it was a Saturday, we woke up at our leisure before hitting the road. And first up was a little driving. It required us doing a little bit of redundant driving, but we decided to hit Sunset Boulevard. We headed back to the Sunset Strip, which we had done last night. This time however, we took it the other way, and drive on Sunset Boulevard all the way to the Pacific Coast. Sunset Boulevard is a great drive, especially the stretch that passes through Beverly Hills. It was a great feeling to drive on the winding road, with the top of our convertible down, passing by the outrageous mansions, some of which surely belong to some celebrities.

About halfway along the way, we took a small detour on Sepulveda Avenue to hit the Getty Center, a stunning complex that sits high above the city in the Santa Monica Mountains. It is a huge structure swathed in Italian travertine marble, and houses a museum, sculpture gardens, a theater, restaurants and cafes, and more. The postmodern architecture was simply amazing, as were the beautifully landscaped gardens. We just loved walking around the buildings that make up the center, experiencing the design of the center from every angle. One can see why it cost around $1 billion to make. Oh, and the art was pretty good too, with lots of European paintings including Van Gogh’s Irises, and some interesting photography exhibits.

After spending way too much time at the Getty Center, we continued on Sunset Boulevard towards the coast. There we joined up with the Pacific Coast Highway (or US-1) and headed south towards the beach town of Santa Monica.

We reached the Santa Monica Pier just before sunset, so we got to enjoy watching the sun go down into the Pacific Ocean. We walked in the soft sand of the famous Santa Monica beaches, famous not just for its sand and surf, but also as the site of many a Baywatch episode. Nearby, the amusement park on the pier was going strong, despite the dropping temperature. We walked around for a while, enjoying the carnival-like atmosphere and some funnel cake (though the strong wind coming in from the ocean blew the powdered sugar all over our clothes).

Now that it was dark, we walked over a few blocks to the Santa Monica 3rd Street Promenade, a pedestrian-only area lined with galleries, shops and restaurants, and where everyone seemed to have come out to play. The place was nicely decorated for the upcoming holidays, and all along the entire 3 block stretch were all kinds of street performers. We spent some quality time sitting on the side of the street listening to some really talented musical artists.

After browsing through some of the shops, we went for dinner to Monsoon, an Asian restaurant that turned out to be really good, both for food as well as ambiance. After another stroll down the promenade (the crowd didn’t seem to have thinned much) and a much savored gelato, we headed back to our hotel, tired but satisfied with a good day of exploring.

At the end of a long week that covered two conferences in two cities on the west coast, Tanu and I finally have some time to relax. Since the second conference brought us to Los Angeles, we decided to spend the weekend here. This is our first ever trip to the city of angels, so we’ll be spending our time exploring what the city has to offer.

The conference finished in the afternoon today, so we had about half a day left to explore. We decided to head over to Mulholland Drive, and follow the winding road through the peaks and canyons of the Hollywood Hills. I have to say that the drive was a little disappointing. Sure, we did see some really nice homes along the way, but that didn’t compare to some of the homes we saw in Beverly Hills on our way to the drive. And the view of L.A. was nothing spectacular. The best view was probably of Universal City, where Universal Studios started. You can see the NBC Universal building (the tallest one on the left), along with some of Universal Studios and even downtown L.A.

After doing the drive, we headed to Beverly Hills to visit Rodeo Drive, where the rich and famous come to shop. From the unique architecture of the designer stores to the Baccarat crystal chandeliers hanging from the street lights in the middle of the street, everything drips luxury.The place was also nicely lit up for Christmas, so walking around there was fun. At the end of Rodeo Drive we also visited the Beverly Wilshire hotel, made famous in the movie Pretty Woman. I also got to enjoy a great blood orange gelato, while T-Bone pigged out on a delicious gelato laden crepe.

From there we headed over to get dinner at the House of Blues. But we arrived at the place almost one hour early. So to make use of the extra time, we drove over to check out the Sunset Strip (kinda seedy in parts, and just a regular boulevard in others) and drive a little bit of Hollywood Boulevard. There we got to see what it looks like at night, but I am sure we will check it out at leisure during the weekend. After just checking out how Grauman’s Chinese Theatre looks at night, we headed back to HOB for our dinner, before heading back to the hotel.

We both hope that the rest of the trip picks up a bit.

Diwali this year was a little hectic. After a full work day, we headed to Journal Square to visit a temple. Luckily we managed to beat the after work rush. We then came home to do our usual Diwali pooja. Tanu runs a tight ship, putting together our little mandir area, and taking us through the proper rituals. After that, we went around our house, lighting diyas in as many places as possible. It certainly doesn’t compare to celebrations at home, but it looks nice nonetheless.

After that, we headed over to Maasi’s place to join the family for a Diwali dinner. The weather was pretty bad, as it was raining steadily and visibility was bad. So getting there was a pain. But we then had a lovely evening with a huge meal, and then fun just collapsed on the couch.

Click here to see our photographs from this year’s Diwali.

Things have changed quite a bit in my online presence, so I thought I’d give a quick rundown, which in a nutshell would be: new domain, new blog design and my social web.

The biggest change is that I have officially moved everything under the domain nishantkaushik.com. So my website, which used to be at www.cygnusa.com (I got tired of explaining that one to everybody) is now officially at www.nishantkaushik.com (though cygnusa.com should still work). Also moving as part of this change is my blog. While still called “Demerzel’s Echoes“, it is now at a new url – blog.nishantkaushik.com. So if you had it subscribed to the blog in your blog readers, please change the RSS feed url to the new one (http://blog.nishantkaushik.com/?feed=rss2).

I also redesigned my blog. It started out innocuously enough when I tried to upgrade my blog software to the latest version (Wordpress 2.3). Unfortunately, the upgrade was not as smooth as hoped. While the new Wordpress version had some nice new features, it also broke a bunch of plugins I was using. It took a while to get all the kinks out; and in the process I ended up changing how the sidebar works. The single sidebar format seems to work better than the two sidebar layout I had before. Most of the widgets, while letting you know what is going on in my blog and in my life, also connect you to the different parts of my social web life.

Which is the last part of this post. I’ve really gotten into the whole social web thing after spending quite a bit of time figuring out what works for me. I was already on Technorati (blog tracking), though I was getting really annoyed with their inability to pick up my tags correctly. I have really moved into the Facebook universe for social networking. The thing that really attracted me to it, and away from Orkut, was that the people I am connected to on FB are way more active and the availability of add-on applications is really good. And I am also micro-blogging through Twitter to let people know in real-time about significant going-ons in my life. I really love that I was able to publish my twitter feeds to my blog sidebar and update my Facebook status with my twits at the same time.

Knowing me, I am sure this is not the end of designing I will do. But I know that Tanu hopes that this is the end of any time consuming significant changes I will make. Let me know what you think.

This was LMAO funny! Check out this clip of Seinfeld ripping into Larry King (not sure if it was serious or in jest) for even suggesting that ‘Seinfeld’ was cancelled by NBC.